Ms Carrie Fenn shares her adventures on nineteen days on The Long Trail.
Welcome to guests Laurie York, Karen Medsker, Tim Loucks, Dave Buley and Margaret Holmes.
Amanda is involved Junior League – doing a project with “Sleep in Heavenly Peace,” bed build day this Saturday Jan 20 if anyone is interested.
February 21 - District Governor Susan Cherry will be our guest.
Pie Day - March 16, Shelburne Town Hall is not available, booked by someone else. Keith is looking at Shelburne Vineyard or Vermont Teddy Bear and Shelburne Community School are all options.
May 10 - Car Raffle at Shelburne Farms! Tickets are $275. Our club will park cars at an event there on May 5.
Ric introduced Peter Fenn as our “new” member, grew up in Rutland, contractor, he and Carrie have five children between them and two puppies.
Carrie shared her story of the nineteen days on the Long Trail, the oldest continuous footpath in the United States at 272 miles with 166 miles of side trails.
Her planning began one year in advance with the trip having three main components.
- Route planning was the most important component and this changes often during the hike. Starts with choosing north or south bound, Carrie chose south bound. She did 12 to 18 miles per day. Food consisted of a protein bar or fruit for breakfast, not much for lunch and dried egg crystals and ramen for supper with meat sticks. She was surprised that she craved salty rather than sweet. She’ll bring more fritos and beef sticks if she does it again!
- She trained at Vasta Training beginning a year in advance focusing on strength, balance and endurance training. She knows this paid off in big ways for her nineteen day adventure.
- Equipment-her pack weighted thirty pounds and was too heavy but she was able to offload some equipment early to her husband Peter who met along the way a few times.
This included a water filtration bottle with one water bottle and a hydration bladder, you had to get water wherever you can!
She planned to hike each night to a shelter and was alone most nights, surprisingly. Most shelters were three walled and she enjoyed each one though found the mice very annoying.
The trail is arduous and challenging as it is known to be. Fear and challenges were her greatest obstacles but now she feels a deeper connection to Vermont.
Dan presented Carrie with the book “My Vermont Long Trail Thru-Hike: A Bull$@#! Journal And Guide” by Jeffrey Joslin to be donated to the Charlotte library.