OK, I’ve got a destination and a timeline and now I get to do the fun part! Prepping!

I have very little experience with the National Parks and I consider myself a novice hiker. I grew up in the southwest in Taos, NM, near the mountains and the Rio Grande Gorge, so I have a fair amount of experience hiking varied terrain but I’ve been living the suburban mom lifestyle for quite a number of years and I wouldn’t currently call myself “rugged.” Or “in great shape.” For the purposes of this project, I am a novice through and through.

I also don’t want to go overboard buying everything under the sun, or downloading every app I see. Decision fatigue is real and my pockets aren’t that deep, so I want to start out with some basic/essential gear and information – things that will get me started and hopefully be useful for a long time.

My wonderful family and friends gave me some birthday gifts to get me started, so here’s what I already have:

• Several general guide books
• A really neat “Adventure Guide” which actually has helpful facts about each park and a place to put a stamp – it’s a great combination of useful and keepsake-y (and small)
• A one-year Admission Pass (most parks require an entry fee)
• A keepsake water bottle with stickers for every park

Based on reading and recommendations from others, the apps I’m going to download to start with are:

I’m not going to go nuts with gear right now but given that Shenandoah appears to be mostly a hiking experience, I’ve started out by purchasing:

• Hiking Boots (mine were over 10 years old)
• Hiking Poles – will be acquired from REI in the next week or so
• A small backpack (There will probably be an entire post related to backpacks at some point. I have a thing for them. Borderline obsession. Can one truly have too many backpacks?)
• Maps! Apps are great but Maps are made of paper and don’t require charging!

I’ll add to the Gear and App stashes as needed. For now, I’m going to manage with the camera on my iPhone, but in the future I may want to upgrade. We’ll see how the iPhone delivers first.