2,184.2 Miles of Single Track: The Run Bum Embarks on his AT Record Attempt

The Run Bum, Sean Blanton, taking a quick break during a 20 mile run/hike from the Golden Gate Bridge to Muir Beach and back.

Darn Tough Vermont: So what exactly are you trying to do?

Run Bum: My goal is to break the current Appalachian Trail speed record this year. I have to rephrase that Denise and myself’s goal is to break the record. Denise is my crew chief. Its just me and her. She is the ONLY reason I am able to give this thing a shot. Thank you Denise.

According to the Awol Guide the Appalachian Trail is now 2,184.2 miles long for 2012. Each year diversions etc add a bit of distance to it. Just like Everest grows taller each year the AT grows longer. So the easiest time to do it is now. Not when you cash in your 401k.

For me as a member of the La Sportiva Mountain running team, as you can imagine my favorite thing in the world is running mountain trails. Specifically single track I have never run before. The Appalachian Trail offers me this in a close to unlimited amount.

I have never been a hiker. I was never a runner until some 4 years ago. In fact I thought runners were stupid. Now I stand to be both. It’s funny where life will take you if you let it. Don’t fight adventure just fight yourself telling you to slow down.

DTV: How did this come to be?

RB: It was last year that I went on a trek, or hike as we call it, in the Everest Region of Nepal. The reason I was even over there was to run the Everest Ultra Marathon, the world’s highest ultra. Although the day before I left I got an email that said the race was canceled. “ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!?!?!,” I yelled at my computer. I couldn’t believe it. I had paid for my ticket, arranged my trek to the start and planned a bunch of awesome stuff to do during my 40-day stay in Nepal.

I got to Nepal slightly disappointed about the race. My plan was to do the race course anyways. I met up with the 3 other people I had met on a travel website. We had planned a 25 day trek in the Everest Region. After we all met up in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal, we flew out to Lukla. Lukla is the gateway to Everest. 99% of treks to Everest base camp start here.

I remember being in great shape for running and ultras. I however was not ready for what was about to happen to me. Every day of our trek we crept higher and higher. It it was just straight up it would not have been that bad. It was up and down and up and down. Even our “rest days” would involved thousands of feet of elevation change. Every day the first 7 days I woke up in awful pain. My quads and calves were toast! Everyday was relentless 8 hours of hiking a day up and down these crazy Himalayan mountains. This alone was tough then, add in the 10,000-19,000 feet above sea level that we were at for 3 weeks and you’re hurting!

After about 8 days of agony something happened. I woke up not sore at all. My body had adapted. The rest of the trip I pushed harder with more up and more pounding down hill. Still I wasn’t getting sore.

At the end of the trip I ditched my idea of the Everest Ultra course for a crazier run. Lukla to Jiri. Some 50+ miles with some 60,000 ft of elevation change. The goal was to do this in one day. The local sherpas said that it was not possible. This fueled me more.

I took off at 3 am from Lukla on a unfamiliar trail in the dark thick fog. I got lost. Very lost. Being lost in a 3rd world country on trails you don’t know by yourself is kind of scary. I kept my cool and eventually got back on course after about 3 hours.
This trail was insane. Rocky as heck and just up and down. There was one 6,000 + ft climb. Each climb was at least 2,000 ft and just went on forever. I ran/hiked for over 12 hours that day stopping to eat in tea houses with my 35 lb pack on my back. I had to stop shy that day since I got lost earlier.

I figured the next day I would be crippled. Not even sore. The himalayas and trekking for some 20+ days had turned me into a beast. I couldn’t run fast but I could run/hike forever. Another 12 hours that day and I was done.

It was then and there that I knew I could take down the Appalachian Trail.

I had experienced my body adapting to the brutality of hiking and running for the great part of the day day in and day out. I have found that my body recovers really fast from ultras. People tell me it must be nice to be young all the time. I think that is garbage. It is because my body never gets a chance to fully rest. I am always running or doing something active everyday. I referee sports 7 days a week in turn with running, soccer and hiking. PS I hate reffing sports. Turns out people get mad at the ref… A LOT!

