>>882175>I turned 21 on the trail>200 - 165 (now at 205 kek)>currently working on a political campaign. (i'll be unemployed on November 9th) Going back to school in January>i'll pass on this question>no, although I had some opportunities to. Some regrets there. Need to work on my game.>>882051I took way too many zeroes (zero mile days) in towns and at hostels, spent way too much money
I hiked southbound. When I got out of the Hundred Mile wilderness in Maine I got a gear shakedown from the hostel owner at Shaw's
I mailed home 11 lbs of gear including
>most of my medkit>the Quran>steripen>some clothes>Nalgenes (replaced with plastic water bottles)>tons of other miscellaneous garbageIn Gorham New Hampshire I ditched my shitty leaky tent and shelter hopped the rest of the way.
I also got lazy and stopped filtering water. Ended up getting sick twice because of that.
As far as hiking habits, unscheduled breaks and slow speeds are the big one.
In order to make big miles you have to be disciplined with your breaks and your speed.
That means no random 15 minute breaks on nice sunny rocks, no taking it easy on uphills.
Even after you get your trail legs after 300 or so miles, it's very easy to be lackadaisical about your walking speed.
Unless you want to break camp before dawn every day, you need to be consistently hitting 3 mph to make big miles.
This will sometimes mean leaving cool people in the dust, which is unfortunate.
But if you are a young dude, there will always be other competitive young dudes trying to do big miles and you can latch on to each other and chill with them.
>>882193Pennsylvania is an underrated state. Very beautiful in the fall. The rocks are shitty, but it has some great trail towns.
