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 058

Day:  058
Date:  Sunday, 29 June 1986
Daily AT Miles:  23.1
Daily Other Miles:  0.4 (0.2 to AT, 0.2 store)
Total AT Miles:  1134.4
Total All Miles:  1170.2
Weather:  Hot, humid, sunny.
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Eggs and bacon, chocolate milk, ice-cream.
  Lunch:  None.
  Dinner:  Chicken and noodles, pop tarts.
Aches:  Sore hips and feet.
Animals Seen:  Deer, squirrels, chipmunks.
People Seen:  AT trail crew (2), 16 day hikers, many others.

Journal:
Got up at 7:20am and went downstairs for a nice, but small, bacon and eggs breakfast cooked by Mr Doyle himself and eaten at the bar.  At 8:20am I collected my pack and started walking.  It was already very warm and humid and forecast to get hotter, my pack was very heavy (6 days food and 3 full water bottles), and there was the prospect of a tough climb up onto the ridge followed by six days rock scrambling (the dreaded Pennsylvania section).  I was a bit low and on the way out of town decided to give Barb a call.  We had a good chat and I followed it with a quart of chocolate milk and a pint of ice-cream.  My spirits rose a little and I crossed the mighty Susquehanna River and began the steep, though not all that long, climb.  As usual, it had taken me a longer time to get out of town than expected and the prospect of the planned 23 miles and a late finish did not thrill me.  It took me a long time to cover the first five miles but it was cooler on the ridge and not rocky all of the time and I began to speed up.  There were occasional good views over the Pennsylvania farmland and, despite my heavy load, things were OK after all.  I met a few families out day hiking.  I wasn’t exactly starved after a lot of eating yesterday so gave lunch a miss and reached the site of the old Yellow Springs village, my goal, at about 7:40pm.  It was pleasant spot and I found a good campsite.  I hastily attended to all my chores and managed to get a cooked meal, wash, etc., in while listening to BBC shows on National Public Radio.  Not such a bad evening and I was pleased to have covered the scheduled distance with the heavy pack.  There were deer around the campsite as well as fireflies.  I got into the tent at 9:40pm and updated the diary before going to sleep at 10pm.
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