Diabetic and Solo, Distance Time Advice For a Senior Guy

[oldnevada]

Hey folks!

So, I am going to try again to start my solo end to end this fall. I'm diabetic now but well managed.
In order to keep my travel insurance valid I have to return to Canada every 8 days. Then return to the trail to pick up where I left off.

How many sections do you think is manageable in an 8 day period? Realistically the question needs to be directed to other diabetics or seniors with the same condition.

Thanks folks!

[StubbleJumper]

Do you have somebody coming by car to pick you up? If so, just bring a cell phone and play it by ear. You can tell them where they can pick you up at the various road crossings on Day 6 or Day 7 of your section.

If you don't have somebody with a car to shuttle you back and forth to Quebec, then your consideration should be to select chunks of the trail that enable you to get to Burlington easily so that you can take the bus back to Montreal. It's easy to get to Burlington from Manchester Centre Rutland and Middlebury as there's public transit that takes you all the way (just need to get that first hitch/bus to get into town). As you get farther north, there is less in the way of public transit, so you'd need to hitch all the way to Burlington to get back to Montreal, or, instead, possibly just hitch north so that you can cross the border on foot into the Eastern Townships (Mansonville is the first little town where you could stay).

My advice is to listen to your body and take as many trips back as required. Don't try to do as many sections as possible in 8 days, but rather use the trips back to Quebec as a day of rest as you need them....and many folks like to take a day off every 5 to 7 days anyway.

[oldnevada]

Hey SJ,

Thanks. I have my own car and a place to park it over the long term near St-Albans.

Reading the End-to-End guide they are advising 5miles/day or a bit more. So I've been looking at the milage chart at the back of the guide and chopping the trip into 8 day chunks, being very conservative so I can get back over the border on day 7 or even day 6 if need be. Therefore, I measure 5 miles between two shelters and aim for that so I can stop and pitch my tent without letting myself get over taxed.

Coming into Hazen's Notch from Journey's End, my buddy and I didn't hang around long before a shuttle drove by and picked us up and drove us back to our car in N. Troy.

I've been cycling hard, 28km ~18miles including a 'big' bridge. So my legs and lungs are good. I've never had BG or hypoglycaemic issues while cycling hard.

Thanks for the public transport feed back.

Here is my campaign link. I don't know if I am allowed to post this here. I will be corrected if I am not, I'm sure. Anyway.... for what it's worth.

http://igg.me/at/filmic/x/10752372

[bigcranky]

I guess I don't understand travel insurance that won't let you travel, but that's obviously beside the point. But wow.

If you're in good cardio shape, and have a reasonably light pack, I think you can plan on more than 5 miles per day. We did a northbound E2E last summer, and neither of us was doing anything like your cycling routine. If your glucose is well managed and your docs can provide strategies for maintaining it properly while doing this sort of daily strenuous activity, you should be fine. (No diabetics here, but we do have some experience hiking with chronic health issues including asthma.)

You could break the trail up into ~50 mile chunks. (North Adams to Manchester Center ~55 miles, then to The Inn at Long Trail ~50 miles, then to Appalachian Gap ~55 miles, then to Johnson ~55 miles, then to the border ~55 miles.) All of these are at major road crossings. Well, major for Vermont. Depending on how long you need to get back to you car and drive to and from Canada, these may be within your 8-day limits -- the "getting back to your car" being the hard part, I think. We took 4.5 days to Manchester Center, 4.5 days to the Inn, five long days to App Gap, then we broke up the next section with an overnight in Waterbury (which was great) and we skipped Mansfield due to weather, but it was 3.5 days actual hiking to Johnson (but only 38 miles), then 4.5 days to the border. Again, we were not in great shape starting out.

All this is just from memory of where we came out on a large road. There are plenty of other road crossings if you need to shorten each section. Good luck and happy trails.

[oldnevada]

Hey Ken,

Thanks for the itinerary ideas!! That is really helpful.

Yeah, my medication along with a very well controlled eating habits keep my BG is staying very even and stable values. The cycling BG levels are very encouraging which tells me I can put out that kind of exertion backpacking as long as listen closely to my body. Sometimes I do go hypoglycemic but easily corrected with my dextrose tabs. I never go hypo cycling. But I make sure I'm well hydrated with electrolyte/sugar.



Cheers! Gary.

[oldnevada]

Ken,

BTW, I'm picking up the trail at Hazen's Notch sobo as I have already done from Journey's end to Hazen's N. sobo. For the fall I think that is good for me as I will be following the colours and the warmth.