I also realized that the distances I was covering would smash the current record pace. I figured that could set my goal at 50 miles per day. At the time I had not heard of Jenn Pharr Davis attempting the trail again. I knew of Andrew’s goal of 47 days and change. My goal was not to beat this but to shatter. I wanted to try and redefine what people called endurance, redefine what it meant to give it your all and I wanted to raise money for The American Cancer Society. Before Everest I had read David Horton’s book about him running the AT. It really inspired me. He actually RAN it. I had planned to run/hike it.

DTV: Did anything in particular inspire you to do this?

RB: I’d have to lie if I said Dean Karnaze’s book “Ultramarathon Man” didn’t inspire the charity runs I’ve done. I think his and my quest for something longer and greater are very much alike. I think the biggest inspiration for me are my family and friends. My dad always jokes with me when I go run road marathons, “Oh just a marathon? Did you at least run home afterwards?” I love it. As do most ultra marathon runners, we tend to try and do the craziest things possible and then act like we aren’t phased by the pain. I’m sure you could shoot and/or stab most ultra runners and they would still finish the run. Why? Because it makes for a cool story and that feeling you get from doing something that difficult.

I recall reading in some Facebook post something along the lines of “ SHE’S DONE IT! SHE BROKE THE RECORD!” This was in reference to Jenn Pharr Davis breaking the AT record. I knew I had my work cut out for me. But because she was a women it made such huge news. I now knew everyone was going to be thinking that I was setting off to break her record or that I saw her do it and so now I wanted to do it. This is not true. I actually emailed David Horton, who never emailed me back. He never emailed me back because he was in the middle of crewing Jenn. I am sure he thought I was another glory chaser. Really I had been inspired in part by his book. I also remember a couple of years back when Karl Meltzer did it. I remember following that. The guy got trench foot and kept running. He experienced horrible luck with weather. I would try and learn from what they had done. I figured that Karl ran most of it and Jenn hiked all of it. I would try to meet that in the middle. I look to Jenn and Karl as an inspiration. Both of them are amazing. Speed goat Karl has been helping answer a lot of my (most likely) silly questions. So again this is not about who set the record its just someone set the bar and I plan to jump over that bar. Records are meant to be broken. No one sets a record that stands forever. It’s the nature of the beast. That is why I don’t plan on trying to better the current record by a day or two. I want something that stands the test of time.

Unlike Karl and Jenn I am headed north bound. This is a lot harder. I will be chasing warm weather and more daylight northwards. Everyone has said that New Hampshire and Vermont are the hardest areas. Specifically the Green and White Mountains. For others they have liked to start with the hard part at the beginning. I’d rather finish with that. A record has never been set northbound. I like to think of it like this. Nothing has been done until someone does it. It is what it is. Running “uphill” as they say.

I am making a gamble that Baxter State Park in Maine, where the finish atop Mt. Katahdin lays, will be open. So far so good but if we get any late season snow I could be out of luck.

Enjoying the sunset at 9,000 feet up on Haleakala, a 10,000 ft mountain volcano on Maui. Taken while training in Hawaii for three weeks.

DTV: Do you have any fears or concerns?

RB: I am worried people will surely misinterpret what I am trying to accomplish.
The trail is a beautiful thing. I hear a lot of hikers and people telling me that running that much a day and going for a record is against the trail code. They call it stupid or put me down. They try to make me feel bad about going fast. My thing is this. Speed is relative; fun is not. The trail is there for everyone to enjoy in their own way so long as they don’t take away from others. This is how I enjoy the trail. My personality can not take going at a hiking pace. I don’t need to speed hours at a vista or a lake to enjoy it. I am a “see all, do all in one day” kinda of guy. I mean, to each his own right? Also there are no rules on the trail. No one can tell you this is what you have to do. I am a hiker, a runner and an adventurer. I only have 40 something days for this so Ill go with what I’ve been given.

