Gene Hikes the Appalachian Trail

Category: Uncategorized

  • A Trip To Mount Bonnell

    I decided to throw on my pack with 25 pounds in it and start a hike from 38th St and Guadalupe to Mount Bonnell (one of the highest points in the city with great views of Lake Austin). For those of you unfamiliar with Austin, this meant I was looking at about a six mile round trip. The first part of the journey was uneventful, just following 38th and 35th Streets past Lamar and MoPac and Camp Mabry. Here is the one-way route: http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=7804394

    As I continued to approach my goal I saw an unexpected Peacock Crossing sign. Not seeing any peacocks in the road, I continued on. Then came the Balcones Escarpment. I needed to climb a steep vertical height over a short lateral distance and it kicked my ass. Those of you who are not from the Austin area may not understand what the Balcones Escarpment is. Luckily for you, they had a pictograph on the summit that describes it perfectly.

    Unfortunately for you, I am a shitty photographer using a shitty camera on a shitty phone so you can’t really see what the above says. Allow me to type it out here.

    An escarpment is an area where the elevation of the earth changes suddenly forming a line of hills or scarps. At Mount Bonnell, you are atop the Balcones Escarpment.

    The Balcones Escarpment runs through Central Texas from Austin, southwest through San Antonio, and from there to the Rio Grande (Big River) near Del Rio. It marks the boundary between the Great Plains stretching west and the Gulf Coastal Plain to the east. The break in the landscape defines major differences in earth resources, weather and climate, soils, vegetation, and animal habitats. East of the escarpment are the prime farmlands of the Blackland Prairies; to the west are the rangelands and woodlands of the Hill Country and the Edwards Plateau. The Balcones Escarpment marks the beginning of the American West in terms of landscape, ecology, geologic processes, and human endeavors.

    After hiking up the steep escarpment along a narrow two-lane road with no shoulder, I came upon the base of Mount Bonnell. From there it was a nice easy 100-plus stair step journey to Covert Park at the summit.

    Covert Park is named for Frank M. Covert, who was the original owner of the tract of land containing Mount Bonnell. His family gifted the area to Travis County back in the 1930s. Frank Covert is famous for opening the first automobile dealership in Central Texas. The local area is still crowded with Covert locations such as Covert Cadillac and Covert Ford. Pretty much the only name you see on the side of more buildings around here is Moody.

    The view of Lake Austin from the peak is awe inspiring and my photos do not do it justice. Because, once again, shitty photographer.

    The view looking northward
    The view looking southward

    After catching my breath and eating a turkey sandwich and yogurt I had packed, I trundled back down the road home. Along the way I stopped at Mayfield House and Nature Preserve. The house itself is an 1870s cottage that I did not visit, but there were some nice short trails along the water’s edge that I did partake in. They were rather relaxing and enjoyable.

    Just as I was getting ready to leave the area I figured out why that peacock crossing sign was along the road. I real bona fide peacock hanging out near the parking lot! Ultimately, I could not coax him into revealing his plumage for my camera but took some pictures anyway.

    And after that encounter I hoofed it back home. But not before stopping at P. Terry’s for a large shake of the month, thereby undoing all the good work I had done on the day’s hike.

  • My Fitness Curriculum Vitae

    I have not yet addressed my current level of physical fitness. When you are trying to do something like walk over uneven, unimproved ground for over 2000 miles during the summer your level of fitness is an important consideration. While I hope my fitness improves between now and March 2027, I want to take stock of exactly where I am as a starting point.

    I know I said in my last entry that I shared some physical traits with The Rock and Dave Bautista. That was a joke, or more accurately a bald-faced lie. I am in decent enough shape to not have any debilitating illnesses or anything of the like. I have two working legs and two working arms and I’m pretty sure my pancreas is functional.

    I was in the Army for 22 years, mostly in the Reserves. In that time I never failed an APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test) and actually got the maximum score of 300 once. Most of my tests I scored somewhere between 250-290 and got the PT patch basically every time I took the test between 2010-2017. I retired almost two years ago, so I took the new ACFT (Army Combat Fitness Test) only a couple of times for record. Each time I took it I did just enough to meet the minimum standard and coasted. Except for Spring-Drag-Carry (SDC). That was a fun event.

    In my opinion, the entire ACFT should be just the SDC. You should have to do it, rest 10 minutes, do it, rest 10 minutes, and do it again. Your slowest time of the three is the one that counts and needs to beat the minimum time to pass.

    I ran a marathon way back in 2009. I ran it in under four hours, which is nothing to write home about but when I originally wrote this sentence I said “I came in under four hours” which makes me sound like I’m trying to impress Charles Dera or Keiran Lee. I have run four half marathons and too many 10K road races to count. Most of those were in my 20s and 30s. The last long race I did was the Navy 10 Miler Afterburner Challenge in Fort Worth, TX in 2022. That race had a five miler you did at 0700 and then a 10 miler at 0830. They gave you three medals for completing it.

    I read somewhere once that age 45 is the most difficult as far as how much and how fast your body and fitness decline. For me that was definitely true. I run three times a week every week. For the last five years I have cut my daily miles from roughly 6-6.5 down to 4-5 just because of how much longer it takes me to run now. I can still run for distance at a slower pace, but I have lost my ability to go into “turbo mode” when I want to pass other people like I could a decade ago.

