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Hiking by the Numbers - Animals, Food and Gear

1/29/2013

7 Comments

 
This post is part of a series called Hiking by the Numbers.  During our hike on the AT, I kept track of all kinds of statistics like calorie consumption, number of wild animals, nights spent in the tent and more.  I'm a nerd like that.  To read all of the posts in the category, click here. 

Last summer Serial, Rooney and I hiked about 1400 miles in about 4 months.  Most of this was on the Appalachian Trail and a little bit at the very end was on the Great Allegheny Passage (GAP).  You can read more about that here. 

In my non-trail life, I'm a bit of a numbers nerd.  I like to track things and find patterns.  I do this for my job, but I also do it in my regular life too.  The things I track range from the food I eat, to the money I spend and everything in between.  I like spreadsheets and data.  (I hope you are hearing that in some kind of nerdy voice... like a female Urkel). 

On the trail, I carried a kindle and used a spreadsheet app to mark everything down at the end of the day.  Now that I'm home, I'm starting to go through it all again and I thought I'd share it with you.  These are just my numbers... they don't include Serial's numbers.  There is no way that boy would use a spreadsheet every day on the trail.  These only include the days on the AT, not the days on the GAP trail.
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A Turtle
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Rooney barking at the turtle
In 1319 miles, 8 states and 117 days....

I ate:
  • 19 pizzas
  • 51 ice creams
  • 40 egg and cheese biscuits
  • 23 candy bars

I purchased or had shipped to me:
  • 3 pairs of shoes (I changed shoes at mile 425 and again at mile 1017.3)
  • 8 pairs of socks
  • 4 pairs of insoles
  • 18 AAA batteries (for my headlamp)
  • 3 fuel canisters
  • 4 batteries for Rooney's collar (it lights up at night)
  • 4 bottles of hand sanitizer
  • 2 razors
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My shoes after 425 miles
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Red eft!
I saw:
  • 3 rainbows
  • 25 deer (One snuck up on me and snorted loudly.  I screamed.  It ran.)
  • 15 snakes (3 rattlesnakes, the rest were harmless)
  • 11 red efts (cutest little buggers out there)
  • 1 blue eft
  • 32 tiny frogs (the size of a half dollar)
  • 2 bird nests with eggs inside
  • 5 grouse
  • 2 turtles
  • 1 owl
  • 1 bear
  • 1 lizard
  • 2 bee hives
  • 2 eagles
  • 1 snail

And... I fell down 10 times.  Twice it really hurt.  The rest were pure comedy.
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Deer in the Shenandoahs
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Snake!
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Bird Nest
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Snail
See, don't you want to start writing everything down now?  No?  It's just me?  *sigh*   I still have more numbers for ya so stay tuned.  I'll talk about our mileage and pace, the number of nights in the tent vs nights in a hotel, the number of showers I took, the number of days with sunshine vs rain.... gah!  So many numbers! 
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If you like what you read, I would love to hear from you in the comments section!  It's fun to get feedback and it helps me create future posts.  And be sure to stay in touch on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest or RSS! 
7 Comments
Kelsie
1/30/2013 04:24:25 am

Oh, how fun! Not nerdy at all, and if nerdy...super cool nerdy. I wish that I had done something like this for some of my longer hikes and/or throughout a whole year. It would be fun to look back on the data...

Reply
Jill link
1/30/2013 05:09:48 am

Haha, I love it. I think "super cool nerdy" is my new favorite category of nerd.

Reply
Jordana link
2/11/2013 08:27:29 am

Hey! I was planning on using a Kindle with a keyboard (borrowing one). Is that the kind you used? If so, I've been wondering if it's possible to create a text document and/or spreadsheet with it...how'd you do it?

Thanks!

Reply
Jill link
2/11/2013 01:05:11 pm

Hey girl! That's the same model kindle, the one with the keyboard, and it was great. It made taking notes and journaling so much easier. I downloaded two programs, one for tracking things in a spreadsheet and another for my journal. They both export to my computer really easily so transferring it after the trail was a piece of cake. I used "Anywhere Spreadsheet" and "Notepad" - both are available apps on amazon for relatively cheep. :-)

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Jordana link
2/11/2013 11:42:48 pm

Awesome. Follow up question...how extensively did you journal with it? Did you also have pen/paper? I haven't really used the keyboard kindle yet, but it looks like it might be a little cumbersome for majoring writing efforts. I'd love an opinion from an expert. :)

Jill link
2/12/2013 12:32:28 am

I used it everyday and it wasn't annoying or harder to use than a regular 'ole pen/paper. I usually only took it out at night in the tent to sort of unwind, journal and relax before passing out so I would have to recall everything that I saw, my mileage, pace, etc. It was pretty easy to do though, especially once I got in the habit. The only thing I didn't track on my kindle was my calories - I used the Lose It app on my phone for that. I didn't carry pen/paper and never really missed it. I'm really glad I brought the kindle and I would take it again if I were going back out there :-)

Jordana link
2/12/2013 07:48:01 am

That's awesome. Thanks for the intel. Excited to try it out.

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    I'm a Chicago girl who loves the outdoors and everything DIY.  He's an Appalachian Trail thru-hiker and addicted to nature.  Follow us as we share our experiences with home projects, recipes and hiking with our energetic Weimaraner, Rooney.

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