Game Time.

Well...it's D-Day.  Minus storming the five beaches of Normandy part.  Last night was such an amazing capstone of a hectic summer within the confines of civilization.  What an unbridled flurry of activity!  It could not have been better, however.  Not only did I have the opportunity to see one of my best friends seal the deal with the girl of his dreams, but I also got to reestablish bonds with people who I have not seen in quite some time.  I was also blessed with being in such good company and to forge new bonds through the marriage of the new Mr. and Mrs. Matthew James Peharda via post-marriage celebratory mustaches.  Sorry I couldn't cut the rug longer.

There is one distinct memory that I have of Matt and I when we were young...apart from the time when he hurled a rock into the side of my head...or the subsequent reaction of my terrified mother after he hurled a rock into the side of my head...when he dropped a concrete slab on my hand...or when he was with me when I "caught mad air" resulting in the extraction of medal bike pedals from my Achilles tendon.  I remember the last day of sixth grade.  On this particular day, we reveled in the fact(s) that we had escaped banishment from Mrs. Hanson's social studies class and had literally survived (in all sense of the word) Mrs. Bell's English class.  Not to tangent, but that was the most demanding class I ever took aside from History-Theory and Practice when I was a sixth year senior in college.  After a long afternoon of yearbook signing, bringing the heat in driveway basketball, playing Red Faction on his PS2, and running a train on a 24 pack of Frescas...and Fruit Roll Ups, we wearily made it out to his backyard only to collapse on his trampoline.  When we woke up, we continued to lay there and this is what crossed my now seventh grade psyche as I gazed up at the drifting cumulus:

a. I survived the most academically stringent year of my life to date.
b. Where should I barf after all of the unsettlng fruit roll-ups and Frescas I just consumed?

And most importantly:

c. This was life and it was bliss.
d. This is where Matt's and my long history really begins...

I cannot articulate in words how much it meant to me for you to include me in your wedding party.  I love you dude.  NO HOMO.

I am now off to a long morning of sorting through my bounce box, quadruple checking my gear, and making sure I have enough Nutella to sustain a modestly sized third world nation.  After my logistics work and after Mom leaves to head back to the Wheat State, I am left to my own devices until my 4:20 shuttle departure from the hotel to the BNSF Railway Station on Downers Grove Main Street.  From there, I commute 18 miles to Chicago Union Station, where I walk 1.5 miles through inner city Chicago's labyrinth of tennant housing to Drifterville at your friendly neighborhood Greyhound Station.  It brings back such good and definitely vivid memories of the East St. Louis station en route to Charlotte, NC five years ago.  It very well could be that the most epic part of this adventure is the 45 hours I spend on the Greyhound to Medway, ME.

On a last and unrelated note, I want to quickly divulge into more precise directions if you are willing and/or wanting to donate to the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation:

1. Go to the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation website at www.alefwv.com.
2. At the bottom of the home page, click on the following link: "ALEF partners with Appalachian Trail hiker. Learn More"
3. At the bottom of "Partnership on the Appalachian Trail" page, click on the link "Find out more about Charles and how to support his Trail to Knowledge."
4. Underneath Charles Janssen's Trail to Knowledge Event, click on the link to download a .pdf form with information.  This will bring you to the offline donation form.

Anyhow, all seven of you who have read this blog are probably exhausted from incessant jabbering regarding this trip.  So on this note, I am going to adjourn myself for the next 3.5 months.  My mom will be periodically updating my Facebook as to my whereabouts in the months to come.  In all seriousness, thank you to all of you who have encouraged and supported my dreams and endeavors.  One last thing to leave you with...

"Somewhere between the bottom of the climb and the summit is the answer to the mystery why we climb."-Greg Child; climber and mountaineer

Peace.

Charlie Janssen

The Ultimate Pre-Game

I am now in Downers Grove, Illinois (Chicago suburb), awaiting an amazing wedding; a union between two people that I can clearly see are perfect for each other.  I know that sounds super mainstream cliche, but that is truly the bottom line.  As I am sitting in this plush DoubleTree Suite, so many thoughts about everything are rifling through my head that it is exhaustingly overwhelming.  Tonight will be my last night in a bed until November, most likely.  I look very forward to this in addition to chuckling to myself the stark contrast of this 10 million thread count douvet and the 52" plasma LG flat screen that I have at my current disposal and what lay ahead Tuesday night when I bed down for my first night beyond Abol Bridge in the Hundred Mile Wilderness Area, outside Baxter State Park.