    Hiking is more like rucking than like running though. I have obviously done ruck marches in the Army. Most of them at a brisk pace with 30-40 pounds on my back. Also, most of them when I had much less gray in my hair. I did the Norwegian Foot March (NFM) in Evansville, IN back in 2017 and trained for it by rucking around various parts of Austin. The day I did the NFM is actually a good story so I won’t waste it here when I can squeeze a post out of it later.

    As far as weight training, I used to be a member of a gym up until Covid. You may have heard of Covid before. Since Covid I gave up on gyms and have trained at home with bodyweight exercises and free weights. I have also been fortunate enough to live near parks that have pull-up bars and similar equipment. Since it is so warm in Austin there are only a couple months a year that it is not feasible to train outdoors. I am thinking about joining a gym later this year so I can be able to concentrate on things like squats and deadlifts that it is not possible to replicate without giant barbells with giant weights on them.

    So that’s where I am right now. I am realizing that this blog is slowly becoming me talking about my past and not doing anything. I promise I will actually do something for my next post.

  • The Fifth W

    So, in my first post I gave my big “action statement”. It also gave a good overview of the four W’s every good journalism student knows. I briefly summarized the who, what, when, and where of my blog:

    I (who) will be thru-hiking (what) the Appalachian Trail (where) in 2027 (when).

    Left unsaid was the fifth and most important W: why. Why am I doing this, and why should you give enough of a fuck to read this blog? I’ll take some time here to answer the first why, and hope that the reasons I give are sufficient to warrant you continuing to follow along.

    I spend a fair amount of my time playing video games. Mostly Xbox video games, but also some computer games as well. I can’t call myself a “PC Gamer” anymore since I switched over to Linux last year. One of the video games I play more than I should is Fallout 76. It is an MMORPG with inventory management as a core mechanic. One big aspect of inventory management is “perk cards” that you can equip to your character to make carrying things around easier. Nothing about the story elements of Fallout 76 are relevant to this blog except for the fact that it is based in West Virginia.

    Since the game is based in West Virginia, they decided to name the “perk card” that makes your food weigh less be “THRU-HIKER”. I played this game for years while using the THRU-HIKER perk card and never really bothered to ask what a thru-hiker was. One day about two years ago I finally bothered to search the term on the internet and discovered the idea that thru-hiking a trail was something that could be done.

    If you are thinking that I immediately decided to pledge to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail after figuring that out, you would be wrong. I mostly just filed it in the back of my brain alongside interesting but otherwise pointless knowledge like the formula for flux across a surface or the history of Liechtenstein’s flag. My number one reason for making this pledge is that I got so fucking old.

    I just turned 50 in January of this year, which makes me a Capricorn just like all the greatest people throughout history. Even though I just turned 50, I have felt 50 for about eighteen months. Beginning near the end of 2024, I became obsessed with being 50. I thought about myself as being 50 so often I actually would tell people I was 50 and then need to correct myself. “Oh sorry, I mean I’m actually 49 but I am just working through some shit in my own head so I literally forgot my own age”.

    Fifty has always felt so old to me. Like the finish line for the competitive portion of my life. Nothing left after 50 except moving into senior living and waiting patiently for dementia and/or colostomy bags and/or needing to use a walker to get around and/or all three. Forty felt old as I approached it too, but in more of a “you are now dead to advertisers and women” kind of way than a “you are now dead” way.

    Late last year, as 50 continued hurtling towards me like an asteroid towards Earth in a sci-fi movie, I decided that maybe my fiftieth birthday isn’t my expiration date. The Rock is over 50. Dave Bautista is over 50. Hell, Brad Pitt is over 60. They are all doing great. And I have so much in common with those guys.

    Cough.

    Anyway, that is when I remembered that thru-hiking exists and decided to do something incredibly rash like hike the Appalachian Trail. I decided to wait for 2027 to give myself time to get my life in order first, so that is where we are and why I am here. I hope my “why” is compelling enough for you to stick around as well.

  • Hello World!

    My name is Gene Glover and I will be thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail in March 2027. I will begin at Springer Mountain in Georgia and hike over two thousand miles to Katahdin in Maine. My plan is to finish sometime around Labor Day 2027. If I speak it into existence here on the internet, then it will become manifest.

    Photo by Jeff Ackley on Unsplash

    I am 50 years old. I live alone in Austin, Texas. I work in AI and technical customer support and was in the Army Reserves for 22 years. I am in decent shape but nothing special, hopefully decent enough to walk repeatedly for multiple days on end.

    I am starting this blog to document my journey as I get physically and mentally prepared for this endeavor. This blog will also serve to hold me accountable for making sure the thru-hike happens. I would look pretty stupid if I made a blog for a year leading up to my hike and chickened out at the last minute.

    In this blog I want to share my tips for getting into peak hiking shape, my honest opinions and recommendations on hiking gear and clothing, and the many cool pictures and experiences I will have along the trail. If you are thinking of doing your own thru-hike (or other similar personal stretch goal), maybe this blog can be something to inspire you to achieve it. Maybe this blog instead will become a great resource for “how not to prepare for the Appalachian Trail”. Who knows?