Anyone else jump at the chance to hike the A.T.?

Done it in Georgia. It’s the shit.

Are you a thru-hiker? I just have this thing about testing how far I
could push my body to endure a challenge a select few will do.
At 57 I think I am past my time but I think the first woman to go
the whole way was in her 60’s when she went the first time and then
went back again! Just something about pushing your body to the max
against nature is almost turn on for me! Maybe I need to settle for the
TV show where the two survivors are butt naked and make it together
for a month in the jungle!

I read Bill Brice’s A Walk in the Woods and it cured me.

When I want to walk trails I either go to a local county forest preserve, or better to a local privately owned and operated arboretum that is well worth the 50 mile drive and nominal entry fee. I have no desire to travelling far distances to walk through a forest when there is nothing wrong with the local trails.

I’m ambivalent about the Appalachian Trail, but I’d love to walk the Camina de Santiago. It’s to do more with my historical interests than an interest in hiking as exercise.

Being a Californian, I am more interested in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail. I have, merely coincidentally, hiked stretches of the PCT in the Sierra. I have been enamored of it since I read Thousand Mile Summer by Colin Fletcher.

The AT interests me too, but only after I do the PCT. And if I do PCT and AT, I’d want to do the Continental Divide Trail, too.

Last year, one of the nephews decided to leave his job and hike the trail. He walked the whole way, starting in Georgia. The sporadic reports he posted on FB when he was able to access the Internet allowed us to know that he was alive, well, and happy.

Apparently, there is a special culture on the AP. Each hiker somehow gets a nickname that they go by. There are places off the trail where the hikers can arrange in advance to have supplies and mail shipped. They are also a source for purchasing new supplies, shower a cooked meal (and a beer or two), and sometimes a real bed. The hikers often leave a short message in a community notebook with the date and their trail name. It’s a form of communication to fellow hikers. The “real” hikers don’t shave.

Since finishing up in Maine, he packed up and moved from Virginia to Colorado. He landed a job in his field of business, but all of his FB posts pertain to hiking in the Rockies.

I did 10 days in Virginia. That was the most I could afford to be away.

I would do it; although I think I would prefer the Continental Divide Trail

I have done most of what is in the smoky mountains, closest thing I have come to a spiritual journey. I would LOVE to through hike someday. If I don’t do it soon though, it’s probably not going to happen. I can generally only get away for a few days or so and it’s usually solo. At the most I have spent a week or so out there between back country sites. You find your limits rather quickly, you surpass them quickly too.

I’m just at the beginning of A Walk In The Woods by Bill Bryson. He’s very amusing. He’s talking now about choosing his gear, and how each item requires much thought and expertise to purchase, and how a few ounces difference adds up. The total weight of the pack will be about 40 lbs. I carry at 25 pound bag of cat litter and that’s quite heavy. I can’t imagine carrying 40 lbs on my back for a long hike. I’m sure it will be a great book. Someone mentioned it above. I live not far from the AT in the New York section. I may do a day walk, one day (not planned at present so no time soon) but can’t envision myself doing any serious hiking for multiple days.

I’ve hiked much, but not all, of it.

I’ve done sections of it in North Carolina, Virginia, and New Hampshire. I love it. When I was younger, I dreamed of taking a summer off to do the whole thing, but it never happened.

If I’d been brave enough then to do it alone, I could have, but unfortunately as my courage increases, my age does, too. I don’t think I’d be physically up to living on the trail for several months now. I continue to hike bits and pieces of it, though.