Axiom Home Page Forums General Discussion The Water Cooler That's My Boy!!

I live 18 miles from the Appalachian Trail and have hiked a short length of it a few times. Would love to take a bunch of time off to hike longer chunks of it someday.

Well, git to it man!! take a bite out of the Appalachian.

One thing that I had not thought about was the mental preparedness. Most of the trail is not the beautiful open vistas - most of it has been dubbed "the long green tunnel". He started with a group of 5 and was the only one to finish. We did pick him up for a weekend when he crossed through Tennessee - close to ASU. Most of the through hikers do take a few days off once or twice during the trek.

I have only done the quick day hike up Mount Katahdin which directly borders an Appalachian trail head. We met some hikers coming in when we were camping the night before the hike. They had some interesting stories (and some very boring stories but I guess it's all relative to how long you have been alone in the woods.) One thing though, we smelled them coming long before we saw them. But that is also to be expected.

Note:
If you haven't done it. Katahdin is a truly wonderful hiking experience for the uninitiated. You can do it in a day, you don't have to be in uber shape to claim that you reached the top of a mountain and the final few clicks require that you use your hands a bit to make it a bit more thrilling but still pretty friendly to the average Joe. Nothing like real mountain climbing, mind you. But you still you always want to have three contact points at all times as it's a longgggg tumble if you slip.

Well, the "h" with that... I don't like heights and they don't like me!

BTW, Murph, you've got a PM...

Well, you could stop at the last ledge area which is probably less than a few kms from the top. It's almost the top, has one hell of an amazing view and you have really only done a hike to that point with no sense of serious heights. My wife, her friend and the gal in another couple who was sitting there when we arrived, all elected to hang out there and have lunch instead of pushing to the top. Actually, it was the fellow we met up with there who pointed out to us, 'the inexperienced,' that even though it wasn't really a mountain "climb" in the theatrical sense from there on, that we would always want to be hanging on to something due to the steepness.

He turned out to be a real mountain climber who kept us entertained with tales of being trapped in tents with snowstorms for days and hints of what it was like to be a port captain in New York. The second item explained how he could afford to travel the world so much to climb and also probably why he would want to do it. The job sounded pretty stressful.

My wife picked him up where the trail crosses a road in Tenn. She made him wrap up in a bedspread to keep the smell off the upholstery in the car. My daughter hung her head out the window and still said she almost puked. He just laughed about it. When we were taking him back to Tenn. on Sunday, we went to the grocery for supplies. It was interesting to watch what he picked and watch him pack - all based on weight. I had several chilled beers that he would not take due to the weight....

I've often thought about trying parts of the Bruce Trail here, but my legs say "are you kidding?"

I guess I'm a slow learner. I usually get a different message after strenuous events, something to the tune of "what were you thinking?"

Our Boy Scout Troop does a lot of camping, typically once a month, so it takes a multi-mile hike to have the legs complain the next day.

Scott