Spending about $3,000 and losing anywhere from 15 to 40 pounds, Epic Flop, Spicy and Gantz trekked the 2,160-mile Appalachian Trail for almost half of 2005.

Of course, those aren't their real names. Epic Flop and Spicy are Joe Knight and Matt McKinney, 2004 Penn State graduates, and Gantz is actually Dave Gantz, a 2004 graduate of Bloomsburg University. They adopted the pseudonyms just like all hikers do on the trail that runs between Georgia and Maine.

Knight, McKinney and Gantz spoke about their experiences to about 30 people on Saturday night at an event sponsored by the Penn State Outing Club and Appalachian Ski & Outdoors, 123 South Allen St.

Each year about 2,000 people attempt to hike the trail, but only about 10 percent succeed, said the trio. Hikers typically begin in Georgia and wind up through 11 states along the East Coast before reaching Katahdin, Maine, the northern terminus. This was the route Knight and McKinney chose, but Gantz chose to do things differently and hiked from north to south. This is uncommon because of bad weather, insects and a lack of company.

That was the point for Gantz, who wanted to be alone.

"I wanted to immerse myself in the woods and see what happened," he said.

There were times when the solitude drove him crazy, he said. He was not lonely, but rather mentally unsatisfied. He had no books, no paper and no people to talk to. The only thing he had were "shelter notebooks" found in the shelters every 10 to 15 miles. Hikers, known only by their pseudonyms, offered Gantz comfort by providing their stories of the trail in the notebooks. He found himself reading the tales of people he met in Vermont all the way to Georgia.

"Personally, it was a story I read every night," Gantz said.

Although Knight and McKinney often had others with them, the expedition proved to be difficult as well. Knight encountered unexpected issues when he finally crossed the state line into Maine and was ready to go home. Instead of rejoicing, he realized he still had 280 miles, the equivalent of three weeks of hiking, to go.

Knight also lost two toenails after buying inappropriately sized shoes for his then-size 13 feet. When people hike for an extended period of time, the arches in their feet break down due to the weight they carry, and their feet get bigger. Knight now wears a size 16.

But the people he met along the 2,000-plus-mile journey were exceptional, he said. It wasn't rare to have someone offer food and shelter in places like Miss Janet's Hostel in Tennessee, where for less than $10 a night, they were given a bed and a big meal. Good Samaritans also offered telephones, laundry services and Internet capabilities for letters or e-mails.

Although McKinney missed prepared food and a hot shower, and Gantz developed poor posture due to the lack of a backrest, the simplistic lifestyle on the trail is what the trio truly enjoyed.

"Out there, there was no sense of worrying," Knight said. "Because you were like, 'Well, I'm in the woods, what am I going to do about it?' "

Gantz agreed, saying, "You think, 'Well, what am I going to do today? I think I'll go for a walk.' You eat as much food as you can so you don't have to carry it, and if it's a good day, you walk 15 miles."

It's an addicting activity, he added. Although McKinney and Knight have no current plans for more trail trekking, Gantz plans to hike the Vermont trail this summer, and the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada along the west coast, in the summer of 2007.

McKinney's overall advice for future Appalachian Trail hikers is to "hike your own hike."

"It's not a competition," Gantz added.