re: Just another reason to CC if hiking the Appalachian Trail. (update)

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also known by his trail name of 'Sovereign,'

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What's this "Trail name" sh*t? Never knew Appalachian Trail hikers are cool with fake names like we use posting on TD's. Do you guys that hike there go by your real name, your TD's name, or something else?

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Just jogging shorts and no belt.

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Ive used a paddle holster clipped onto my pack belt.

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Ribz Wear front pack.

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Generally, though, once you cross over into 'Yankeeland" on the trail, you are going to encounter strict CC and open carry regulations

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An extra 4-6 pounds for 15-25 miles a day would suck.

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A 380 like my Kahr CW380 that's small enough to fit in nearly all pockets weighs only 10.2 oz, unloaded. Even a 9mm like my Kahr CM9 or Kimber Micro 9 doesn't weigh much more at approx 16 oz, unloaded.

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Get a nice holster (I'd go w/ an OWB holster w/ the gun at the 4 o'clock position), a light gun, an extra mag and a belt designed to carry a holster and you'll be good to go. 

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An extra 4-6 pounds for 15-25 miles a day would suck.


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A 380 like my Kahr CW380 that's small enough to fit in nearly all pockets weighs only 10.2 oz, unloaded. Even a 9mm like my Kahr CM9 or Kimber Micro 9 doesn't weigh much more at approx 16 oz, unloaded.


1 pound empty....

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Get a nice holster (I'd go w/ an OWB holster w/ the gun at the 4 o'clock position), a light gun, an extra mag and a belt designed to carry a holster and you'll be good to go.


It's now 4 pounds.

I'm not carrying an extra 4 pounds unless I'm in thick cougar country.

No one will do that with serious miles to do.

Eta....clearly my downvoters don't have a clue.

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you will find serious discussions about how much weight you can shed by cutting the bottom half off of your toothbrush and drilling a bunch of tiny holes in the remaining handle.

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As plans for his thru-hike came together, Sanchez shared his vision with his care providers at the VA. He agreed to participate in a neurological study tracing how long-distance hiking helped with recovery from PTSD. He looked forward to who he might be when he was finished—and who he might be able to help along the way. He told his cycling buddies he was going on a journey to find himself again.

“Ron was very clear that completing the Appalachian Trail would be a culminating point for him,” says Bond. “Like so many veterans, he saw the trail as a safe place to process his emotions and find the self-efficacy to meet internal challenges.”

Sanchez knew he wanted to take his time on the trail. He wanted solitude and space to think. And so, just after the New Year, Sanchez and Kelley packed up her aging dog and traveled the nearly 900 miles to Springer Mountain, Georgia, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. On January 19, they spent a freezing night at Amicalola Falls State Park and then hiked the approach trail leading up the snow-covered mountain. Kelley spent another night with him alone at the Springer Mountain shelter before returning to Oklahoma.

Meanwhile, Sanchez pressed up the trail. The weather was miserable for his first couple of weeks, and he’d text Kelley and Bond photos of ice-covered trees or gales so fierce he could lean into the wind with his full body weight. He told them it was hard going—that conditions were harsher than he imagined. “But that harshness was part of what he went out to seek,” says Kelley. “He was thankful that he got to experience that.”

A couple weeks into his hike, Sanchez settled on his trail name: Engineer. He thought it was a good moniker to represent him; it was unassuming, basic, and most of all, true.

But that’s not how it works on the Appalachian Trail, where fellow hikers dub one another with symbolic names based on traits and habits they observe. Leave your gear all over the place, and you’ll get the title Yardsale. Eat jerky for breakfast and you’ll wind up with something like Beefstick. When Sanchez told a father-daughter hiking duo about his time in Iraq, they came up with their own name for him: Stronghold. He resisted it—he worried it made him seem like a braggart, like he thought he was a badass. But other hikers liked it. And so the name stuck.