DTV: What’s your goal?

RB: To raise as much money for the American Cancer Society as possible. I think that by going for a record more people will give and my outreach will be greater.

I also like to help the trail by picking up any trash I see. It makes me sad that people can not see beyond what they do and their way of doing it. If everyone did everything the same way all around the world we would accomplish nothing. There would be no great poets, no great novels, no new music, no good tunes. It would be the death of everything creative in the world.

DTV: Does anything scare you out on the trail?

RB: There are crazies out there like everywhere else in the world. But for the most part it’s not the hikers but random intruders on the trail. Everyone I ever meet hiking or running is amazing. Everyone their own story. I love it. 2,184.2 miles of smiles. I will however be packing heat just in case.

Then you also have to worry about blisters, chafing, dehydration, hyponatrimia, over heating, hypothermia, falling, stress fractures, muscle pulls and strains, rashes, snakes, spiders, ticks, bears, flies, bees, hornets, bacteria, parasites, diarrhea, and vomiting to name a few. Oh yea and my body is going to hate me for trying to be on my feet running or hiking for 15+ hrs a day!

Blisters are inevitable but with the help of a bunch of the world’s toughest socks, Darn Tough Vermont socks, my feet will see less of them and hold up to the trail.

I think, however, my biggest concern of all is keeping enough calories in me so I don’t drop too much weight. I will have to consume some 8,000 calories a day to maintain my current weight. I want you to go look at something you’re eating for lunch or dinner. Look at how many calories it has then figure out how many of those you would need to consume to get 8,000 calories. IT’S A LOT! Now try to eat that all while still moving forward up and over uneven mountain trails. Thankfully Clif has donated some 25 boxes of Clif products to aid me along the way.

For me it’s not about the record, its about adventure and inspiring people. I hope that I can go out there and entertain people while I put myself through hell. I want people to be so inspired they donate money to the American Cancer Society. I know that no matter how much pain I am in that it is nothing compared to the pain of cancer and those who’ve been touched by cancer. I think if I did not run for a cause then I would be selfish. It’s about running for those who can and inspiring those who can to do the same.

If you ask anyone who knows me they will tell you my motto. Run for fun and you always win. I always run for fun. For me it’s not about 1st or last its about the journey. For all the races I am at my goal is to have fun. Although sometimes that fun is winning, I will admit.

DTV: Why the Appalachian Trail? Why not the PCT or CDT or something else?

RB: I am born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. The AT starts in my back yard. Well 2 hours north of my actual backyard. I’ve had a bunch of friends thru hike before and tell me all the crazy stories. I seek adventure every day and this seemed like the ultimate adventure. I train on and around the AT near Blood Mountain. I always start down the AT feeling good. I just keep going and going but then I have to stop myself. I realize I can’t run to the end of the trail in a day like all the other trails around here. This fact really peaks my curiosity. Where does it go? I want to follow the trail until it ends. I want to find the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

The AT will be a life changing event for me I know this. Though one can never really fully prepare for it.

DTV: So then, what’s your strategy?

RB: This is simple. My strategy is to ADAPT. I will adapt to whatever conditions are thrown at me. If its too hot during the day Ill go at night. After all, Petzl sent me some really bright NAO/MYO RXP headlamps!

If I am not getting 50 miles in 15 hours then I’ll go longer. If my feet get so messed up I can’t continue, Ill use duct tape and keep going. I will adapt to whatever I need to be to do this.

I guess this comes back to the word endurance. People misuse this as a word for stamina. This is not true. Just look at the word. ENDURance. The ability to endure. I plan to endure what the trail and mother nature has to throw at me. I want to redefine what people see as endurance.

My goal is to be smiling more than frowning. After all the point of this is to have fun. I hope I can inspire people to get out and run, hike, donate, and inspire others to do the same.

DTV: How can we follow your progress?

RB: To follow my progress along the AT go to www.RunBum.com and like our Facebook page.

DTV: Any last words?

