WHEN and WHERE you first stepped on the AT?

[Lumber]

I went down to Georgia with 5 other friends for our senior sping break trip. We started from the aproach trail, with no maps, and walked for three days. I was carrying an inflateable sink, and a few other un-needed items. The end of the story is, we get real wet. Hitch a ride from the store in suches,ga. The guy that picks us up says he's taking his old ladie to work. He also says there's beer in the cooler if ya'll want to get drunk. So five of us in the back of his truck, one up front. All drinking beer. We get to our cars and then go to myrtle beach for 3 days. Wanted to hike the whole thing since.

[Ashman]

Been on a few backpacking trips with the scouts, first time on the AT was my junior year of college. I went with 4 other friends all with varying degrees of experience over our Spring Break 1993. We did Max Patch Bald down into Hot Springs. We called ourselves the "Brave Brave Brave Idiot Hikers" (a nod to Brave Sir Robin of Monty Python Fame). I bought new Technica Gortex boots two months prior to break them in. All the other guys were ragging on me and my high fallutin boots. Till thier feet got wet and cold. They all wanted to pack it in a quit, me I was High and Dry! I had fresh socks each day (long weekend trip) and loaned them to the poor schmuck who had nothing but cotton socks, cotton t-shirts, and a leather coat. (I should have rented to him, would have paid for the trip!) It was a miracle nobody got really hurt. A group from Michigan ogt lost on the same stretch of trail later in the same week. Hadn't been back on the trail agian till last November, now I can't wait for my next trip!

[Frau]

The summer of 1982 I was a young mom working at Catawba Hospital, which can be seen from the AT. I was intrigued by the AT crossing at Rt. 311, which I examined everyday to and from work. Finally, one Saturday, I headed south, determined to see what I could see. Didn't get far until I realized I was not in shape for the hike. I crossed 311 and tried north toward MacAfee's knob, and didn't get as far as I had south bound.

For years I took only very short hikes and walks with a child on my back. When I divorced in 1988 I began my training--hiking Sharp Top (Peaks of Otter) from the bottom up. My true love for hiking began then.

I had returned to hiking when I moved so close to the James River Face Wilderness and AT (96). Apple Orchard Falls enchanted me. Following my gastric bypass I used Apple Orchard Falls Trail as my personal training ground, timing myself each time and beginning a trail running regimen, adding Cornelius Creek Trail when I had built up strength and endurance after weight loss.

I toyed with the AT both north and south of Petite's Gap prior to this. My last hike with my daughter was up Sulpher Springs Trail to the AT the day before her death. That is always a very special hike for me, one I made Sunday morning again.

When I met Nessmuk, he introduced me to really hiking the AT and the blue blaze trails in this area. We are constantly expanding our trail area. This is mostly repeats for him, since he began hiking with the boy scouts here in the 60s. We paddle around here all the time, too. I feel torn some days about whether to hike or paddle, so do both most summer days.

There are so many places I want to hike now, and so little time. What in the world would I accomplish were I not a teacher with summers off?

In the wind...(yes, I ride motorcycle too, and disturb folks from the BRP).

Frau

[J5man]

L.Wolf, funny you should start this thread.......I actually started writing an article on this a couple months ago so I am going to cut and paste what I have writtens so far.... Footslogger, you are actaully mentioned towards the end because of a lot of the informational posts you have submitted.....I just did not get to a lot of you others yet....anyway here it is: (the actual time of my first encounter was Oct 2006)


I remember the day it happened; the first day I first stepped on the Appalachian Trail. I was on a hiking trip with my nephew, Ethan, and we were doing a stretch on the 20 Mile Trail in the Smoky Mountains, a few miles from Fontana Dam. I had heard of the Appalachian Trail before then but really did not much about it at all. On our way up the 20 Mile Trail, we met a couple of middle-aged guys coming down. In our brief conversation, they mentioned that our trial would eventually run into the AT. I remember thinking how excited they seemed over something so “not a big deal”. Our plan that day was to hike up 20 Mile Trail, hang a right (which I soon learned was the AT), and go to Shuckstack Fire Tower. Anyway, after a brief encounter with these enthusiastic hikers, I knew there was something more to the AT than I had realized. Ethan and I kept on trucking up this steep, winding, never ending trail until we finally got to the intersection of the 20 Mile Trail and the AT. We were hiking in unknown territory to us and were trying to gauge our activities to get back to the trailhead before it got dark. My guidebook gave some vague instructions on how to look for these “markings” on a tree on the AT (my first exposure to ‘Blazes’ – markings painted on trees to mark a path or a side destination off of a main path) and follow the overgrown path up the top of the mountain where the fire tower was. We decided to go for it. As soon as my foot touched the AT, it just seemed different. I can’t really explain it, but it was just different. Little did I know the rich and illustrious history of the path I was on. It could be likened to someone stepping on a sacred Indian burial site not having any idea the levity of where they are. I did not know that this little stretch I was on was a mere speck of the 2,000 plus miles stretching from Georgia to Maine. I did not know that it was originally conceived to be a trail to encourage people to get out and hike in their area, and that it was never meant to be thru-hiked. I did not the story of Grandma Gatewood, the 70 year old woman from Ohio, who thru-hiked in tennis shoes and carried a shower curtain as her shelter. I did not know the story of Bill Erwin, the blind man who thru-hiked it with his seeing-eye dog, Orient. All I knew was that it had a calling that would bring me back to it.
After we got back from our trip, I began reading about the AT. Then I started researching it. Then I became obsessed with it. I stumbled upon a website called www.whiteblaze.net, a site for AT enthusiasists. To me it was like finding the Dead Sea Scrolls! It had articles on every aspect of hiking the AT from gear lists to first aid. I was in heaven. Initially, I just scoured the articles, then I started reading the posts people were using. Eventually, I signed on and became a member of the site. This allowed me to start my own posts. I was amazed at the sense of community these AT hikers had. I worked in the pharmaceutical industry and the industry website that would be equivalent to this site is nothing more than a tool for frustrated employees to complain about how miserable their lives are. I started a few online threads about equipment and then a couple about hiking in The Smoky Mountains. I was amazed at how knowledgeable and helpful everyone was. I learned so much just from reading the posts. I eventually logged on everyday just to see what was going on. Some of the members are quite well known and reply to almost every subject on there, eventually I felt like I was getting to know some of these people. “Footslogger” for instance is a physical therapist who lives in Wyoming. He thru-hiked the AT in 2003. He is very passionate about hiking and seems to know as much about it as anyone but yet is one of the most humble people on the site. His wife is “Bad Ass Turtle”. Most people who hike the AT (and other trials too) eventually take on a “Trail Name”, a nickname given to you by other hikers or in some cases, one that you’ve given yourself.

