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 099

Day:  099
Date:  Saturday, 9 August 1986
Daily AT Miles:  20.0
Daily Other Miles:  0
Total AT Miles:  1906.2
Total All Miles:  1961.7
Weather:  Warm, humid, mostly overcast, some rain.
Nutrition:
  Breakfast:  Muesli, health drink, sub, ice-cream.
  Lunch:  Biscuits and peanut butter.
  Dinner:  Cheese Florentine, pop tarts.
Aches:  None bad.
Animals Seen:  Grouse, squirrels.
People Seen:  20 overnight hikers, some others.

Journal:
Got up at 6am and left at 7:25am hoping that it would only take two hours for the for the five miles down to the road where I was supposed to meet John.  The going wasn’t too bad, and I arrived there 1½ minutes ahead of schedule.  John was impressed.  He was waiting there with his father and they drove me the eight miles into Andover where I resupplied and bought a sub, a quart of orange juice, and a pint of ice-cream.  We drove back to the Trail and, after a quick re-pack, set off with 15½ miles to go at 10:45am.  The first six miles to Hall Mountain Lean-To were covered in 2½ hours and we stopped there for lunch. The Trail wasn’t too bad, but was becoming more boggy.  After lunch, our progress seemed to be much slower though it was hard to know whether it was because we were slower or because the miles were long.  We descended steeply into Sawyer Notch, then had a tough climb up and down a mountain, then another big ascent to the 3600’ mountain of Old Blue. Unfortunately, the fog was thick and there were no views, but at least the rain had stopped.  We were both tired and still had three miles to go.  It went very slowly as we crossed bog after bog and didn’t reach Elephant Mountain Lean-To until 8:10pm.  It was already fairly dark and we were disappointed to find the place crowded with a French-Canadian camp group and several other hikers.  There was only room for one more in the Shelter, so John slept there and I put up my tent while John cooked us some dinner.  Within and hour we were in bed.
By

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)