Porter and Pace Have Just a LITTLE Hiking Experience

On July 4, 2003, Matt and Shelley started to hike the Northville-Placid Trail in the Adirondacks of New York State. The first night they met Mike, a guy with a leather hat, long hair, a pipe, and a 70 POUND backpack. Strange they thought.

Mike looked at this husband and wife team as they hiked in and saw a small chair on the back of Porter's backpack. He thought they must really be rookies to hike with a chair! Okay, it was a little backpacking chair, but still, it was a chair.

Little did we know that from July 5th forward we would become good friends and faithful hiking partners. Here is a run-down of our hiking experience and who was in the hiking party.

• July 2003 Northville-Lake Placid Trail – New York -  133-miles 
• Matt & Shelley (Porter & Dreamer) met Mike (Pace) this first trip and hiked two weeks together. This was the trip the guys were talking about hiking the Long Trail and the Appalachian Trail dream.
• July 2004 Long Trail – Vermont – 272 miles 
• Porter, Dreamer & Pace - This is where our trail names came to be. It rained 25 out of 30 days in Vermont. It was the wettest summer in 100 years. Still, it was fun.
• July 2005 Cohos Trail – New Hampshire – 162 miles 
• Pace, Porter & Dreamer - we walked into a beautiful historic resort hotel. The bellman took our backpacks up to the room on a brass cart. Very fancy.
• December 2006 - January 2007 - The Ocala National Forest, Florida - 75 miles
• Porter, Dreamer and Porter's sister "Burps" known in the real world as Liz.
• August – October 2008 – 46 High Peaks – New York 
• 46 mountain peaks higher than 4,000 feet 
• Porter and Pace became 46's in about 2.5 months. Dreamer only completed 11 high peaks and Burps was pushing closer to her 46.
• August 2009 – Wonderland Trail – Washington State – 93 miles
• Pace, Burps, Dreamer & Porter - this was the most beautiful and amazing trip yet. Perfect weather for two full weeks.
• August 2010 – West Coast Trail – British Columbia – 47 miles
• Pace, Burps, Dreamer & Porter - can you say FOG? It was fogged in solid on the coast for the entire trip. It was awesome to walk on the beach and to see whales from the shore.

So the journey of Pace and Porter starts on Monday. Dreamer will send them on their way. It's only a couple of sleeps and off they go.

Dreamer