Kayaking the Cheat River

Just catching up on videos ... I had the pleasure to paddle about 12 miles of the Shavers Fork and Cheat Rivers from Parsons to St. George, WV during my time at the Pickin in Parson Bluegrass Festival.  Music is performed by John Denver and my brother, Aaron Rowe.

Pickin in Parsons 2019 Bluegrass Festival

I had the pleasure of returning to my roots and college days in Elkins,
WV and the surrounding area. Five Days of Amazing Bluegrass Music at
Pickin in Parsons in Parsons, WV on the Shaver's Fork of the Cheat
River. Wild Wonderful West Virginia.

13th Annual Dog Days Wine Tour 2019

I had a great time this past Saturday at the 13th annual Dog Days Wine Tour hosted by the Silver Wheels Cycling Club.

Whistle Pig Stew

Whistle Pig Stew ... It's What's for Dinner

Valley City Fungi Farming Fun

Besides research, planning and training for my upcoming bike tour, I WWOOF (World-wide Opportunities in Organic Farming) as a way to provide for my room and board.  Here is a short video showing you what I'm up to when I'm not out riding my bicycle ...

Training Begins!

Bike Euclid / Critical Mass Cleveland - Beach Party Campout 28JUN2019

A fantastic bike ride and beach party & campout with Bike Euclid and Critical Mass Cleveland. 



 Free pizza, lots of sunshine, torrential rain and thunderstorms, driftwood fire and s'mores on the beach and shoreline of Lake Erie.

First ride on my new 2019 Trek 520 touring bike! Medina to Valley City, OH via the Lester Trail.

Pajama Party Night Ride

Transcontinental Cycling Adventure 2020

I'm back at it, planning my next grand adventure ...

I am excited to share with all of my Blog friends my new YouTube channel - 'Just North of Anywhere'. This will be the social media platform I plan to use to document and share all about my cycling adventure starting next Spring 2020.

In hopes of soliciting sponsors to help me with this journey, I need to have as large a social media following as possible. I currently have one of my brothers as my only subscriber.
I need you'all to do me a favor and go to my new YouTube channel, - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRaXMEl3gBA4C4YeqOz41Rw - watch my new trailer and a few other videos I have put out there, and most importantly, SUBSCRIBE to my YouTube channel. This will show that I have a base of support and assist me greatly in securing sponsorships.

I am excited and so very grateful to have all of you along for the ride. I hope to get weekly videos prepared and uploaded starting in the next month or so to share all about my preparations and training for next year.
Love & Light to all,
Kurt

"It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle."
~Ernest Hemingway

Post Hike Update ...

I started my hike on February 18th, 2016.  After spending nine months hiking, camping, and living outdoors from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine, I did it!!.  I actually did what is called a flip-flop, after hiking from Georgia to Southern PA, I got off trail and took a greyhound bus from Philadelphia, PA to Bangor, ME and made my way up to Baxter State Park and Katahdin Stream campground.  I summited Mt. Katahdin on July 15th and then headed South back to Southern PA.  I completed my Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike on November 18th, 2016.

It was a life changing experience.  I am now an addicted long distance hiker and cannot wait to start another long distance hike.  The two trails at the top of my list are: 1) The Camino de Santiago, across the French Pyrenees and Northern Spain, and 2) the Henro Mishi, a 1200 km trail on the smallest island in Japan: Shikoku - a spiritual pilgrimage to 88 Buddhist temples.

I will be forever grateful to the many people along the AT and in my life that helped me on this journey.

Still hiking ...

After 4 months, I am still hiking the Appalachian Trail.  I was NOT able to edit this blog from my cell phone, so I have been posting updates and pictures to my FaceBook account.

You can find me at under my real name on FaceBook: Kurt Rowe.  I'd love to have you follow along - It has been an amazing adventure and the best time of my life!!

One Week until the Adventure Begins ...

With less than one week until I start hiking the Appalachian Trail, I am making final preparations.

I had the pleasure of enjoying time with family and friends over the superbowl weekend at our 6th annual ski vacation at Massanutten Resort not far from where the AT crosses through this area one valley over from the Shenendoah National Park near Luray, VA.

Temperatures turned colder Monday evening and snow began falling giving us about two inches of fresh powder overnight.  Wednesday morning I decided to try hiking the Ridge Trail at the edge of the bowl that forms the resort area.  It was rocky, snow covered, and icy and a good test of my choices of clothing to stay warm and how my boots and sock layering would work.  At about 26 degrees and with a stiff wind, I stayed comfortable during my 4 hour hike.