I have barely been able to contain myself the last two weeks, really let alone the last four months.  All of my energy has been channeled into running, strength training, dreaming, and working relentlessly to fund this venture.  The mental planning and logistics have been unequivocally insane.  Between the fine balance of bringing just the gear absolutely necessary, but still having enough and the formidable task of trail diet research and finding the perfect amounnt of quantifiable calories, as well as weighing the nutritional trade-offs for every potential meal, no doubt that my brain has approached spontaneous combustion more than once.


A number of weeks ago, I contacted the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Headquarters in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia.  I called mainly to inquire of thru-hikers that have finished so far in 2012, if there were any state records, and if there was price inflation for gear and other necessary supplies.  Although many answers to my battery of questions were not answered or inadequately answered, I had the unique opportunity to talk to a thru-hiker over the phone.  He had started at Springer Mountain April 14th and as of a few weeks ago, was half way to Katahdin.  My original plan was to devise a mail drop system to subsidize shopping in town, thus avoiding potential price inflation.  I was convinced that this would be far more cost effective.  This is evidently not the case.  With ten planned mail drops, this would supply me for a little over one-third of the thru-hike.  While talking with Erwin (or "Dickflap" as his trail name would become) he explained to me that he had tried to do the whole mail drop process to no avail.  He told me that it was far more of a logisitic headache than it was worth, not to mention more expensive than actually buying in town due to the out-of-sight flat rate shipping (at ten to twelve dollars per parcel).  It also put undue pressure on the backpacker to pace perfectly to get to the P.O. box at a certain time of day and when approaching smaller towns, on weekdays (most of the P.O. boxes are closed on weekends).  So to put it succinctly, I am just going to fly by the seat of my pants and just resupply along the way and scrap the maildrops that I have listed in a previous blog post.


Among other things...


So as soon as I ascend and descend Mount Katahdin and make my trek out of the 200,000 pristine acres of the North Woods, I face the Hundred Mile Wilderness Area.  This is quite a befitting name for an area larger than the state of Connecticut with absolutely no trailheads, road access, parks, or of course, potable drinking water.  This area alone has enough ascent and descent combined to summit Mount Everest sixteen times.  The wind perpetually blows so hard that treeline here is only 4,000 feet and has one of highest population densities of black bears in North America.  Use peanut butter at your own risk.  When I get past the Presidential and Mahoosuc Ranges, I knuckle up with the White Mountains.  Here is another fun fact that I posted on my Facebook wall: Mount Washington is the second highest point on the AT and is located in north-central New Hampshire. It also has a well-earned reputation as the most dangerous small mountain in the world. This is just one of the warnings stated in AMC's White Mountain Guide. The wind exceeds hurricane force (75 miles per hour) on more than 100 days in an average year, and the highest surface wind speed ever recorded (231 miles per hour) on earth was taken at the weather observatory on the summit. There may be snowfall, even in the middle of the summer. At only 6,288 feet, it really is small relative to the world's highest peaks. Mount Denali (a.k.a. Mount McKinley, 20,320 feet) is the highest peak on the North American Continent. There have been roughly the same number of deaths on Denali and Washington.


Recent Literature...


Among all the literature that I have read on the AT, I just recently finished Awol on the Appalachian Trail by David Miller.  His vivid detail of all aspects of the trail, people, and towns are chronicled in this masterpiece of wilderness adventure, fully surrendering himself to life on the AT for months on end.  Currently, I am reading a quite comedic spin on the Appalachian Trail.  This is Bill Bryson's A Walk in the Woods.  Even if you have absolutely no interest in backpacking, nature, or do not even remotely enjoy the outdoors, this book I am convinced, will still have you LOLing like no other book you've read before.  It is blatantly dry, sarcastic, and filled with unmitigated, raw descriptions on what a thru-hike is really like.


I am going to post one more blog entry before taking off tomorrow.


"You're a mountain, I'd like to climb.  Not to conquer, but to share in the view!"-Incubus

The Items of Sustenance...

