In 1986, a few days after running the Boston Marathon, and following a year of touring the US and Canada in a campervan, I set off by train to realise a dream to walk the Appalachian Trail. I first heard about the Trail from the American wife of a work colleague in Melbourne a few years earlier and had since read widely about the trail. The Trail follows the crest of the Appalachian Mountains for more than 2,200 miles along the eastern side of the US. Starting in mid-spring, I followed the trail northwards from Springer Mountain in Georgia to its northern terminus at Mount Katahdin in Maine, finishing in the late summer. It remains one of the most meaningful experiences of my life, fostering an ambition for more such experiences and inspiring me to retire from work early enough follow through on that ambition. In 1986, only about 80 people each year completed the whole trail, but during that year National Geographic did a feature article on the Trail and its popularity increased dramatically.

Appalachian Trail - Day 019

Day:  019
Date:  Wednesday, 21 May 1986
Daily AT Miles:  23.8
Daily Other Miles:  1.3 (1.2 to shop, 0.1 to Shelter)
Total AT Miles:  359.8
Total All Miles:  372.1
Weather:  Overcast and cool in the morning.  Sunny in the afternoon.
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Muesli, health drink.
  Lunch:  Biscuits and peanut butter, health bar.
  Dinner:  Chilli macaroni, potato chips, instant pudding.
Aches:  Left Achilles and both heels.
Animals Seen:  Cows.
People Seen:  One AT Thru-Hiker, two overnight hikers, six others.

Journal:
Got up at 7am and rang Barb at 8:20am before leaving.  Mark decided he was going to hang around for a cooked breakfast but I had places to go and wanted to get to the Iron Mt Gap store before it closed.  The day was overcast and started unimpressively when the Trail was extremely bad as it followed a creek upstream.  However, as the day progressed things improved and the Trail wound its way around the slopes of mountains through forest and rhododendrons.  It climbed to the summit of bald Beauty Spot where the views were reasonable – still cloud about – then climbed to the summit of Unaka Mt (5180ft) which was in the middle of a mossy conifer forest.  I had lunch there.  The Trail then descended over a series of knobs in sunshine until it reached Iron Mt Gap where I arrived at 4pm.  I walked down the road, off the AT, for 0.6 of a mile to a small store where I managed to find enough provisions to last to Damascus and ate a pint of ice-cream and had a Coke.  I returned to the Trail at 5:15pm and then walked another six miles to Clyde Smith Shelter through reasonably-graded hills in forest and a lovely late afternoon sun.  I arrived at 7:30pm and met John again, an AT Thru-Hiker and born-again Christian, I had met earlier in the afternoon.  My fire was slow because of damp wood but had a filling dinner including a can of chilli, potato chips and Coke.  Didn’t get to bed until well after dark and still hadn’t repacked provisions or had a wash.  Too late to stop, but not a bad day.
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