Trail Angel Slack Packs AT Hikers

A hiker known as Soda Bread offered to slack pack two Appalachian Trail thru-hikers for a day, allowing them to stay at his home again. The day's hike included navigating the steep descent of St. John's Ledges, a section one hiker had considered road-walking.

Hiking Philosophies and Fear

Everybody hikes differently. Preparation for the day differs immensely as well. The author prefers to go in blind, not knowing what elevation or challenges to expect. You have to go through it anyway. Worrying helps nobody. In contrast, the author's dad checks the FarOut app extensively to see what is coming up. He uses it to know how to expend his energy. The St. John's Ledges were coming up. It is a very steep descent. The dad had been quite worried about it. He even considered road-walking the section. The author reminded him that you cannot road walk every time the trail gets difficult. He finally decided to do the ledges.

It was the right decision. You have to be careful at the ledges, but it was not that bad. The author believes you should not let some lines in an app or comments of strangers get into your head too much. If you have made it this far, you are prepared for everything that is coming. After the ledges, they were treated with a flat section along the river.

The Slack Pack Experience

The last 6.5 miles were proper PUDS, or Pointless Ups and Downs. The author also took a wrong turn because of a light blue blaze again. They are so hard to distinguish. Soda Bread was section hiking as well that day. They had never hiked with a trail angel before. Soda Bread is good company. He has a very dry sense of humor and you never know when he is joking. He is also super sweet. He told the hikers, "Not to be too sappy, but if more hikers are as nice as you guys are, I might actually thru-hike the thing."

They enjoyed their slack pack. There is a degrading return after a while, however. The drive back from the trail towards the home is about an hour. This means you cannot make as many miles as you might have wanted. They slept in a bed again, which is always good for morale. The report comes from a personal trail journal published on The Trek.