AT Gear List:

Base Items/Weight:
1 Kelty Soar 5200 ci internal frame backpack
1 Kelty Gunnison II 2 person, 3 season tent
6, 25 g. substituted aluminum core stakes
1Thermarest ProLite 72'' inflatable sleeping pad
1 Mountain Hardwear Lamina 20 Thermic Micro sleeping bag

Hydration:
1 Katadyn Hiker Pro filtration system
1 Camelbak Antidote 3.0L reservoir
1 40 oz. capacity Klean Canteen
1 32 oz. capacity Nalgene
30 Katadyn iodine purification tablets

Illumination:
1 Princeton Tech Amp 3.5 100 lumen single bulb LED handheld
1 Black Diamond Storm, 100 lumens

Hygiene:
1 8 oz. bottle of Dr. Bronner's Hemp Peppermint pure Castile soap
1 stick scentless deodorant
1 toothbrush
1 small container baking soda
1 Therm-a-Rest pack towel sham

Clothing:
1 North Face mesh hat
1 Outdoor Research beanie
1 Mountain Hardwear Gore-Tex 4 season jacket
1 Mountain Hardwear shell jacket
1 Marmot PreCip waterproof rain jacket
1 Asics synthetic long sleeve shirt
2 cotton t-shirts
1 Nike Kansas City Smoke racing singlet
1 pair cotton shorts
2 pairs running shorts (Nike & Brooks)
1 pair cotton underwear
1 pair ExOfficio synthetic underwear
2 pairs of SmartWool Outdoor PhD socks

Footwear:
1 pair Chaco Z2 Unaweeps
1 pair Nike Pegasus

Cookware:
2, 8 oz. canisters of MSR isobutane fuel
1 MSR MicroRocket isobutane stove head with igniter
1 Snow Peak TREK900 Titanium 30 oz. capacity cookpot, 8 oz. capacity lid
1 plastic spork

Essentials:
1 Outdoor Research synthetic pack cover
2 5L dry sacks
1 Victorinox Swiss Army knife
1 emergency fire blanket
1 compass
1 container of Ultrathon 34% DEET insect repellent
42 strike on box matches with waterproof casing

Auxiliary:
1 Canon Powershot 10 megapixel camera plus charger
1 tube Krazy glue
1 roll Tenacious Tape:
1 Black Diamond weight bearing carabiner
9 ft. of 6 mm. Sterling Rope accessory cord
1 bandana

Grand Weight Total:
30.2 lbs. on the nose. (This obviously excludes water and food weight.)

Logistics

Plan in Action...

Start Date: July 24, 2012
Goal End Date: October 31, 2012

Total Miles: 2,189.4
Total States traversed: 14
1. Maine
2. New Hampshire
3. Vermont
4. Massachusetts
5. Connecticut
6. New York
7. New Jersey
8. Pennsylvania
9. Maryland
10. West Virgina
11. Virginia
12. Tennessee
13. North Carolina
14. Georgia

Tentative AT Mail Drops:

1. Day 14-Gorham, NH P.O. Box 03581
2. Day 21-Hanover, NH P.O. Box 03755
3. Day 35-Kent, CT P.O. Box 06757
4. Day 44-Wind Gap, PA P.O. Box 18091
5. Day 55-Blue Ridge Summit, PA P.O. Box 17214
6. Day 64-Waynesboro, VA P.O. Box 22980
7. Day 74-Pearisburg, VA P.O. Box 24134
8. Day 82-Damascus, VA P.O. Box 24236
9. Day 91-Hot Springs, NC P.O. Box 28743
10. Day 96-Fontana Dam, NC P.O. Box 28733

2184 to Clarity

T-18

Most of you who are reading this probably know enough of my background to fill in the gaps.  Currently, I am associated with the Kansas Speleological Society, Kansas Herpetological Society, USATF, and currently competing for the Kansas City Smoke.  The Kansas City Smoke is a USATF Elite Development Club that was established in 2002 to provide training and competitive opportunities to emerging elite, post-collegiate distance runners based in the Missouri Valley Association, gaining USATF elite development status in 2004 with five team members qualifying for the Olympic Trials in the marathon alone between 2004 and 2008.

Over the years, I have held many jobs-many of them being volunteer/non-profit to “floor technician” to camp counselor and many in between that grand spectrum.  This last semester in college was highlighted by my teaching and coaching experience at Girard High School (USD #248) in Girard, Kansas where I taught one section of freshman/sophomore world history and four sections of American history.  This is where and when I truly found that secondary education and coaching was my niche.  I became intrinsically passionate about conveying history in my own and unique way as well as coaching predominately the distance athletes.  The experience is one that I will never forget and getting to know each and every one of the students, athletes, and faculty truly enhanced my life.  As of now, I employed by Backwoods which is an outdoor specialty goods retailer in Overland Park, Kansas.  This is not only an awesome company to work for, but coupled with great and hilarious characters, much of my employee discount has helped me to purchase or “update” much of the gear necessary to successfully conquer Mother Nature in the months to come.