Current plans are to drive back to North Carolina at the beginning of the week where friends will host me and I can go through food boxes and mail drop logistics before parking my car and getting a ride to the trail start.  I plan to arrive near Dahlonega, GA on Wednesday afternoon February 17th and begin my journey from Springer Mountain on Thursday morning.

My time at Massanutten has been restful and relaxing.  The view from the Ridge Trail was spectacular ... looking forward to many more similar views in the months ahead.

“Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each.”

                                             -- Henry David Thoreau, Journals, August 23, 1853

Kurt Rowe Wants to Win The 2016 Badger Sponsorship

30 days to a peripatetic life

It's hard to believe it has been nearly 10 weeks since my last blog entry.  Where did all that time go?

I stopped shaving shortly after my last blog entry and have retired my razor until I complete my hike.  I have consolidated my life's possessions down to what will fit in a Honda Civic, placed everything in storage, and found buyers on Craigslist for my Sea Kayak, Canoe, paddles, and Djembe drum.

Training and final preparations are in full swing and with less than 30 days until my start, I am feeling well and all is still a go.

I have been enjoying time with my father, brothers and other family and friends in Sarasota. 

Training has been mostly 'hiking' the Ringling Causeway Bridge or walks at the Celery Fields - the only 2 places in the area with ANY elevation gain.  I completed a little more than 100 miles on my bike over the past 5 days and I am feeling strong.

 I recently received my updated 2016 version of the AT Guide and a few final items of gear - an Anti-Gravity pot cozy, an AT passport for getting stamps marked along the way, an Anker 2nd Gen Astro E3 External battery, and a super light weight camping spoon.  I've tested my GPS Spot Gen 3 satellite tracking beacon and figured out the basics for hanging my Jacks 'R Better hammock under-quilt, that I pray will keep me warm during the cold winter weather in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee at 5,000+ ft.  I've packed up 6+ boxes of food for shipping to myself at general delivery locations along the trail.  I've tested my SteriPen, ultra-violet light water purification system.  I've prepared my first aid kit, and broken in one of three pairs of hiking boots.

I've left the dark ages and finally gotten a smartphone (iPhone 5) which I recently got service setup on and with which I am trying to learn how to use and more importantly how to manage the power consumption on it to maximize use on the trail.  I have continued to correspond with great Paleo food sponsors and welcome their support.  I will soon make arrangements for travel insurance and put my car and its insurance in 'storage'.

My journey is about to begin ... I hope you will share in it from the comfort of your home and stay connected as I soon begin to hike through Southern Appalachia searching for signs of Spring.

My next entry will be from somewhere north of Springer Mountain in Georgia along the AT.  You will find me at the Where's Kurt tab from the menu at the top of my blog.  Please do stay in touch.  I'd love to hear from you!

- The Other One ... aka Two Eggs

"Your journey is completely yours. It is unique. Others may try to steal part of it, tell it in their words or shape it to suit them. Reality is no one can live it or own it but you. Take charge of your journey, it's yours and yours alone!"  
- Kemi Sogunle

Paleo Baking in the Backcountry

The thought of backpacking trail food as I remember from my youth does not conjure up anything close to gourmet ... or even tasty to be honest.  Calories and fuel for the body were my main concern when I backpacked the Appalachian Trail back in my teens.  As an adult, my trips in the back-country usually have consisted of dried staples and products readily available from a local grocer - think ramen noodle, mac n' cheese or a hamburger helper.  Definitely nothing to write home about.

Sweets or a dessert item were usually never a part of my trail food aside from an occasional candy bar or stale tasty cake or cinnamon bun in a plastic wrapper from a convenience store - filled with loads of unknown and unpronounceable ingredients to preserve shelf life.

With my sights set on healthy eating and wanting to keep as much as possible to a Paleo diet, I have put quite a lot of time into thinking about how I can eat healthy on the trail.  I decided that I shouldn't limit myself to just one pot meals and wondered if including a healthy dessert would be possible?  Part of that effort has been to reach out to various companies that make healthy and great tasting products.

I had this idea - what about baking in the back-country??  No, I wouldn't be carrying a cast iron Dutch oven or a complete set of measuring cups and spoons.  Mixers, egg beaters and cake pans were out of the question.