RB: I just hope people understand me as a nice guy who is trying to do the trail in my own way and raise money for a good cause while doing it.

I have to say that this would not be possible without my family, friends, La Sportiva, Cliff Bar, Petzl, Publix, Mix1, Break Through Nutrition, Darn Tough Vermont Socks, Headsweats and RunBum.com

High-Fives for Free Socks

Happy National High-Five Day!

To celebrate this occasion, Darn Tough Vermont is giving away 5 pairs of socks to one lucky winner on Twitter today, April 19, 2012.

There is just one quick step to entering to win 5 pairs of premium, Vermont-made Darn Tough socks! Darn Tough Vermont will choose a winner on Friday, April 20, 2012 and contact them through Twitter via direct message. The winner will be chosen at random from the list of Twitter uses who tweeted the required message.

1. To enter, tweet the phrase below to your friends on Twitter. It must be tweeted @ someone to qualify.

“@____________, Give me a @DarnTough High Five if you like VT-made socks with a lifetime guarantee!”

Happy High-Fiving!

Sunshine and Balls Countdown to the AT Thru-Hike

Winter flew by at warp speed. It seems like only last week that we were coming home from our epic PCT journey. We will begin our new journey on the Appalachian Trail in only days now.

Sunshine emearced herself in school and violin. She earned a 4.0 GPA this winter, so no one at her school objected to her leaving early to hike again. Her Math teacher is sending worksheets to work on while on the trail. I was offered my most recent job back upon our return from the PCT. I have been working hard including weekends to save up for our AT hike.

Sunshine with some favorite "trail food"

Teresa is finishing up her Masters Degree so she has been working as an intern teacher by day and goes to class in the evenings. Most of her weekends are consumed by homework. Sunshine and Butterfly have been helping with the house work.

We have begun training, but because of our schedules, we have not trained nearly as much as we intended. We are both physically fit so really the only thing we need to condition is our feet.

OPB aired our Oregon Field Guide episode on Thursday March 22nd. It is all about our 2011 PCT hike. If you missed it or are not in Oregon, you can see it at: http://www.opb.org/programs/ofg/

We have all our resupply boxes packed and are beginning to put our gear together. I laundered all our hiking clothes last night and I was excited to see our Darn Tough socks again.  Sunshine has already worn them for 2 weeks of training and school. She has very sensitive skin (you know red heads) and we are pleased to know that they performed better than any other sock in the past with no skin reactions. They really are beautiful works of art, especially the Women’s socks.

Sunshine's new tent by Six Moon Designs doubles as a poncho.

We fly out of Portland on the 31st of March. We have a great friend picking us up at the airport and driving us to the trail. Others already on the trail are reporting warm weather with lots of bugs!

We plan to blog here periodically, but will be journaling daily on: www.trailjournals.com/sunshine2012at

Also, we are helping the non-profit ActiveWater raise money for clean drinking water in Zambia, Africa. We committed to raising $2 per mile we hike, for a total of $4334.  This will provide one clean drinking-water well and several home water filters. So far, we aren’t doing very well with achieving this goal. Please go to: www.active.com/donate/activewaterupick/sunshine2012at
and consider what you can do to help us change/save lives. We want our hike to be about something greater than ourselves this year.

Thank you,

-Balls and Sunshine

The Ridiculousness That Is Thru-Hiking

I used to joke with people whenever I was asked the question “Aren’t you worried about crazy people while you’re out there in the woods for months at a time?  “My response was always “Are you serious? I’m going to go hike a few thousand miles with nothing more than what I have on my back.  I am the crazy person!”   Now I wonder if my joke had a little bit more truth to it than I thought.

Chris "Chance" DePolo

My last trip of 2,700 miles down the Continental Divide Trail from Canada to Mexico through Montana, Idaho, Wyoming, Colorado, and New Mexico really broke me down and made me rethink my thru-hiking philosophies.  Just so we are clear I consider thru-hiking and hiking to be very very very different things with very different philosophies.

