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 095

Day:  095
Date:  Tuesday, 5 August 1986
Daily AT Miles:  14.4
Daily Other Miles:  0
Total AT Miles:  1829.6
Total All Miles:  1883.3
Weather:  Cool up high, windy, partly sunny.
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Porridge, pancakes.
  Lunch:  Biscuits and peanut butter, Hershey Bars.
  Dinner:  Soup, chicken and vegetables, custard.
Aches:  None.
Animals Seen:  None.
People Seen:  Many.

Journal:
Got up at 6:30am and packed up before going up to the dining room for breakfast at 7am.  It was a big breakfast (people kept giving me extra) and we talked with Ruth, Bob and others.  As always, everybody was impressed with the Thru-hikers.  We left soon after 8am for the 1½ mile climb to the Mount Washington summit which is very developed (Barb and I had been there before).  I planned to ring Barb from there but, despite trying for an hour, had no luck.  She must be away for the night.  A ranger let me into the Post Office and I picked up a couple of letters.  Because of hanging around for the phone calls to Melbourne we didn’t leave the summit until after 10am, which was later than planned.  By this time, fog had closed in but we’d had excellent views on the way up.  The Trail followed the cog railway and we saw three trains.  As we went down, the fog cleared and we again had excellent views.  The trail followed the northern spur of the Presidential Range which was above the tree-line and although rocky and slow gave great views.  It was an ideal day for travelling this route.  It took us about three hours to walk the six miles to the AMC Madison Hut where we stopped for lunch.  Ruth and Bob were there again.  We had lunch and left at 2:15pm, giving us 3¾ hours to cover the six miles to the AMC Pinkham Notch Camp, where we were booked for the night, in time for dinner at 6pm.  It took us a slow scenic hour to cover the first mile and the next two miles of mainly steep descent weren’t much faster.  We re-entered the forest and found that we had further to go than we had thought.  The last three miles were covered in a mad rush through pretty forest and we arrived at Pinkham Notch at 6:15pm and were hurried in late for dinner, which was good.  After dinner, we checked in, showered and spent some time in the lounge drinking Cokes and me trying to ring the Cocks’ and Cederholm’s to arrange meetings further up the Trail.  Peter was sore and tired, but seemed to have enjoyed himself.
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