Introduction
If you do an early start on the AT, two things are likely.
First, you will probably have a number of beautiful hiking days.
Second, there is a very high likelihood of hitting a patch of severe weather.
For example, this week the forecast includes two feet of snow and single digit temperatures.
In addition, even for a normal start hurricanes and other things happen.
The simple answer
Be prepared to go off trail and ride out the weather. My wife and I did that for a hurricane and we did it later for a late winter storm.
Longer and more detailed advice
Quoted with permission from Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/AppalachianTrail/s/MjDLTqLP9M
I gave the ‘backpacking in a snowstorm’ thing a try. I didn’t enjoy it, though I’m glad I did it in a controlled setting.
• Walking through snow is hard. It’s a little bit like swimming.
• If you don’t have snowshoes, that will be tough. If your shoes are under the snow as you walk, snow gets in your shoe. If you have gaiters, great. I hope you also have waterproof shoes.
• It’s hard to find running water sources under snow.
• It takes a lot of fuel to melt a usable amount of snow into water.
• Isobutane is very inefficient as it gets colder.
• Hopefully you planned for cold weather sleeping if you’re out there in this season. The snow and wind will make it feel that much colder. Especially if you get a little wet, either from sweat or snowmelt getting your feet wet.
• If you do decide to bail out once weather starts, the chances of finding someone on the road to give you a ride to safety is far lower than if you bail out earlier.
• It can be harder to clearly identify the trail when everything is covered in snow. Even the trees and blazes get covered.
• It can be hard to identify hazards under the snow, such as holes, uneven rocks and roots.
• My suggestion is, unless you have experience in this type of wilderness adventure or are willing to risk it with a very clear bail out plan in place, then get off trail until this is cleared up.
• Most (all?) filters will not tolerate freezing. You have to keep that close to your body to keep it warm.
• You can’t drink ice. If your water bottles freeze, you have to melt it before you can drink it. You have to keep those close to your body / inside your sleeping bag.
• A sleeping bag insulates (duh). If your body is cold, it will insulate that cold. If you pour cold water in an insulated mug, it stays cold. If you pour warm water in an insulated mug, it stays warm. You have to get your body warm as much as you can before getting in your bag. Eat a warm meal / drink some warm liquid. Do some light exercise (pushups, sit-ups, try not to get sweaty) to get your inner body temps up a bit.
• You can heat up water and put it in a Nalgene to help warm up the inside of your bag.
• Put your clothes inside your bag with you.
• Frozen boots are hard to put on. Untie them and loosen them fully the night before. You’ll still have to put on cold shoes, but at least you’ll be able to put them on.
They also had additional comments:
Warm your batteries before charging / decharging them. I keep mine in my sleeping bag with me. My phone will typically be close to my body as well.
Further, and this is true for the iPhone at least, when they are plugged in, they go into a high-powered use mode. If you leave your phone plugged into your battery overnight, it may drain your battery bank more than is helpful. Especially if you have low or no phone service in your area. It increases power to the cellular modem to try to compensate.
I will usually charge it up while I’m awake, and unplugged it before I fell asleep, even if it’s not fully charged. I could resume charging it in the morning.
If you leave your iPhone in Low Power Mode, it will not do this and you can leave it plugged in without this problem. Unfortunately, the iPhone automatically turns off Low Power Mode when it reaches a certain charging threshold. I have worked around this by creating an automation shortcut that will automatically turn low power back on if it turns off. It’s kind of stupid that I have to do this, but it works well.
https://www.facebook.com/share/r/1KpVh6kQrb/?mibextid=wwXIfr