Hiking is casual and leisurely, you usually have a schedule, you have a destination, you know when you’ll be home, when you will be warm and dry again, you know that you can go cook yourself a warm meal…on a stove…in a kitchen…under a roof, you know that in the near future you will be sleeping in a bed, and you know that (at least if you are smart about it) people know where you are. Since you have a destination and a schedule you probably carry luxuries, maybe a coffee press, a frying pan, tasty food, warm clothes, dry clothes, extra clothes (PS these are all the things I miss if you hadn’t guessed), extra food, and maybe a good beer or liquor.  You also aren’t hiking from sunup to sundown.  You probably chose your campsites before you even started your hike so you have a set mileage per day and you know when you get there you can stop, take a load off, setup camp, and relax.  Who knows, maybe you even have a campfire and cook s’mores!

As a thru-hiker you have a destination (but it’s so far off that you try not to think about it), your schedule is almost nonexistent and based only upon the good graces of mother nature and the amount of food in your backpack, you don’t necessarily know when you will be warm or dry again (or when you won’t be sweating and concerned about water if it’s the desert), you’re not sure when you’ll be done or even if you will make it, and unless you’re carrying a personal locator beacon or have just recently checked with someone there is a good chance that only other hikers (if there happen to be any) know where you are at.

You don’t carry much more than a shelter (maybe just a 5′ x 8′ tarp with no bug netting), a backpack (smaller than you can imagine), a sleeping pad (some uncomfortable super ultralight aka UL foam thing), a sleeping bag (that’s your warm layer), about two pounds of food for each day on your however many day stretch, and just enough (or maybe not enough) water to get you to the next water source.  You probably have one extra pair of socks, but certainly not an extra pair of clothes.  Depending on the terrain and location you may or may not have bothered with rain gear.  If it isn’t likely to rain more than a few days out of a 700 mile desert stretch in Southern California then why bother right?

Maybe you carry a UL alcohol or wood burning stove but if you do chances are you don’t do more than boil water with it.  If you’re really into the UL scene you probably don’t even bother with a stove.  After all it’s not food you’re eating, just fuel for the fire.

The saying goes something like “the more I carry the more I like camping, the less I carry the more I like hiking” and we thru-hikers have really taken that to the extreme.  You obviously don’t wear boots and probably haven’t in longer than you can remember.  When it snows you put on your warmest socks and just accept the fact that your feet are going to be wet and probably cold.  You probably just crossed a stream full of snow-melt runoff so what good would boots do anyways.

All of the above probably sounds a bit ridiculous to you right?  It sounds absolutely ridiculous to me too right now, but that’s just because I’m sitting here with the luxuries of a place I like to call Home.

You know when it didn’t sound absolutely ridiculous?  When I was climbing up and hiking along the Continental Divide Trail anywhere from 11,000 to 14,000 feet through Colorado.  I felt every single ounce and every single little minuscule gram in my pack as I was gasping for air that just didn’t hold enough oxygen for me to catch my breath.

Am I crazy?  Maybe a little bit.  Would I do it all over again?  In a heartbeat…

-Chris “Chance” DePolo

The Run Bum Attempts an Appalachian Trail Speed Record

Hello. I am Sean “Run Bum” Blanton. I am 25 years old, born and raised in Atlanta Georgia. I am a city boy turned mountain goat. I used to travel around the world and then I started running. This lead to trail running. I began to test my limits. I have now combined my love of travel and love of running. I live to run mountains. I have had the good fortune to be able to run in the Himalayas, the Alps, Appalachians, Rockies, Hawaii, Alaska, British Columbia, all over the Caribbean, Tahiti, Samoa, and all over America from north to south and east to west. Wherever there are mountains and trails I will find them.

Red Top Rumble, 11.5 mile trail race in GA. I took 2nd.

I have run 70 + ultra marathons in the last 3 and a half years or so. I have won some races and finished last as well. It’s all about the experiences. I have been all over the world and met some awesome people. I tell people I run for fun and I may not win but I have the most fun.

