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02/02/2022 07:15 AMJennifer Rannestad is taking a hike; not a day hike, not a weekend hike, but a four-month hike on the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain Georgia back to her home in Chester. Rannestad calculates she will walk 1,459 miles on the trail before her journey ends at her home in Chester.
She isn’t continuing from Connecticut to the end of the trail at Mount Katahdin in Maine. She will be hiking approximately two-thirds of the entire distance. Rannestad explained her route decision using one of the acronyms popular with trail hikers: HYOH. It stands for “hike your own hike.”
“That’s what I’m doing,” she said.
Doing it will bring dramatic change to Rannestad’s life. On Friday, April 15, she is retiring from her job as executive director of Essex Meadows, where she has worked for more than 30 years.
An upcoming birthday was key in Rannestad’s planning. She will be 59 years old in May.
“I wanted to do it while I could,” she said. “If not now, when? I’ve talked about doing this my whole life.”
She pointed out her three sons are now adults and living on their own. She and her husband John hiked with all three as a family activity.
Now, Rannestad will be doing most of her hiking alone. John, who will be caring for an elderly golden retriever at home, will join her for short treks and her sister Linda will also do some sections of the trail with her. She and Linda did a week-long hike in Iceland on the Laugavegur Trail, another well-known hiking destination, last summer.
Still, Rannestad said that hiking the trail is so popular that she expects to meet people as she walks. She said at the beginning she expects to walk 10 miles a day but by the end of the trek she expects to be averaging 15 miles daily.
As part of her training regime, Rannestad is walking to work some days, a round-trip of eight miles. On weekends she hikes with a backpack containing two, five-pound bags of sugar and three, five-pound dumbbells to simulate the weight of the pack she will be carrying on the trail.
She aims to have her pack weigh not more than 30 pounds, including food, clothes, a lightweight mattress and down quilt, a water purifier and her tent. Though there are shelters spaced along the trail, Rannestad plans to camp.
“No people snoring,” she said.
To keep the weight down, the hiking poles she will use will also double as tent poles. She will bring two sets of changes of clothes, in addition to what she wears. Trail information suggests wearing one outfit and bringing only one change of clothes. Rannestad is planning, nonetheless, to bring two changes.
“That’s the part that gives me the most trouble, living in the same clothes,” she said.
Every three or four days, Rannestad will go off the trail to the nearest town to replenish supplies and spend a night in a hostel or motel.
She will have a directional app on her cell phone, keeping it on airplane mode not to use up too much power, so that not can she keep track of her progress, but also other people can follow it. She is bringing a back-up charger for power as well.
Rannestad, who says she is starting the hike a bit late in the spring, is somewhat worried about rainy days.
“There can be a lot of rain at that time of year,” she pointed out.
The one real indulgence she is including in her pack is a small umbrella.
Rannestad has no plans yet for what she will do when she returns. She has a skill not associated with the master’s degree she earned in business administration at the University of Connecticut. For three years before coming to Essex Meadows, she was an upholsterer who once planned to open her own business.
She is sure that she will not leave this area.
“I love it here. I love my home,” she said. “Now I have the luxury of having time to recharge.