I've had the opportunity and blessing to connect with the great folks at Paleo Baking Co.  Their delicious paleo cake and muffin mixes are gluten, grain, dairy, refined sugar and soy free and recipes include: Banana, Blueberry, Carrot Cake, Chocolate, Hazelnut, Lemon/Poppy Seed, and Spice Cake.  Working with them, I have been testing various flavors to see how I could get their mixes outside!

Testing started in my kitchen to determine how much mix was needed for a small cake that I could bake while out on the trail.  I did the math and figured out the best way was to split up a package.  Since most of the bags require 6 eggs, I split the mix into 6 smaller portion, so each bag will provide 6 small cakes.  This smaller batch fits nicely into the 4 inch baking round that I will be using on my AT Thru-hike.  I've tested several of the mixes at home with a toaster oven (to simulate uneven heat) and they all turned out great.  On the trail, I will either use coals and heat from a campfire, or steam cook the cake mix within my cookset on my camp stove.

Two weekends ago, I had the opportunity to get out for a short backpack along the Haw River in the Piedmont area of North central North Carolina and near the North Carolina Mountain to Sea Trail.  I took along the chocolate mix and was able to mix up and test out baking on the trail for the first time.  I build a nice campfire and used it as my heat source for baking.  The chocolate cake (1/6 of a bag) turned out fantastic and tasted great.  Most of the mixes need an egg, coconut oil, and honey and then fresh fruit depending on the mix.  Carrying a 1/2 dozen eggs should be easy enough and small containers with oil and honey will be planned additions to my 'camp' kitchen anyhow.

After dinner, I prepared the batter and set it on the campfire to 'bake'.  I found after 10 minutes or so that the top and center were 'baking' slower than the edges.

I placed the top from my cook-pot on top of the 4" baking round to trap the heat and help simulate an oven environment.  30 minutes later and a few turns to ensure even 'baking' and my trail-side dessert was ready.  As temperatures dipped into the low 40s, I ended the evening with a small chocolate cake and cup of hot tea.  It was absolutely delicious and a perfect way to end the day.

 
I have a feeling that evening cake will be a regular occurrence as I hike North on the AT next Spring.

"In order to attain the impossible, one must attempt the absurd." 
- Miguel de Cervantes

- The Other One

How do you eat an elephant?

One bite at a time.  It’s all in the details …

"A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step."

- Lao-tzu

Or 2190 miles, but then who’s counting!

A BIG part of planning for a six month thru-hike has NOTHING to do with hiking.  It has to do with my life before the adventure begins and how I plan to put everything in my life on hold, the details on how I accomplish this, and the logistics of which are a bit staggering.

So, I’ll start with a checklist, identifying everything that needs to be accomplished, and then one-by-one, work towards that last bite before the adventure begins.  I sure hope I have the stomach for it.  I’m sure after being on the trail for a month or so, eating an elephant will be no problem!

Downsizing - eliminating the unnecessary, unneeded things from my life. I recently started taking pictures of items that will not be a part of my life: furniture, kitchen gadgets, books, etc.  I’ve posted many of these for sale on Craigslist. If come December they have not sold, I will be donating them to a local charity.  My goal here is to become mobile again - fitting everything I own into or onto my Honda Civic.  I did this once before when I left Florida in 2010, but things tend to breed and multiple - not sure how that happens?

 
Storage - Finding a place to store the stuff I do decide to keep.  And then finding a place to park my car where it will be safe and hopefully have it with someone who can drive it once in awhile.

A car sitting for six months cannot be good, right?  I do need it to start up when I get off the trail.


Managing Debt - paying monthly credit card bills, a cell phone bill, auto insurance, vehicle registration, etc. Where will I have my mail forwarded to?  Without an apartment or residence, does that then make me homeless?  

Most of the details here can be handled by just being well organized and having a way to complete tasks whilst on the trail … which leads to ...

Staying connected -  I currently own only a prepaid ‘dumb’ cell phone.  I’ve never gotten connected or even wanted to be tethered to the end of a cell phone, but now, having a way to call family and friends and connect to the internet for maps, reservations, ordering replacement gear, blogging, paying bills, etc. will be critical to my mental and physical wellbeing.  Also a little music and taking photographs could be incorporated here.  Researching cell phone models, brands, and service plans does not sound like fun, but will be another necessary item on my to-do list.

