June 8 AT Lingo and debate

White Blazes: 2 by 4 inch painted marks on the trees that direct you on the Appalachian Trail.

Blue Blazes: 2 by 4 inch painted marks that direct you to alternate trails such as a water source, a view, or a completely different trail leading you away from the AT

Yellow Blazing: when you walk a road instead of the AT

Aqua Blazing: river instead of trail

Brown Blazing: now that's personal business that involves creating your own trail

Slack Packing: when you take only water and a few snacks and leave the bulk of your pack behind. This involves a support person to meet you on the end.

Purist: a person who feels you have to walk by every single white blaze in order to really thru hike the AT

Flip flopping: when you, for example, hike from Georgia to West Virginia and then fly up to the end in Maine and hike South back to WV. People do this because of weather or they need more time to finish.

Section Hike: doing one section at a time. Sometimes connecting all the sections to complete a thru hike. Gordon did this 30 days or so at a time and completed it in close to 100 days.

The debate often arises amongst hikers and there are as many opinions as there are people. Does slack packing count? If you aqua blaze should you go back and hike the miles you canoed? What if the blue blaze is the old AT, does that count? On and on it goes.

Here is the way EZ and I feel about it. We are taking six months away from our family to have this adventure together. We want to complete the AT on our own wheels. We want most of all to enjoy each day and each other and have a great time. We want to see the Appalachian Mountains, the towns, the people who live here, the other hikers, the flavor of the different areas. We want to take care of ourselves with zero days and breaks so we can finish strong. I missed 10 miles of trail to fix my teeth, we have blue blazed due to bad weather an old AT route. We did a blue blaze to see some waterfalls and some views we did not want to miss. Here in the Shenandoah we have done some yellow blazing because it is a change of pace. You see more sky and views while being able to look around while you walk rather than watching your foot placement between the rocks and roots. We like the way it feels to be in the open for a few miles here and there. We do have an aqua blaze planned and we will not go back and walk the 30 miles we missed. However, I did walk those miles with Gordon at one time. When all is said and done, we will have white blazed over 2100 miles of the trail and have made it on our own wheels from Springer Mountain to Khatadin. We will have hiked our own hike with no regrets.