[J5man]

actually I did not even know the section of the 20 mile Trail we were doing was the BMT.

[dessertrat]

My first AT backpack was around 1942, when we peddled out bikes to Dolly Copp, and camped for two weeks. Gas rationing had made automobile travel impossible, and by then my Mom was working as a machinist in a Maine shipyard.

Weary

My grandmother might have known your mother. She was a smokestack welder at BIW during the war.

[dragonfeet]

1999 I was working in Dahlonega Ga and this carpenter was always going on and on about the AT. So finally I got a pack together and hiked from Amacaloa to Springr and back. The first night I slept next to a tree and was covered in carpenter ants all night. The second night it rained and I didnt bring a tend on account of all the shelters that were supposed to be peppered along the trail like a chain of motel 6's. It took me 3 days and by the time I got back I could barley walk and ever since then no matter where I am in the world my heart is always in the woods.

[Nokia]

Beaver Brook trail headed up Moosilauke in the winter. We brought trash bags and slid partly down the falls. Stupid

[Capt.Scott]

I was 16 or 17, about 1977, hiking with my father and brothers in the Blue Ridge. First trip on the east coast after having moved from Montana. We hiked up the Gunter Ridge Trail to Marble Spring. Shelter was gone, but I met two thru-hikers camping under a tarp. The seeds were planted and I have been hiking ever since. Will be on Katahdin June 2009 ready to head south. PEACE

[SunnyWalker]

It was 1998 and I was off work due to a broken ankle. I was over at Barnes and Nobles looking at their bicycle books. I had broken my ankle on a cross country bicycle trip. Had an accident in Rawlins, WY and had to come home. (Went back the next year and completed the trip). Anyhew . . . there I was in B and N and I found this book on the AT. Now I knew about the AT, faintly back in my mind. Being from the NW we have plenty to hike on and never had once considered the AT and the East. Well, the book was captivating and I made a mental note about the AT. Thus I have read and studied about it and this last Summer finally left Amicolola falls and found myself at Springer. The first step on the actual trail made me think of that broken ankle and finding that book. Memories, the stuff of life.

[Yahtzee]

Two days before I left from Swatara Gap NOBO in '97, I did a 12 mile tune-up on Peter's Mt. Never hiked before, never been on the AT. My ass hurt so bad when I was done I went out the next day and bought some used bamboo cross-country poles.

[mrc237]

1959 Bear Mtn St Pk we were camped in Ft Montgomery hiked the 1776 or 77 trail out to the AT followed it up to the top of BM.

[hootyhoo]

I was 12. Boyscouts. GSMNP. 1976.

[buff_jeff]

I guess it was when I took that train up Mt. Washington when I was about 10 years old in 98. I saw some crazy looking dude with a beard walk over a small hill and I asked my Dad what the hell he was doing. My Dad said he was coming from Georgia. I've been intrigued ever since.

[Askus3]

MRC 237,

The 1777 & 1779 Trails were not created as those numbered trails until the bicentennial (1976). So I doubt you followed those trails in 1959.

[TACKLE]

August,1959. Just off the Blue Ridge Parkway at Pinnacles picnic area. Took me 46 years to get back to that spot. When I walked out of the woods on my 2005 hike I was greeted with some great trail magic in the form of cold beers!

[camojack]

I hiked up to the Pinnacle in PA when I was a Boy Scout.

[Buhzerker]

In the early 70's when I was a kid. I live a few miles from the Trail in NE TN.. (Unaka Mtn / Limestone Cove area) I loved the mountains at an early age..

[earlyriser26]

1969 at Grafton notch maine. We hiked to Maine 4 Rangeley. I was 13. It has only taken me 39 years to do half the trail. I have never missed a year hiking on the AT during that time period. I hope to speed up the process from 25 miles a year to around a hundred. Actually, I have hiked some sectons, like the Smokies, 7 times. April 18th I will be hiking in Georgia to complete the state and soon after I will be hiking in Virginia.

[HIKER7s]

1971 on a boy scout trip -Mount Minsi, just before DWG in PA.