My life is about adventure and doing what those say is impossible. No mountain goes on forever, all trails end, it always gets worse and your imagination can take you places you will never know unless you let it.

Right now I am fully dedicated to breaking the Appalachian Trail speed record which stands at 46 days and change. For the 2,181-mile trail that averages out to about 46 miles per day. My goal is 50+ miles per day. About 2 marathons a day on a trail that bites back. Countless climbs, rocks, roots and animals. I trust my feet to Darn Tough.

Training for the Appalachian Trail and doing the Appalachian Trail is hard to explain. I will sum it up as this. It’s like trying to put the square peg in the circle hole. It doesn’t fit so you get a hammer. You smash it down in there as hard as you can.

I really hope to be an inspiration to others to get out there and do something. Adventure is always around the corner. Never be afraid to venture!

Blood Mountain, Appalachian Trail, GA

I wake up every day with one goal in my head. How am I going to climb MY Mt. Everest today. Everyday is different. It could be speed training or 30 miles of mountain running. It’s my way of living the Darn Tough lifestyle.

-Run Bum

Wyoming Winter Playground

It didn’t feel like negative 2 degrees. Maybe, I was too giddy about the adventure ahead to notice. It was the second day on a holiday vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming with my extended family. My parents had offered to ski at the resort with our 8-year old boys while my husband, Phil, and I took a day in the Teton backcountry.

Matt, my brother-in law from Oregon, joined us and we met up with Warren, an old friend from Vermont who had offered to guide us on a run down the classic Glory Bowl off Teton Pass. It was well after 9 am – after strapping avalanche beacons to chests, and skis and snowboards to packs – then we began to hike.

Hiking up.

At over 9,000 feet, we paused frequently to gasp and take in breathtaking surroundings, from birdsong in nearby pines to sweeping vistas of basin and range.  After an hour, we stood atop a short and steep cirque named Little Tuckerman’s, namesake to New Hampshire’s iconic ravine. After an elation-fueled photo session, we got to the business of getting down. Warren assessed the conditions and recommended that we crisscross the bowl and navigate our way through a powder-laden forest.

Navigating Little Tuckerman's

One at a time, we tracked across snow that changed in an instant from wind-swept powder to wind-scoured crud. Although exhilarated at the grandness of it all, I was slightly trembling from the exposure, and found myself making hockey-stop, tele-turns down the ridge. My companions made graceful arcs on their snowboards and once we entered the woods, joyful hoots ricocheted off the trees. Camaraderie common to the backcountry was all there in the appreciation of another’s riding style or the witness of an impressive “pillow” launch.

Antler Arch

Finding ourselves where we started on the highway was bittersweet. We would return to our families and enjoy four more sunny days of snow time on resort corduroy with our kids and relatives.  However, each lookout from the chairlift beckoned awesome possibilities from towering spines of the Teton Range.

-Kelly Ault

Sunshine and Balls: A Thru-Hiking Family

I love long distance backpacking!  I hiked the entire Pacific Crest Trail (2,652 miles) in sections between 2002 to 2010.  I only had one problem.  I was having a hard time finding other people who wanted to hike 20 plus miles a day in the usually rainy North West weather.

Both my daughters have gone backpacking with the family since they were babies.  I noticed that my oldest particularly thrived on it.  By the time she was 4, she carried her own gear and would ask me to make the trip longer each time because she wanted to beat her own distance record.  I knew early on that she would someday be my long distance hiking partner.

She was always asking to thru-hike the PCT with me for as long as I can remember.  Thru-hiking is defined as hiking a long trail completely in one continuous trip. I agreed to put our financial affairs in order so we would be ready by the time she graduated from high school.

With some painful twists of fate and a bad economy, our door of opportunity was opened 7 years early.  After loosing my job of 17 years, I came home suppressing the tears and said “I have great news Reed, we’re thru-hiking the PCT this year”!