Where did this all stem from?

So here’s what you have probably been waiting to read this whole time: why did I decide to tackle this immense undertaking and to go 3.5 months off the true grid of humanity and attempt to traverse the entire length of the 2,184 mile long Appalachian Trail with a fully loaded pack in one hundred days or less?  If you do the basic arithmetic, that would require 21.84 miles per day for 100 days.  If that doesn’t sound daunting enough and to break it all down to analytical form, that is 152.88 miles per week for 14.29 consecutive weeks over the undulating terrain of the rugged and ancient Appalachian Mountain Range, high-pointing the infamous summits of Mount Katahdin in north central Maine, Mount Washington in northern New Hampshire, and Clingman’s Dome in Smoky Montains National Park of eastern Tennessee. 

However, also consider this: the world record is 47 days, which demands 46 miles per day.  Although to be fair, these are contracted endurance athletes who have a multifaceted support crew meeting them at every town, hamlet or junction on the trail carrying all necessary gear and not to mention a plethora of auxiliary people like a masseuse, nutritionist, dietician, etc.  Nonetheless, that pace is truly blistering and defies what most of the human race is capable of.  The reason that I decided to tackle this crazy venture are due to a multitude of complex reasons.  First, I initially received literature on trail guides, data books, thru-hikers’ companions, and National Geographic’s: America’s Wild Spaces on the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail among other sources.  This has intrigued me for the last four years or so.  I had joked nonchalantly in the last few years with family that I would one day backpack the entire trail.  After this last year of school (taking a full six years and 181 hours with no break to complete my undergraduate degree) along with other aspects in life that simply went awry, I decided that this is the right time in my life for me to do this.  However, I did not want this to be a solely self-centered venture.  I wanted to do something that I would be truly proud of besides the personal goal of challenging myself and the most coveted long distance hiking trail in America and meeting my one hundred day goal.  I wanted to help and benefit others as well.

For months of dreaming and mentally planning this, I thought that being an endurance athlete, just completing a long sought after education degree and becoming a future educator and coach, being an outdoor enthusiast, and harboring an established humanitarian/community service background, that everything would coerce itself into place for me to formulate this insane and epic plan that is rapidly turning into reality.  Other motives in history that got me on this track were individuals like Aron Ralston.  Most of you know this name if you are a canyoneer, climber, or have simply watched 127 Hours.  Aron was an amateur (but very experienced) outdoor adrenaline junkie that would habitually go on solo canyoneering treks in Canyonlands National Park, Utah.  He became famous when his arm became pinned in a precipice, resulting in his war of attrition with time and the elements until he broke and cut the lower half of right arm off below the elbow to survive.  Another inspiration is Christopher McCandless who inspired the independent film Into the Wild by the venerable and renowned author, John Krakauer in recent years.  Others have been Karl Meltzer and Andrew Skurka, an ultra trail runner and lightweight endurance hiker respectively.  The last person that really inspired me to do this has been dead nearly 31 years to the day.  This individual is Terry Fox.  Terry Fox was not only a humanitarian on his own exponentially higher level, but was also an amazing athlete and had the biggest heart of anyone that I have ever read or researched in contemporary history.  Fox was a standout basketball player at the NAIA institution of Simon Fraser University in the Canadian province of British Columbia in the late 1970’s.  During his tenure he was diagnosed with osteosarcoma, an aggressive form of cancer that afflicts extremities.  To save his life, his traditional basketball career was cut short when his right leg had to be amputated.  Handling life with grace, tenacity, and wanting to support cancer research, he decided to run across Canada on a whim to raise money for this cause.  He began in St. John’s Bay, Newfoundland with no goal in mind and ran the equivalent of a marathon a day with a primitive leg prosthesis.  How long did he keep that pace up one might ask.  The answer is 135 days until he was forced to quit near Thunder Bay, Ontario due to his progressive exhaustion from his cancer coming out of remission.  Nine months later at the age of 23, he tragically died.  Today, he is one of Canada’s national heroes and thanks to his humanitarian efforts and athletic competitiveness, he ended up raising an astounding $500 million for cancer research.

