Saucy Hikes

Saucy is back with some exciting updates…the halfway point, 1,000 mile mark, new states, birthday, visitors, and more…

Okay let’s get into it! We’ve been on trail for over 3 months now and that calls for some very big milestones.

(Finally) OUT OF VA!

544 miles later we have finally kicked the Virginia blues and made it out of our home state! Virginia truly had it all — beautiful views, bears, mental breakdowns, hitchhiking, extreme weather, and new friends. Virginia has a reputation on trail for wearing hikers down due to the terrain and number of miles. We absolutely felt this, and our hike is turning much more mental, rather than physical. We now have to switch our mentality entirely, because instead of walking home we’re now walking to Maine! 🤯🤯🤯

Halfway + Hella Miles + Harpers Ferry birthday!

First of all we have walked 1,000 miles! Cue the song “A Thousand Miles”. Mr and Mrs Bug provided some awesome trail magic at this spot as well as balloons!

Next, we have hit both the “spiritual” and “physical” halfway points of the AT. The spiritual halfway point is in Harper’s Ferry, at mile 1,027. We pushed big miles, averaging 21 miles a day, for 2 weeks in order to get to Harper’s for Ladybugs birthday. We walked in the morning of June 12th after chugging some ciders!

It was amazing to reunite with so many hikers we’ve met over the last 3 months and there was much to celebrate!

Some much needed rest was taken in Harper’s Ferry (by that we mean one day), as saucy is dealing with full body heat rash and other overuse injuries from all the miles!

New states, new challenges

We’ve been zipping through states since leaving VA!! West Virginia was all of 3 miles, and “Country Roads” was obviously played at the border (yes, we know it’s technically about western VA). Maryland was a quick 39 miles, which we did over 2 days. We hiked the Maryland section back in 2021, at 17 years old, and that is where we got our inspiration to do the whole thing! So we were very nostalgic to be back in familiar territory and very proud of ourselves to do it in 2 days!

MASON DIXON LINE!!! And duh, we had to glitter our cheeks for this event. Hitting the line was another big milestone, but this one is daunting. Pennsylvania is known to be the worst state on trail, as there is limited water, it smells like manure, and the rocks are insanely brutal (it’s even nicknamed Rocksylvania).

However, Saucy was off to a great start in PA. We’ve been hiking with a great group of us, Tissie, Snowman, and Cold Plunge. We rented a cabin on trail, and it happened to be the same cabin that Ladybugs family stayed at in 2011!

We then hit the physical halfway point of the AT, at mile 1,098.2. The halfway point is home to the “half gallon challenge,” where thru hikers gorge down a half gallon of ice cream. If you know saucy, you know our stomachs would never have taken that well, so we created our own challenge where saucy and Tissie ate a half gallon total.

Don’t be fooled, PA is not all cabins and ice cream. We’ve joked about how every thru hiker gets their week out here for everything to go wrong. This past week was definitely Chameleon’s. She’s dealing with a spider bite, poison ivy, open wounds, and a (minorly) rolled ankle. At this point we’ve gotta amputate that left leg! She’s a tough cookie and taking it all in stride, but it’s made for a challenging week!

World Cup in the woods?

Everyone knows the World Cup can’t happen without Saucy, so trust we’ve been planning our hike around it! We did a short day into town to support the USA against Australia, and have been slowly converting our trail friends to be fans of the beautiful game (the pitchers won them over).

Visitors galore!

Shoutout to all that have visited along this section!! We’ve thoroughly enjoyed having some familiar faces around. Ladybugs parents saved us from a thunderstorm and spoiled us with an Airbnb with a hot tub! And Chameleons parents fed and housed us and a few other trail friends in Harper’s Ferry! Special shoutout to Reilly who brought us some wine and cupcakes for a girls night on trail, and Jocelyn who took us to her home in Gettysburg!! She even gave us a hometown tour, took us to urgent care, and slacked us the next day.

Thanks to all of the support from everyone, whether it be virtual or physical! We wouldn’t be cruising without you🌞