[at-l] FW: New Lister Jack

[Jack Vanderbijl]

Oops! got to get the hang of this. Sent it to Liteshoe only 1st time....

From: jacko_1956 at hotmail.com
To: liteshoe at gmail.com
Subject: RE: New Lister Jack
Date: Wed, 6 Jul 2011 19:28:54 +0800








Bit more info and then I will mostly sit on sidelines and learn which is why I joined...

I'm 55yo getting more and more into hiking over last 10 years but free time is the issue...
Have 3 kids mfm youngest is 24yo and also has hiking bug. Wife is almost bitten (she has done our Cape to Cape track with a friend - 7 day hike.) but not keen on AT - perhaps JMT in a later year.
I live in Perth Western Australia which is northern end of our Bibbulmun Track (approx 600 mile) but born and raised in Albany which is southern end.
Have walked much of track in sections and will thruhike it soon.
Both son and I have been planning AT thruhike for about 18 months and am about 40/60 to do it in 2012 and 90/10 for 2013 if not 2012.
Why walk AT? We have in Australia several long distance tracks but the AT is the grand daddy (I know the LT is older etc but for us here the AT is THE one in the US).
My reasons are as much to experience the social aspect as well as the hike.  Hiking here is not as congested as a northbound AT thruhike appears.
My son (Daniel) and I are in process of slowly updating to something closer to ultralight hiking.
Ultralight for many in Australia is a 2.5 kg (4.5lb) backpack - that is the pack, not the contents. UL is not big here yet!
We drool over the REI website as we can't get many of the items and when we do the prices here are astronomical.  e.g. regular Neoair at REI US$149.95 and at only supplier here in Perth AUS$329.95 and at the moment AUS$1.00 = US $1.07!!
We bought one from Ireland on ebay! :-)
Current plan is either starting a NOBO on April 7 which is Daniel's birthday or a few days later after spending his birthday in REI.
We expect that we will only be able to get a 6 month visa for US so will be looking to walk G to M in 5 months leaving about 1-2 weeks at each end to get in and out.
That's about it. 
Will try not to throw my opinion in too often... :-)
Cheers Jacko
(and yes in the flesh I do say g'day....)



Date: Tue, 5 Jul 2011 13:15:35 -0400
Subject: New Lister Jack, was Re: [at-l] Earl Shaffer's hike?
From: liteshoe at gmail.com
To: jacko_1956 at hotmail.com
CC: at-l at backcountry.net


Welcome, Jack!
Sorry your intro to AT-L  was stepping in this big, steaming pile of deja vu, but there it is.
Welcome to the campfire. Where's the manners? Pass the man a smashmellow!
Tell us about your hike plans. Northbound or SOBO?



 		 	   		   		 	   		  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://patsy.hack.net/pipermail/at-l/attachments/20110706/73d0a10c/attachment.html