I could go on and on about the whole process of getting to where I am at this exact moment before I embark on this ultimate test of adventure or about the people that drive and motivate me, but this is entirely too long.  I am honored to be in such close association with General Doc Foglesong and the Appalachian Leadership and Education Foundation.  This whole undertaking would not be half as meaningful if ALEF was non-existent.  I intrinsically feel that raising money for higher education for disadvantaged but great students and people in rural Appalachia is truly an honor.  Feel free to donate as much or as little as you would like to support this amazing organization.  For those individuals that do donate to the ALEF, a thank you letter will be sent to recognize any contribution you make.  All monetary donations are also tax deductible.  You will be able to donate as soon as the external link on the ALEF website is available until I get to the last 3”x6” signature white blaze of the AT atop Springer Mountain, Georgia, hopefully by Halloween.  I owe so much to my amazing family and friends.  You have backed me with many difficult endeavors that I have undertaken in life thus far.  There is no doubt that this will be the most sustained and singular physical challenge to date.  Thank you so much for your love and support.

In the Books...

After consecutive weeks of bargain shopping, calling a specialty store in an attempt to cut a reasonable gear deal in Shiloh, Illinois, applying for product sponsorships, factoring in finite calculations, counting hypothetical calories, picking apart trail maps, analyzing terrain, making numerous calls to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, Shenandoah National Park, Smoky Mountains National Park, and Baxter State Park, employing myself full time to work as much as possible and pinching every penny, staging unsuccessful garage sales (yes, plural) I finally bought tickets.  Plane? Absolutely not unless I want to compromise our mortgage.  Train?  Still entirely too expensive.  Personal transportation?  That would be fine if someone would be willing to gamble on a 1,744 mile drive in my unreliable Chevy Impala.  Friends’ cars?  No one wants to drive to Maine and back and not be subsidized for gas.  Sketchy Greyhound bus filled with freeloaders and bona fide vagabonds?  Check.  Yes please.  So for a one way ticket, I paid $129.  Bargain, right?  Kind of.  Ready for the trade-off?  The irritating fact that it will take me just short of 45 hours with three transfers to get from inner city Chicago to Millinocket, Maine.

            So…after Matt Peharda and Erica Purdy’s to-be-off-the-chain wedding in Glen Ellyn, Illinois on July 20th, I leave the next day for the scantly charted territories.  I take a cab at 5:00 p.m. to the hood and wait for a 10:50 p.m. departure.  Are those prime conditions for a mugging?  Substantially.  After a sleep deprived 27 hours, I will make my first transfer in Washington, D.C., then off to the South Boston station, then for the last time in Bangor, Maine.  When I arrive in the small town of Medway, Maine at 7:40 p.m. on July 23rd, a gentleman by the name of Paul will pick me up.  He will take me to the Appalachian Trail Lodge in Millinocket, Maine, which typically caters mostly to “southbounders” (the very small minority of thru-hikers that dare to tackle the Longfellow and White Mountains of Maine and New Hampshire first).  For $70, I will be shuttled from Medway to Millinocket, be fed dinner the night of the 23^rd, given quarter for the night, be fed the morning of the 24^th, and will be shuttled into Baxter State Park (16 miles away).  This shuttle fee also covers the entrance fee into Baxter State Park, which alone is $48.  Quite the bargain.  I should be at the Katahdin Stream trailhead by 7:00 a.m. in which I will make the packless, 4,000 non-negotiable foot ascent and 5.2 mile trek to the summit of the most photographed and highest summit in Maine, Mount Katahdin.  It is at the summit where I begin my journey…


“I went to the mountains because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”


-Where I Lived and What I Lived For, H.D. Thoreau



Kia ora and have a great rest of the summer!


-Charlie Janssen

2184 to Clarity

Awol on the Appalachian Trail


So.  Here's the deal.  It is May 11th and I am sitting in the library at Girard High School trying to configure my future and having fun with my students and athletes.  I have been wanting to get this off the ground for a while now, but due to other necessary commitments, there has been this period of deliberation.


It is my last few hours of my collegiate undergraduate career.  It has taken me six years and 181 hours to acquire this long sought after degree; this degree that is denoted by a single transcript and a minute fraction of processed tree pulp in some grandiose, coveted ceremony, where the Board of Regents, Deans, and the upper echelon of established professors parade around a gym in Copernican-esque garb.  This is where the last twenty four years of my life has brought me: to a relatively obscure public college in rural southeast Kansas.  This is where life seems to slam into me full force.  This is where I think of Christopher McCandless and Terry Fox.  For those of you who don't know who Christopher McCandless and Terry Fox are, I'll tell you in the next post.