In early March, about a hundred miles into his hike, Stronghold’s knees began bothering him. He got off the trail in Franklin, North Carolina, and made his way to the Gooder Grove Adventure Hostel. There, he befriended hostel owner Colin “Zen” Gooder, a former thru-hiker himself. Sanchez said he needed a break to heal up. Gooder offered free board in exchange for some work around the hostel.

Sanchez spent two weeks there, resting his knees and trying to get back on track. He was discouraged about his injuries and wondering if he could go on. Zen told him about his own challenges. He suggested that Stronghold just needed to rest for a while and then he’d be able to continue.

So Stronghold stuck around and helped Gooder turn over rooms and do laundry. He started looking after the hostel when Zen needed to shuttle other hikers around. Along the way, they became good friends.

“He was the sweetest, most compassionate hiker I have met on the trail,” says Gooder. “Rarely have I met a more genuine person. He was a good soul.”

And Sanchez was clearly dialed in as a hiker. He showed Gooder how he had made some of his own gear, how he’d employed military surplus and medical supplies to get his pack superefficient and superlight. When he left the hostel, he promised Gooder he’d return when they could spend more time together.

Sanchez made it as far as Damascus, Virginia—about 466 miles—before deciding to call it quits in mid-April. He phoned Kelley and told her he needed to come home. She made the round-trip to pick him up and bring him back to Oklahoma. He told her he thought the trail might be too much for him, that he was feeling lonely and that the time inside his own head was really hard. She listened and said there was no shame in quitting.

But after five days in Oklahoma, Sanchez told her he wanted to return. “That’s the thing about the Appalachian Trail,” says Kelley. “It has that draw. The trail always pulls you back.”

Sanchez decided that, before getting back on trail, he’d need to get grounded again. He spent time with his therapists at the VA. He went for a few hikes with the Meetup group, where he was very frank about the challenges he had been experiencing. Still, he said, he knew he wanted to finish.

Kelley drove Sanchez back to Damascus in early May. Stronghold spent a few nights at a hostel there, gearing up to get back on the trail. There he met Bob Walker, a section hiker. The two shared a bunk room alone together that first night. Walker says he was initially surprised by how candid Sanchez was about the obstacles he had overcome. “He definitely saw himself as wanting to be an example,” he says. “He thought that if he was open about the trouble he had gone through, that someone else out there who had had difficulties might see that there was a way to get past it.”

The two teamed up with a few other hikers back on trail. Sanchez, they say, was the kind of guy who would rush ahead to hold a door for you at a resupply store or who made sure you got the best spot to sleep in a shelter. They spent their last night together on May 9. Sanchez told the group he was done with shelters for a while—he wanted to start tenting on the trail.

The next day, a Friday, was gorgeous, sunny, with temperatures in the seventies. By then Stronghold had made his way to Jefferson National Forest. He texted Kelley, telling her about the birds he’d heard that morning—a thrush, he said, and one that seemed to sing “drink-your-tea, drink-your-tea.” Later he texted again to say he’d remembered the name of that bird, a towhee. As the day went on, he spammed her with photos of wildflowers, asking her to identify each one.

“He was so happy to be back on the trail,” says Kelley. “He loved how everything was so green and alive compared to the browns and grays he was used to in the first part of his hike.” He told Kelley and Bond that he was feeling more confident than ever that he could finish his thru-hike.

It’s still not entirely clear what happened later that night. What we do know is that James Jordan, who had been arrested in April in conjunction with a series of complaints from other hikers, began harassing Sanchez and the small group of backpackers with whom he had been hiking that day. We know Jordan threatened them that night after they had retired to their individual tents, screaming that he would “pour gasoline on their tents and burn them to death.”

We also know that the group decided the safest thing to do at that point was to pack and up and move elsewhere, even though by then it was after midnight. We know Jordan approached them as they were collecting their gear, this time brandishing a large knife. Sanchez managed to push out an emergency SOS call before the attack escalated.

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