Sunshine (Reed’s trail name) and I started on the Mexican border April 29th, 4 days before her 11th birthday.  As many as 600 people started the trail that spring, Sunshine of course being the youngest by many years.  We had perfect cool weather conditions in the desert, but the snow level in the Sierra Mountains was the highest on record.  We hiked over 500 miles in Central California through snow, ice, and water crossings.  The warm dry weather held out through all of Oregon and most of Washington.  It only rained on us 3 days in Washington and it began to snow the last 1/2 hour of our final day. We arrived to Canada in just under 5 months.

It was by far the toughest year on record and fewer than 100 thru-hikers completed the trail.  

Sunshine and Balls at the end of the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)

Sunshine continues to be very goal driven and plans to complete the triple crown of hiking (PCT 2,652 miles, AT 2,100 miles, and CDT 3,100 miles).  As long as she desires this dream, I am committed to helping her achieve it, putting my life and career on hold for now.

We are very proud to represent Darn Tough Socks this year, and excited to use their superior products.  We used 3 different brands of socks last year, but none of them lasted.  Some wore out in as little as 3 days of use.  Sunshine had an allergic reaction to one brand that gave her an extremely painful rash.

We are starting the Appalachian trail on April 1st of this year.  Please follow along as I plan to periodically update readers on this site and blog daily on Trailjournals.com/sunshine2012at throughout our journey.

-Balls and Sunshine

Climbing Kilimanjaro for the Kids: Climb Up So Kids Can Grow Up

Climb Up Kilimanjaro is a unique fundraising event that pairs an athletic challenge to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania with the goal of helping African children with AIDS. Created for serious hikers and trekkers by the American Foundation for Children with AIDS (AFCA), Climb Up Kilimanjaro is an expedition of a life time.

Darn Tough Vermont is proud to support this effort.

What follows is a synopsis of the final push for the summit by Tanya Weaver, Executive Director of the American Foundation for Children with AIDS. Enjoy!

Why we did it!

It is not so late – perhaps only 6pm, but it is cold. Like, really, really cold.  I find myself shivering as I look for something comfortable to wear now that I’ve managed to wash my hair in only one cup of water.  Who knew that was even possible?  Thank  goodness for short hair!  But, now that my hair is wet, I am cold.  So, with my handy headlamp on, I fumble in my bag, looking for what I know will help me.  Out comes my awesome Polarmax shirts and pants, followed by my favorite socks of all time –my Darn Tough socks.  I put these thick Merino wool socks on top of some liners and immediately started to feel warmer.  I tuck myself into my sleeping bag to read a bit before hitting the sack (literally), but before I knew it, it was 11 p.m. and a voice is calling through the tent door, “Tanya, it is time to get up…we ascend tonight”.

With a feeling of anticipation and with my contacts practically stuck to my eyeballs, I make my way out of the tent, not believing the stars above me.  It is dizzying seeing so many stars!  It is wonderful, though. We are about to embark on the last push to the top of Kilimanjaro and I just can’t wait. It is something I dreamed of doing at 16 and here it is, finally my turn to make it to the top. After a cup of tea, a light dinner, and a cup of hot chocolate, my team and I are ready to make a move. It is dark. It is a bit intimidating as I look up and up and up and all I can see is tiny headlamps which look like the lights on a Christmas tree.  They climb and climb above me and I decide not to look up anymore. Instead, I decide this is the night I need to listen to music, so I pop my ear pieces in and soon, I am climbing to the rhythm of favorite songs.

The climb goes on forever, it seems.  In the dark it is hard to know how long time has gone by.  As we stop for a quick break (3 minutes…no more…they don’t want us to get hypothermia), I ask my team mates if they are warm.  Everyone grunts or shakes a head to say that they are fine.  Someone offers, “I cannot believe that my feet are still warm!” While my hands needed a quick rub from the porters because I quit feeling them, my feet are doing well.  Three minutes are up…time to move again.  We follow this pattern for hours.  Finally, finally – the sun comes up and I find myself grinning like an idiot behind my balaklava because we are standing above the sunrise.  Clouds are beneath us and the sun makes its presence known.  We feel warm, not because the sun is hot (it is not), but because we know we are going to make it.  We know we are almost there.

