WHEN and WHERE you first stepped on the AT?

[OldFeet]

The first time was in June 2004 at Riga Junction in Connecticut. I was getting in shape to go on my first backpacking trip with our son in Utah and decided to hike to Bear Mountain as my first conditioning hike. This was at age 54 after living my entire life within an hour's drive of the AT.

[Dave G]

1964 -- hiked up Mt. Washington with two of my brothers

[Giggity]

Blood Mountain, May 1998, I was 13. Always dreamed of doing a thru-hike since that day.

[Old Hiker]

1989(?) - Sky Meadows towards Dick's Dome. Never made the Dome - too pooped hiking UP to the Trail. Met two day hikers - Dancer(?) and Rocketeer. I think Rocketeer was the short, intensely cute blonde one. Article in Nat Geo - friends in my Scout Troop telling me about it sparked my interest. Started a file on the Trail in general and a thru in particular that weekend.

Where the he77 did 21 years go? I want my money back!

[wendelcat]

1969 in Baxter. My family spent our summer vacation camping in Maine that summer and one day we started up the Hunt Trail. We didn't make it to the top, but I remember my Father telling us about this trail that went all the way to Georgia. We gave a couple of thru-hikers a ride back to Millinocket when we left (I remember they smelled a bit !)

[Montana AT05]

The first time I thought about hiking it was Spring of 1997. I was on my usual vacation to the Gettysburg, Antietam and Harpers Ferry area. It was a beautiful spring day--plenty of green. I slowly drove past a neat looking colonial style building (turned out to be the South Mountain Inn and Restaurant I believe). I slowed down to admire the setting and saw a sign for the AT. I looked north from the car and said to myself, "hey, that goes all the way to Maine."

Fast foward to June 2005 and I was hiking through that very area on my 2005 thru-hike. But it was a wet day, and I was annoyed, heh, the realities of a thru!

[Uncle Cranky]

Sid, a good friend from my old Boy Scout troop, recruited me to join the local Sea Scout ship on one of their fall recruitment drives.
The bait was a backpacking trip to Maine.
It was 1969, I was 16 and interested in new adventures.
Our Crew drove to Baxter SP on a crisp mid October weekend.
I wore jeans (Hey, it was the 60's), a wool shirt with a sweater for backup and a pear of Sears crepe sole work boots and a watch cap.
My pack was an old aluminum external frame I picked up at the Army/Navy store.
I slept in my clothes with my boots on in a moth eaten wool Army blanket using a 3/8 Ensolite pad on top of a Space Blanket ground cloth.
My shelter tarp was an orange nylon backpackers poncho .
The Crew hiked in and set up camp by a pond at the base of Mt. Katadyn.
At dusk my buddy Sid and I decided to ditch our dinner leftovers in the privy.
On the way down the dark trail we nearly stumbled into a black bear by the outhouse.
Seeing the reflection of his eyes in our flash light beams at 15 feet nearly stopped my heart.
A warning grunt made us drop our pots and we hastily retreat back to camp like two of the Three Stooges.
Our pots clanged about for a while in the dark and everyone avoided a trip to the outhouse till morning.
Sid and I recovered our licked clean pots in the early dawn light.
I remember a breakfast of Spam and eggs cooked over a wood fire.
We broke camp and headed up the trail by mid morning.
The Crew hiked the trail across the knife edge on our way to the summit.
I was relieved of my dread of those fearful heights when a cloud bank moved in and cut the visibility to twenty feet.
We arrived at the summit in the early afternoon just as the clouds parted.
The view was spectacular with the sun light reflecting off all the water surfaces in the deep green of the expanse of trees.
Like someone had smashed a giant mirror
It hooked me.
Each Crew member added a rock to the cairn by the terminus sign before hefting our loads and turning South.
My first steps on the AT.
Thanks Sid.

[Bronco Carl]

July 1974, woke up one morning and thought "I wonder what it would be like to hike for a month". The next day I hitch hiked to a place in NC that I had seen where the AT crossed. Knew nothing about long distance hiking or the AT for that matter. I started North and ended in Virginia 1 month later. The things I saw, the people I met and what I learned on that trip is still as vivid today as it was 36 years ago. I still remember how the forest smelled the very first step. I came back found a backpacking store in Athens Georgia and purchased my first pair of real hiking boots, Vasque Mt. Ranier's. I still have them, they sit on the hearth of my fireplace in my log cabin that I live in. I also bought a Seva stove that same day and still use it on short trips.

The first trip my equipment came Sears (a pack, no sleeping bag, just a blanket), food from the Piggly Wiggly, no map, cooked on a open fire with a boy scout kit, but a head full of dreams! That trip changed me completely. I still hike every chance I get, love sleeping under the stars and feeling the woods with every breath.