[nsherry61]

Yep. I don't get the travel insurance deal either. I'd get another travel insurance real fast! If you are on a general policy that limits your travel, it is probably worth your time to get some supplementary travel specific insurance so you can do more reasonable traveling. Maybe something specific through the Canadian Diabetes Association?

[OCDave]

...In order to keep my travel insurance valid I have to return to Canada every 8 days. Then return to the trail to pick up where I left off...

Is this common with travel insurance? If over the course of your hike you get sick/hospitalized and can't get back in less than 10 days, does this loop hole releive the insurance company of liability? If you were planning a 3 week trip, is there a different plan that would accomodate a longer trip? Perhaps with a marginally higher premium?

It seems that the costs associated with returning home every 8 days would be greater than any potential claim your insurance would pay out. Would doing the trip without the insurance or interuptions be an option?

Hope I am not coming off as nosey or condescending but, there has got to be a better option.

[oldnevada]

Hey guys.

He told me that it was my age (62) and being diabetic. Plus it more than doubled when I hit 62 as well. I didn't renew. So I will shop around a bit more. (My bank actually.)

[oldnevada]

Yep. I don't get the travel insurance deal either. I'd get another travel insurance real fast! If you are on a general policy that limits your travel, it is probably worth your time to get some supplementary travel specific insurance so you can do more reasonable traveling. Maybe something specific through the Canadian Diabetes Association?

Thanks for the CDA Insurance reference...!

[StubbleJumper]

Hey SJ,

Thanks. I have my own car and a place to park it over the long term near St-Albans.

Reading the End-to-End guide they are advising 5miles/day or a bit more. So I've been looking at the milage chart at the back of the guide and chopping the trip into 8 day chunks, being very conservative so I can get back over the border on day 7 or even day 6 if need be. Therefore, I measure 5 miles between two shelters and aim for that so I can stop and pitch my tent without letting myself get over taxed.

Coming into Hazen's Notch from Journey's End, my buddy and I didn't hang around long before a shuttle drove by and picked us up and drove us back to our car in N. Troy.

I've been cycling hard, 28km ~18miles including a 'big' bridge. So my legs and lungs are good. I've never had BG or hypoglycaemic issues while cycling hard.

Thanks for the public transport feed back.

Here is my campaign link. I don't know if I am allowed to post this here. I will be corrected if I am not, I'm sure. Anyway.... for what it's worth.

http://igg.me/at/filmic/x/10752372

Hi Nevada,

I'm not sure where you read that 5 miles per day is about right, but I would suggest that you set your sights a little bit higher. If you are an average hiker, you should be able to walk 2 miles per hour with a loaded pack. If you are a slow hiker, it might be more like 1.5 miles per hour. In either case, you would easily complete a 5 mile hike before lunch time. I'm planning a NOBO end-to-end in October and expect to hike about 12-16 miles per day, depending on the placement of the lean-to sites.

I would also suggest that you might occasionally have difficulty finding a suitable tent site between shelters. There are some stretches which are either too steep or too thick with trees to easily find a campsite (and then there are other stretches where you'll find nice camp sites every couple miles). If you can plan your hike to camp at shelter sites you will have greater certainty of finding a decent place to pitch your tent.

I've never tried to leave my car in a particular location, hike for a few days and then hitch back to my car. Vermont is an easy place to hitch, but it strikes me that it would be nuisance to constantly need to hitch 50 or 60 miles back to your car after backpacking for 4 or 5 days. As others have suggested, if you were able to obtain medical insurance that permits a longer sejour in the US, your life would be much easier. Even if you were able to get 21 day insurance, you would only need one trip back to Canada during your end-to-ender. You could just leave your car in Quebec and go to the trail terminus using public transit and then make your mid-trip to Quebec on public transit (because it is easy to get to Burlington from several points along the trail).

I personally intend to take a bus from Montreal to Albany and then a second bus from Albany to Williamstown to begin my NOBO. When I complete the trail, I will walk through the border crossing at North Troy and then hitch a ride to South Bolton where I can get a bus back to Montreal. I have 40 day health insurance, so that eliminates the need to horse around with the return trip to Canada.

[Rolls Kanardly]

Might check out the insurance that Canadian visitors to AZ have. A lot of our winter visitors from Canada stay a litle shy of six months before they have to return home.
Rolls

[oldnevada]

SJ and RK,

Thanks for the insurance advice from both of you. Yeah, I'm starting to feel that I don't want to be tied to the car. If I can at all avoid that bloody trip back across the border. I do have a very safe place to put the car however. (RK, hey, cool trail name!)