And sure enough…another hard push or two, and we make it to the top.  The glorious view is there to be touched.  The silence of gratitude to all who helped us make it engulfs us.  Then, the celebration starts in my toes and makes its way to my belly and then to my lips and I want to sing.  What a journey it has been!  What an adventure.  What started a year ago with fundraising, planning and exercising has become a memory I’ll keep forever.  My team is amazing…I love every woman on that team for what they did for our kids, for what they continue to do and for the lives they changed.  All because they got up one morning and said “I can climb a mountain to help someone else”.  And, we did it.

38,000+ feet. 14 women. 0 blisters. 0 cold feet (I asked). Thousands of children helped. The trip of a lifetime.

Thanks a million, Darn Tough!  We hope you will always outfit our teams!

-Tanya Weaver, Executive Director of the American Foundation for Children with AIDS

Traveling Landscapes by Bike – The BC Bike Race

In July, my husband, Phil, and I took our enthusiasm northwest to race the BC Bike Race – a seven-day mountain bike stage race from Vancouver to Whistler. We had signed up the previous year as a way to celebrate our ten-year anniversary and 40^th birthdays. We couldn’t have picked a more blissful adventure. For that one week, daily life was fairly simple: wake up, eat breakfast, race mountain bikes, socialize, eat dinner, and sleep. For seven consecutive days, we wound along the most mind-blowing singletrack through deep woods, coastal inlets, and along mountain ridges.

Each 50-65 km course unfolded differently: sometimes we would face technical, ledgy spines and rocky drops. Other trails were lined with slippery, moss and mud-covered root ladders, or fern-laden, sweeping berms. Slow, steep, switchback climbs followed by fast, sandy, double-track descents kept it interesting. And, the bridges! Whether wide or narrow, short or long, you could count on being surprised by beautifully-built features along the way.

 

Camaraderie was high among the race’s 450 riders from around the world. I befriended “pods” of riders throughout each race and playfully leap frogged places with an inspiring group of women. Phil and I discovered that Vermont’s landscapes – spring’s muddy backroads and summer’s diverse trail networks – had prepared us well. Our fitness and technical savvy only improved each day through the pure immersion of racing hard. I found myself on the podium five out of the seven days and finished third overall in the Master’s category. Phil was psyched with a 7^th place overall finish in the Master’s men and finishing 36^th out of 450 in one timed downhill. As Phil put it, the BC Bike Race was the hardest, yet most satisfying and transformative racing we’ve ever done.

A Visit from Mitchell the Dinosaur and Kylie

We talk a lot about how great it is to be making socks here in Vermont at our family hosiery mill. The people we work with are second to none, the socks are made closer to where they’re sold and we make our socks ourselves — if you’re serious about making something, you make it yourself!

Kylie holding Mitchell the Dinosaur

But one of the things we often forget is just how nice it is to be here in Vermont, USA, where people can come visit us and check out what we do. We remember growing up as kids and taking field trips to factories and plants. Seeing the machinery was so cool! It’s getting harder and harder for kids to have these opportunities, since so many manufacturing plants have gone overseas.

Today at our mill we had the pleasure of meeting Mitchell the dinosaur and Kylie. Mitchell came to visit Vermont from a class in St Louis, MO.  He is visiting with a little girl, Kylie, who lives locally and loves our socks. She brought Mitchell by for a visit with the DTV customer service team.  Mitchell of course had to try on some socks to find out what all the buzz was about.  He liked them so much that he picked up some stickers for the class he will be going back to and a pair of socks for his owner, Carter, in St. Louis.

Mitchell trying on some Darn Tough kids socks.

Mitchell travels from his home to other places, taking pictures and writing about his trip along the way before he returns home.  Really a neat assignment for younger kids to teach them about other areas!

Thanks for visiting, Mitchell and Kylie. We’re glad we could show you around!