The Journey of Our Clothes

As is with just about everything on this hike, even our clothing situation has been over planned. We noticed that our resupplies happen in a sequence that allows us to conveniently have one resupply to swap our dirty, stinky rags for nice, clean ones. Haley’s parents and friend Amanda live in Tewksbury, so they will be able to exchange clothes between resupplies. My dad will be handling two resupplies in the northern section of the trail, so he will be able to do the same.

In planning, we wanted to make sure we had our favorite clothes for the longest time on the trip. This resulted us in mapping the journey for each set of clothes.

We will start off the journey with our first set. A mere three days into the hike, when Haley’s parents meet us at Spruce Peak shelter, we’ll swap out Set 1 for Set 2. Haley’s parents will take Set 1, wash them, and deliver them to Amanda for our resupply at Lincoln Gap. So for now Set 1 is relaxing with Amanda, and we continue the journey for Set 2.

We hike with Set 2 from Spruce Peak Shelter (Manchester City Area) to the Long Trail Inn. This journey will take about three days. We should be arriving at the Long Trail Inn a bit later in the evening, so one of the first things we will do upon our arrival is throw Set 2 into the wash.

From the Long Trail Inn, we’ll continue north to Lincoln Gap. This section of the journey will take about three days. It is here that we will be resupplied by Amanda. We will swap our Set 2 back for Set 1.

We will continue the journey north with Set 1 from Lincoln Gap to Jonesville. This journey will take about 2 days. At Jonesville we will meet my dad and will swap Set 1 for Set 3.

We then continue on for two more days to Bear Hollow shelter, where my dad will meet us with our final resupply. Here my dad will swap Set 3 for Set 1 and we will continue on towards Canada.

All in all, Set 1 will experience 10 days on the trail, Set 2 will have 5 days, and Set 3 will have 2 days. Based on this plan, most of the time we won’t wear a pair of clothes more than once between cleanings, and on a couple of occasions an outfit will be worn twice.

We are very lucky/spoiled on this trip.