The 'few miles per day' quote is from page 10 of the 2011 edit of GMC's End 2 End guide.

[bigcranky]

I'm not sure where you read that 5 miles per day is about right, but I would suggest that you set your sights a little bit higher. If you are an average hiker, you should be able to walk 2 miles per hour with a loaded pack. If you are a slow hiker, it might be more like 1.5 miles per hour.

We are not slow hikers, but we found almost no place on the LT where we could maintain a 2mph average. 1.5mph maybe, with a lot of <1mph on steep climbs and descents, or up and over constant obstacles on the trail. I was told before the hike to expect to average less than 10 miles per day. We averaged about 11.5, but we worked hard to get every one of them.

[North Star]

How far you hike depends on many variables. Not all parts of the LT are equally difficult. The south half is quite a bit easier than the north half. While I did quite a few 14 mile days, I also did quite a few 7 mile days, and honestly, some short days were tougher than some long days, eg. the 5 miles from Cowles Cove to Montclair Glen was a harder day than from Rt. 15 to Corliss camp with was twice as long.
How far you can hike each day depends very much on the hiking condition you are in. I practice hiked for weeks with a gradually heavier backpack, and it paid off in the end. Even so, I kept my first days relatively short...7 miles each day...before starting to add 14 mile days. I hike slower than average, and my end-to-end was in June/July, so I had long days where I could hike until 8:30 PM before running out of light. You won't have that benefit, so hiking speed is more of a factor for you.
Whatever you do, make sure you hike at a speed that suits you. I hiked the north half of the trail with screaming knees because I tried to keep up with trail friends on the way down Killington and Pico (a hot shower and cold beer at the Inn at the Long Trail also inspired my madness). Aching knees slowed me down quite a bit.
In the end, I averaged just over 8 miles a day, but I also slowed down quite a bit as I got closer to the end, partly because I had time to kill and partly because I was able to yogi a ride from Journey's End (thanks GMG!!!). Instead of 33 hiking days I probably could have shaved it down to 28 days if I had taken care of my knees, and pushed harder towards the end.

One thing I'm pretty certain on is that if you are in good trail shape, you can average more than 5 miles a day. At 5 miles a day, it would take you 54 days to hike your end-to-end.

Hopefully you can find a better situation for travel insurance, because the best advice I ever received before my hike (my E2E was not only my first long distance hike, it was my first backpacking hike of any sort) was "Let the trail tell you how to hike. Long days and short days shouldn't be planned any more than you have to."
Good luck on your hike. I wish I could be hiking right now too!

[StubbleJumper]

We are not slow hikers, but we found almost no place on the LT where we could maintain a 2mph average. 1.5mph maybe, with a lot of <1mph on steep climbs and descents, or up and over constant obstacles on the trail. I was told before the hike to expect to average less than 10 miles per day. We averaged about 11.5, but we worked hard to get every one of them.

Everyone's experience is different. For my last end-to-ender in 2010, I took 24 days which included 2 zeroes and 2 other days where mileage was limited due to town stops for re-supply. So for me, that made about 273 miles over less than 22 days of hiking, not including Pine Cobble trail or Journey's End trail.

Make no mistake. The LT is a HARD trail. But even on such a hard trail, 5 miles per day isn't much.

[oldnevada]

Hey guys,

I see myself doing 10 to 15mi/day after my first two nights. I've already done 18mi from Journey's End. So I know the hike is going to be bumpy till I get to Killington, it seems.

Yeah, whenever I see the word 'few' quoted I seem to think it means five. My benefit is that I will be following the warmer temps and colours as I move southbound. Thanks for the great feedback, guys.

[Hikingjim]

As mentioned, the amount of miles per day is highly personal. It depends as much on hiking skill as fitness. Some people are just really slow and cautious on steep areas. 2 mph is VERY fast in the north, and typically involves "young people moves" such as quick drops from rocks and hopping around, which will wear you down fast on a longer hike.

If you can do more than 10 miles/day north of killington, I would be damn impressed. The days are getting so short... so just make your first section a bit less ambitious and adjust it from there.

all the best!

[oldnevada]

Thanks, HJ!

[dlvoltolina]

Just a thought why don't you drop your car off at one trail parking are and hitch to one further a ways kind of a car assist long trail hike. You atoll walk the whole trail but always have your car nearby.

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