[DaveSail]

I guess I was somewhere around 10 to 12 years old . Living in Montclair , ( North , ) New Jersey . Father was an avid hiker /
mountain - climber . Took me and my Twin Brother to the N.JH.
N.Y. border on the train . We hiked the AT to the top of Bear
Mountain . [ We kids din't much like going up - hill with a pack .
Dad pacified us for miles saying we would be going down a neat
feature called : " The Fire - Escape ". So , we hung in there and
pushed on . But , upon arrival , we had to go UP the Fire - Escape !! While in the Fire Tower on top of Bear Mountain , the
radio announced that an A - Bomb had been dropped on Japan !!

A year or two later , the whole " Family From Maine " went up
Katahdin . Including Mom and my younger sister and 6 - year -
old brother . He was the youngest person , ( at that time , ) to
have summited Katahdin . There is a photo of us all , ( less Dad , )
in the new AT Museum . David V. Webber

[Plodderman]

Smokies 1994

[scope]

Living in Atlanta all my life, I was pretty oblivious to the AT. I suppose I saw the sign occasionally while I was going to camp somewhere in N.Ga, and I even did the jaunt up to Blood Mt on a date, but I just wasn't a hiker. A trip to Colorado RMNP in 2003 made me a backpacker, and shortly after a picture of Mt Washington and the Whites caught my eye. I had married a girl from NE and was looking for stuff to do up there with her when we visited. The connection there with the AT gave me the bug to hike the AT near me, and I've been sick ever since. I'm now officially a camper turned hiker.

[weary]

Walked through Dalton, MA on the AT in September of 1946. After walking about one mile, my grandfather bought me an ice cream cone. I was three years old.

My first conscious hike was also in 1946, though I was 17. Three months earlier I had graduated from high school, and had spent two months at a summer job, when the chance arose to join a bother and a friend on a 110-mile bike trip to Dolly Copp campground in the White Mountains for two weeks.

I didn't much notice the names of the trail, but we climbed Imp Mountain, traversed the range to Carrter Dome, descended to Pinkham Notch, climbed Washinton, did the Presidentials and descended Madison back to our Dolly Copp camp.

I didn't think much about the Appalachian Trail at the time. But in retrospect we must have traversed part of what is now the Appalachian Trail.

I probably had seen the trail many years earlier. My Mom took her brood camping for two + months every summer at Dolly Copp from shortly after I was born -- May 1929 -- until she took a job in a shipyard building warships two years into World War II.

We climbed all the mountains within walking distance of Dolly Copp and quite a few we had to ride to. At least one of those hikes must have involved what is now the Appalachian Trail, but that is not something in the 1940s preteens paid much attention too.

Weary

[Moose2001]

2000. I was living in Vermont and thinking about doing a thru on the Long Trail. Stumbled on a journal from a AT thru.....Dragonsbreath. Great journal. I was hooked. Told my wife...my ex....I was going. A 1400 mile section and three thrus later.....I'm thinking of going again!

Thanks for the thread. Great memories.

[mb3229]

June 2001, I took my (then) 8 year old son on a hike from NOC to Rufus Morgan Shelter. Not a long hike but I enjoyed every minute.

[GMTMinusFive]

November, 2007, at the intersection with the Byron Reece Trail near Neel Gap. We did Reece up to the AT then hiked down to Mtn Crossings. That was all it took.

[Different Socks]

On a trip out east to my mother's relatives in Maine, my father stopped at many places in the White Mtns. I'm quite sure I stepped onto the AT somewhere, but had no idea what it was at the time. As for my first knowledgeable step: aside from the summit of Mt Katadhn, I belive my first steps were on the section south of Rutland, VT and north of Clarendon Gorge in 1989, this was before I had the idea to do the trail. So when I saw the strange markings on the trees along the path, I had no idea what they were or their purpose.

[TheTwanger]

As far back as I can remember I recall staring down that trail that passed Clingman's Dome on yearly trips with my family... Never took more than a few curious steps down it and I'm glad of it now. I want every inch of it to be a new sight in 2011.

[Different Socks]

As far back as I can remember I recall staring down that trail that passed Clingman's Dome on yearly trips with my family... Never took more than a few curious steps down it and I'm glad of it now. I want every inch of it to be a new sight in 2011.

Living in MT, I feel the same way. Despite hiking on trails in the vicinity of the CDT, I still try to stay away from the trail itself b/c I want to save its newness for myself when I finally complete it.

[pistol p]

I came across this journal, and I really don't remember how. But thanks to Jennifer, I learned about, and fell in love with the trail.
http://onegirlworld.com/solo-thru-hi...iking-journey/

[Driver8]

I came across this journal, and I really don't remember how. But thanks to Jennifer, I learned about, and fell in love with the trail.
http://onegirlworld.com/solo-thru-hi...iking-journey/

Love this gal's journal! What a great writer - best journal I've seen yet.