Occupation: Structural firefighter/paramedic

Hobbies: Hiking, camping, kayaking, fishing, shooting, reading.

When I started thinking way too much about zombies: 1988-ish

What started my zombie fixation: I like the fact that zombies mirror the inescapable fate we all must face: the unavoidable decay of time, and death. They are slow, mindless, relentless and merciless.


Favorite zombie movie: Dawn of the Dead (1978) - the first zombie movie I ever saw.

Favorite quote in any zombie movie: "brraaiinnsss"

Favorite zombie book: The Book of All Flesh - Good anthology of zombie short stories, volume one of three.


I am of the opinion that the best melee weapon is the one with which you are the most familiar. I understand that the machete is short, lightweight, and susceptible to becoming stuck in bone. It has its weaknesses like any other tool. The machete in this photo is 20 years old and still has a keen edge. I have used it since I was 13, clearing brush for neighbors and friends every summer for spending cash. I can cut through a tree as thick as a beer bottle with three well-placed strikes. I have used it for hours on end and know how to change my grip on the handle when I get fatigued. I camp with it and have never needed a hatchet - it can handle any job that doesn't require a full-sized wood axe. I am confident that a solid swing would amputate a forearm or, at the very least, render it useless. The machete's light weight means I will never over-extend myself if I miss. It is short enough that it can be used in close quarters. I can pick and choose my targets, cutting off out-stretched hands, chopping patellar tendons, or hamstringing zombies to dispatch them more easily. And despite its agility, the machete is still heavy enough to split a skull with a solid strike. This is not to say that other weapons are inferior, by any means. But I know this one well, and it's definitely my current top pick. Mental note: replace my lanyard.










And for open field work, I think the brush axe would be a good pick. Plenty of reach affords you the opportunity to sweep a shambler's legs and then dispatch it at you leisure.






Just for giggles, the trailer-hitch flail. I made this when I was 14 - that's the kind of thing all the farm boys do with their spare time, right? I understand it would be virtually useless for fighting zombies, but thought it was an amusing example of the type of improvised weapon people can fabricate with items on hand.





For those not familiar with it, the Appalachian Trail, (AT) is a 2,175 mile long, marked trail that runs from Georgia to Maine. It mostly sticks to the ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains, ranges in difficulty from easy to strenuous (rock scramble) and occasionally crosses towns and waterways.

Since these plans can be pretty situational, I'll make a few assumptions:

1) These are the shambler-type zombies. They are unintelligent, slow and clumsy, but relentless. As long as they can see, smell or hear you, they will attempt to get to you, unless a better target presents itself.

2) They are not subject to starvation or decomposition. In other words, you can't just wait them out. That doesn't make for much of an apocalypse in my opinion. They will continue to function until you brain 'em.

3) I understand some people in this community live in fortified bunkers on top of a mountain and surrounded by an alligator and piranha-filled moat, but for the sake of argument, let's assume you're like me and you live in a single story wood-frame rancher in the middle of a city of 180,000 people, 95% of whom are zombies. Given a day or two of preparation my home might be defensible, but I'd run out of food and water in a month. My legacy would be a very skinny corpse clutching a rifle in the attic of a house that is surrounded by a few hundred disappointed zombies. Staying in a zombie-infested city is not my best option.

4) I prefer to prepare for a zombocalypse in which modern society and infrastructure will collapse. There will be no "magic bullet" in the foreseeable future. The military has dissolved - they will not be hitting the zombies with deadly nerve gas and cleaning up the stragglers with flamethrowers.

So, given a scenario where fleeing the major population centers is desirable, I'm considering this as a potential plan:

First Stage (Get There): I have a 4-wheel drive truck. Load up my BOB, rifle, and hiking/camping gear. Take the secondary roads to the closest trail head in the Shenandoah Valley (VA), where I'd meet up with my hiking buddy. In the event that we don't make it to the trailhead at the same time, we'd need to make arrangements to leave directions at a pre-determined location. For instance, if I get there and don't see his truck, I'd leave a note sealed in a ziploc bag, buried under a rock to the rear of the Maupin Field Shelter.

Second Stage (Guerrilla Hike): Once we meet, leave the trucks and hike the trail, raiding unoccupied farmhouses and villages for supplies when needed. This would be some real Red Dawn, mujahideen-style living. This stage could last weeks, months or years, depending on how successful we are with the...

Third Stage (Home At Last): Search for a long term stronghold - a defensible cabin, mountain retreat, or enclave of survivors.

These are the strengths and weaknesses I've imagined with this plan:




- All the sections of the AT I've hiked crossed a stream at some point. Water shouldn't be a problem. Food can be found as long as you don't have a sensitive palate. Deer, snakes, mice and squirrels are plentiful. The Virginia section of the AT is also where a hiker is most likely to encounter black bears. Worms and grubs can be found in rotting trees. I think the streams would be a major source of food for me - they contain trout, crayfish, minnows, and larvae, all of which are easy to gather and make for a good source of protein. I also know how to string a trotline. Farms in the valley may still have livestock. There are many AT Society lean-tos along the trail and people frequently leave canned goods there. Those will be on a first-come, first-serve basis, of course. It will be more difficult to find food in the winter, but if the zombies are frozen, one can more safely inspect settlements for supplies.

- Most of the AT is very rural. Zombies are not likely to find their way to the trail, and if they do I expect they would be few and far in between. This is probably the greatest strength of the AT plan; get as remote as possible to reduce your exposure to the zombies. A possible worst-case scenario would be an infected tour bus that stops at a trail head, but something like that is such a small risk that it is an acceptable risk.