Travel - The logistics of getting to the trail-head start in Georgia and from its terminus in Maine back to wherever I stash my vehicle and belongings.  Not sure how I will handle this one.  Worst case - take a train or bus to the town nearest Amicalola Falls State Park and then either hitch or hire a shuttle service to get me to the trail.  Best case - have a family member or good friend available to get me from wherever to the trail-head and see me on my way.

Support & Resupply - I can imagine that hanging out in the woods will at some point get old … and lonely.  Hearing from family and friends will be important.  Planning when and where I can get mail will be like shooting at a moving target.  Hopefully like shooting an actual weapon, I will get better at this as time passes.  I can guess where I may be at any point in the near future, but weather, fatigue, miscalculation in mileage or other unforeseen factors may change the reality of my current location.  To help with getting mail, and mail-drops for food and equipment, and to add a little piece of mind for those that do care to know what is going on with me at any point,

I have recently purchased at SPOT Gen 3 satellite tracking/messaging/SOS beacon.  I’ll setup and activate an annual subscription in mid-October and begin testing it this fall.  It should update my location at a specified timed interval, allow me to send out an ‘I’m okay’ message, and give me the ability to send an SOS monitored signal for help in the event of an emergency.  I will make my current location via this beacon available on my blog under, “Where’s Kurt“.  I will also list here my planned USPS locations where I will be stopping to check for and receive mail and packages.

Eating an elephant is a BIG task.  The details are important.  

If you can think of anything I’ve forgotten, or have helpful ideas or input, I would very much like to hear from you.  Want to help out?  Let me know how you’d like to be involved, or just check-in or drop a note in the mail, or a comment on this blog whilst I’m on the trail.  It will take a village to get this middle-aged, adventure crazed man all the way from Georgia to Maine!

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

- Tolkien, Lord of the Rings

- The Other One

Delicious autumn!

I’ll start and end this post with quotes appropriate to this transition between seasons ...

"The season for enjoying the fullness of life ― partaking of the harvest, sharing the harvest with others, and reinvesting and saving portions of the harvest for yet another season of growth."
― Denis Waitley

Another season has past us by.  Summer is gone and the hint of fall is in the air.  Cooler evening temperatures and the beginnings of color in the leaves.  Light breaking the dawn a little later each day and the sun setting just a few minutes earlier each evening.

My 10 week fall CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) started this first day of autumn.  Red leaf lettuce, arugula, green beans, ripe golden and red tomatoes, and baby bok choy filled my basket.  Autumn is a time for harvest, for provisioning for the winter, for sharing the bounty of the summer season.

The equinox happens when the equator passes the center of the sun. This is when the north and south poles of the Earth are not tilted towards or away from the sun, as at other times, but are aligned so as to give, theoretically, the same amount of daylight in both of the Earth's hemispheres.  The word equinox is derived from the Latin, meaning equal night.  The pagan festivities around this event were replaced on the Christian calendar with Michaelmas, the feast of Saint Michael the Archangel, which is celebrated on the 29th of September.

Plans for my thru-hike next year continue, but the pace has slowed.  This time of year is about celebration and festivals and the harvest.  

Last weekend I volunteered at the Hoppin John Bluegrass and Fiddler’s Convention, enjoying musicians young and old and sampling eleven Hoppin John recipes in this 9th annual fall tradition.  

This coming weekend I’ll volunteer and help with setup and preparations for the Shakori Hills Grassroots Festival of Music and Dance, building dance floors, erecting the main stage, setting up large dance tents, and cleaning the outdoor kitchen.  Hard work, but more fun than anything - a spirit of community with others anticipating a great fall festival.

The first weekend in October I have a backpack planned to test out gear, new hiking boots, and trail recipes.  October 8-11th is a time of relaxing and enjoying the cooler fall days at the Shakori Hills farm with music, great food, community and friends.

Summer is gone, and autumn has just begun ...

“The birds are consulting about their migrations, the trees are putting on the hectic or the pallid hues of decay, and begin to strew the ground, that one's very footsteps may not disturb the repose of earth and air, while they give us a scent that is a perfect anodyne to the restless spirit. Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns."

― George Eliot

If I give up on the Appalachian Trail I will ...

This is another question that Zach Davis, in his book Appalachian Trials: A psychological and emotional guide to successfully thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail considers important for anyone considering thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail.