- Zombies that do make it on the trail will have a difficult time navigating the more strenuous sections, and will be just as likely to wander off-trail as they would be to stay on it.

- You are not likely to be observed on the trail by humans or zombies in the valley, even in the winter, unless you are wearing blaze orange. Camo would go a long way here.

- Temperatures at this elevation reach freezing in the winter. You could use this period of safety to more thoroughly search villages and towns for supplies, evidence of survivors, and for potential stronghold locations.

- The trail is a good vantage point from which to observe settled areas on the valley floor. During the geurrilla stage, a hiker would pick an isolated farm house to observe. Watch it for 24 hours. Is it fortified? Are the windows boarded up? Does the chimney ever emit a wisp of smoke? Are there zombie corpses littering the perimeter of the property, or a pile of them out back waiting to be buried or burned? Is there evidence of foot traffic around the property? If the answer is yes to any of those questions, the property would be considered occupied and left alone. Perhaps it could be marked on the map as a potential contact point.

- There are many cabins and vacation homes in the Appalachian Mountains. Any of them could be potential restocking depots, campsites, or strongholds.




- Just getting there may be a problem, depending on what stage the outbreak is in when I leave. Shouldn't be a problem if I leave early, but if it's late enough to snarl traffic, that 2-hour drive to the closest trailhead is going to be a big obstacle. I'd be carrying a bicycle in the bed of the truck as my hold-out means of transportation.

- It would be best to have a trail buddy for this plan. You will be most vulnerable when night falls and you need to sleep; you'll need someone to stand watch. This is the time when a zombie that has been following you all day but lagged behind and out of sight will finally catch up with you.

- The rifle I have is a M-1 Garand and it's too heavy to make a good camp rifle. I'd want to exchange it for a carbine if the looting opportunity ever presented itself.

- Campfires would have to be severely limited. We could use a multi-fuel campstove for most of the cooking, but a fire would occasionally be needed for heat, light and morale. During the day the smoke would be visible to zombies and humans, during the night the light would be visible. Smoke can be reduced by building very small fires with dry wood, and building them underneath thick stands of trees so the smoke is filtered and dispersed. You'd have to take care to not light off the trees, of course. Light can be reduced by building the fire in a low area, in a cave, or near a rocky outcropping.

- Traveling during a new moon would be especially dangerous. In this case, you might have no choice but to maintain a large fire for light.

- Sleeping arrangements. If you are hiking with a group you could set watches and camp off the trail in an area with a lot of leaf litter and underbrush so the noise of the approaching zombie alerts you. If you're alone, though, sleeping on the ground will be deadly. There is a good chance you won't hear a zombie approaching - tents or sleeping bags would be like gift wrap. The best solution I've come to is treestands like this, placed approximately 10' off the ground:


They weigh as little as 10-15 pounds and this one costs about $50. You would probably want to invest in the climbing belt and boot spikes as well. You would have to tie yourself to the tree to sleep, but it's better than sleeping on the ground and exposing yourself to a wandering zombie. I am loathe to add this much weight to a hiking pack, but I can think of no better alternative. I am open to suggestions! The other issue with roosting in a tree for the night is the possibility of waking up with a few zombies at the base of the tree, staring up at you with their mouths open. My melee weapon is a machete, and doesn't have the reach to safely chop a zombie in the head from a 10' platform. Fashioning a spear might work, but I'm not terribly keen on lugging a spear around during an extended hike. I was thinking of a device I've heard others affectionately term the "Yo-Yo of Doom." Tie a heavy (30 lbs?) rock to a length of para-cord, drop it on the zombie's head repeatedly until you crush its skull. Again, I welcome any suggestions to improving this portion of the plan.

- Zombush! The trail is very narrow and there are plenty of places where a zombie could be concealed. There's always a chance you could be strolling along and a zombie could lurch out from behind a boulder you just passed. Your head would really need to remain on a swivel. One would probably want to keep a melee weapon drawn at all times for this reason.

- Most of the sections of the AT I've hiked have been in VA, a few in NC. None of them passed what I would consider "dangerously close" to a town where there might be high concentrations of zombies. Typically, there is a trail head in a relatively populated zone, accessible by car, and the secondary trail leads up to the AT. Looking at the map, though, it seems like the trail passes right through some towns. I'd love to get some input from anyone else who has hiked the AT and encountered this scenario. Did the trail deposit you in the middle of a settled area at any point? How common is this? How difficult would it be to circumvent these areas?

- Squatting risks. If we were to find a cabin or vacation home that suited our needs, there is a danger that the rightful owners might show up with the same idea in mind. That could be very ugly. It might be necessary to set up a watch for the living as well as the unliving, with the intent of bugging out if the owners show up. I wouldn't be comfortable with gunning them down as they walked up the driveway, and I would prefer to avoid the conflict that would arise when they figure out that a couple of squatters have been consuming the resources they intended to survive on. That's a killing offense in my opinion. It might be worth considering only homes that are currently occupied by zombies - it could be reasonably safe to assume they are the owners, and it might even be possible to confirm who they are.

So, that's the AT Plan. Any suggestions, critiques? I'm sure there are some other hardships I haven't anticipated. I'd be especially interested in hearing some solutions to the problems with safety at night, concealment of campfires, and sleeping arrangements. Let's please avoid the arguments about why I should stay in the city with 171,000 zombies. Thanks in advance!