I've spent some time sitting with this question. It is a tough one, because, like most people, I hate failure! Sometimes I think we shy away from things in life because it is possible we might not succeed. All of the reasons against this planned thru-hike boil down to a simple four letter word that begins with an ‘F’ …

and all of the variations this can take including …

• fear that I am not physically or mentally strong enough to hike 2,184 miles
• fear of failure
• fear of injury
• fear of quitting my job
• fear of hunger and not having enough to eat
• fear of what I’ll do afterwards
• fear of ticks and lyme disease
• fear of bears, snakes, cougars, spiders or crazy people
• fear of sleeping in the woods alone
• fear of not being warm enough
• fear of boredom (awake, eat, hike, eat, hike, eat, setup camp, eat, sleep - repeat!)
• fear of the unknown
• fear of ______________ … you fill in the blank.  

Please let me know in the comment section what fears are stopping you from your next adventure?

 All of these are REAL fears. They are not all my fears, but ones I imagine someone contemplating this thru-hike could face. Some of them are my fears. Perhaps I'm afraid to say which ones.

I hope that facing some of these fears makes me a stronger person, a wiser person, a more humble person. I hope that I come out the other side of this adventure changed (and I am sure I will be). I hope you will join me on this adventure. Hearing from you will help me stay connected, brighten my spirits, and allow me to share with you!

Let's begin today! What fear are you willing to face?

'In order for one to learn the important lessons of life, one must first overcome a fear each day.' 

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

- The Other One

In the Hunt for Paleo Foods

It has been about two weeks now since completely removing all traces of wheat and other gluten containing products from my kitchen.  Also gone are most of the starches and carbohydrates, including potatoes, rice, breads, and other 'food products', seed oils, and processed sugars.  In its place are fresh vegetables from the Saturday farmer's market, and locally sourced grass-fed and finished beef, pastured pork, and free-range chicken.  It is important that the animals eat well too during their lives.  GMO soy, corn, wheat and other genetically modified crops as well as antibiotics, herbicides, pesticides, and fungicides have NO place in their food or ours.

I just finished the final chapters of Michael Pollan's, In Defense of Food.  He suggests several self-imposed rules which I have decided to adopt:

• Eat REAL foods
• Avoid food products that make health claims.
• Avoid food products that:
• are unfamiliar
• have unpronounceable ingredients
• have more than 5 ingredients
• include high fructose corn syrup

•  Get out of the Supermarket whenever possible ( and shop instead at Farmer's Markets, CSAs, or local farms ) 

and a few others that are probably worth considering:

• Do all your eating at a table
• Don't get your fuel from the same place your car does
• Try not to eat alone
• Consult your gut
• Serve smaller portions on smaller plates
• Eat slowly ( Slowfood )
• Cook ... and if you can, plant a garden

I found a local farmer, Jordan from Barking Dog Farms who is offering a Fall CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) for 10 weeks from September 23rd until November 28th.  Each week I will receive a basket of freshly picked produce from their farm including tomatoes, green and red okra, muscadine grapes, lettuces, spinach, red Russian kale, smooth kale, Dino Kale, curly kale, Swiss chard, arugula, sweet potatoes, kohlrabi, cabbage, pac choi, broccoli and a few others items.  I'm very excited to add these wonderfully healthy and farm-to-table foods to my diet!  My Paleo hunt today included beet greens, green beans, and arugula.

The effects of this quite radical change in my diet have all been positive.  More energy, mental clarity, and the cessation of pain in my knees and shoulder all add to my determination to bring a healthier me to life!

Since finding food on the Appalachian Trail will consist of either general delivery mail drops or re-supplying at small convenient stores, quickie marts and dollar-store type chains, I have been working to find quality Paleo food companies that are interested in assisting me in consuming a healthy diet on the trail.  I have been quite successful to date and have mentioned a couple of these great companies in a previous post.  I will share more about the other ones soon.

One company that sells Paleo baking mixes, PaleoBakingCompany is excited to sponsor me.  Testing methods to produce these with only backpacking equipment is now on my to-do list.  Paleo Baking in the Back-country! - there's something I would not have thought about 6 months ago.

I plan to top these healthy treats with another sponsor's product,

Nikki's Coconut Butters.  Sitting on a mountaintop on a star-filled night 'baking' and then eating a warm fresh Paleo treat.  Yum! - Can it get any better than that?

"Watch what you eat, get off the couch and start being inconvenient. Eat real food, practice functional movement and stand up for environmental preservation, sustainable agriculture, peace and social justice."
 -Frank Forencich, Change Your Body, Change the World

- The Other One