From the First Vice President

I’d been thinking about hiking the AT since we moved to our current place about six miles from the trail twenty years ago. Finally, in 2007, my personal and family situations seemed right to take the plunge. Around eighty to ninety percent of thru-hikers go south to north from Springer Mountain, GA to Mount Katahdin, ME. Although I gave some thought to a strategy that would avoid the crowds, I ultimately decided to go with the pack, starting on March 25 from Springer. This meant that I would be starting with lots of other folks, which has its good and bad aspects. However, the crowds thinned out rapidly after the first couple of weeks.

One of my luckiest breaks occurred on the first day, when I met a fellow named Ron who was doing a section hike from Springer to Newfound Gap. We quickly struck up a friendship and did that whole section together. Ron is a master sergeant in the Army reserves. He spends about six months of the year working at a military job and the rest of the year traveling the country in an RV with his wife and dog. He is section hiking the AT, meaning that he will do the whole trail in sections over the course of several years. On the third day, Ron was given the trail name “Tonto”, as the result of a hilarious joke he told at the hostel at Neels Gap. Long distance hikers generally either adopt trail names or are given them. Mine is “Early Bird”, since I like to get up and be on the trail first thing in the morning.

The day we started was unseasonably warm, in the high 70s. Things quickly went the other way, however. By the time we got to Fontana Dam, the gateway to Smoky Mountain National Park, it was unseasonably cold. Taking the advice of the Park rangers, we took our first zero (non-hiking) day at Fontana Lodge and waited for warmer weather. The next day, Easter Sunday, was bright and still cool, and we decided to head into the Smokies. Even though we were in north Georgia, the climate in the mountains is not that different from Pennsylvania, due to elevations of between four and five thousand feet. The Smokies were beautiful, but I didn’t get to enjoy them much. Lows ranged from the teens to twenties and highs struggled to make the low forties. We kept fairly warm while hiking, but quickly got cold when we stopped. We had clothing to keep us warm down to about the thirties, which is normal for that time of year. I hope to revisit the Smokies soon so that I can enjoy them while not struggling to keep warm.

April 10 was a day of highs and lows. Tonto and I climbed Clingmans Dome, at 6,643 feet the highest spot on the whole AT. Tonto then met his wife and dog at Newfound Gap, and he and I parted company. We remain good friends and I hope to accompany him on his next section this spring. The next day I passed Charlie’s Bunion, an AT landmark, but it was too foggy to see anything. At the northern end of the Smokies, I stayed at a hostel called Standing Bear Farm, which resembles a latter day hippie colony. It was finally starting to warm up.

The next day I passed Max Patch Bald, the best known “bald” or mountain without trees on top, on the AT. This section of the trail straddles the Tennessee – North Carolina border for over a hundred miles. After resupplying in Hot Springs, NC, I climbed back up into the mountains. The day started out rainy, but it was supposed to stop. After I climbed about 1000 feet in elevation, the rain turned to sleet and the wind picked up. After another thousand feet, it was snowing with wind gusting above 40 mph. As soon as I got into the shelter, I jumped into my sleeping bag and stayed there. I’d only gone about 11 miles that day, but it felt like a lot more. We woke up the next morning to four inches of snow on April 15. It turned out to be winter’s last blast.

I spent the next several days hiking up and down the ridgeline, coming to the popular trail town of Erwin, TN. North of Erwin, I climbed over Roan Mountain, one of the tougher mountains in the south. AT hikers have an acronym for this sort of trail, PUD, which stands for pointless ups and downs. The AT is said to be unique for its continual ups and downs, not unlike a roller coaster.

Next came Virginia, by far the longest state on the AT. After Damascus, I climbed Mt. Rogers, the last 5000 foot mountain in the south, and the stunningly beautiful Grayson Highlands. While the scenery is wonderful, the best thing about a long distance hike on the AT is the people you meet. Thru-hikers tend to fall into two age groups. One is young people who have either just finished school or are taking a break from it. The other is older folks in their 50s or older who have either taken a break in their careers or retired. It’s a great opportunity for the younger ones to develop friendships with oldsters like me. I met lots of first rate young people on the trail. A few of my favorites were trail named Tintin, Pythagoras, Triple A, Bug Bite, Calamity Jane, Chinese Mike, Logan and the Georgia twins.

It was May by this time, and the leaves were coming out on the hardwood trees. This reduces the views, creating the “green tunnel” that the AT is known for. On the bright side, the rhododendron and mountain laurel were coming into bloom. I hiked alone for most of the time here, but usually met some fellow travelers at the campsite. After several days of nothing special to look at, I came upon an abundance of riches on May 12. Two of the most spectacular places on the trail, McAfee Knob and Tinker Cliffs, are within 5 miles of each other. McAfee Knob is the ledge overlooking a sheer drop where so many people have their picture taken while dangling their legs off the edge. I also met a long time trail maintainer from the Roanoke AT Club and had a nice conversation with him. Doing a thru-hike gives you a real appreciation of how vital the maintaining clubs are to the AT. I took a day and a half off in mid May to go to Trail Days in Damascus, VA with my wife and grandson. It was a great time. Trail Days is the largest AT festival, held the weekend after Mothers Day in Damascus, VA. It is a great experience for anyone interested in the trail, including prospective thru-hikers. The highlight was walking in the hikers parade, which is really a water battle between the parade participants and spectators.

Shenandoah National Park begins just north of Waynesboro, VA, which might be my favorite trail town on the AT. SNP is a great place to hike for a week or two. The AT has a great footpath in the park and there are plenty of places to get meals and supplies, so you don’t have to carry a lot. It gets awfully busy in the summertime, however. Since there is no hunting, the animals are plentiful and awfully tame. North of SNP, the rolling green tunnel resumes until Harpers Ferry. There are two great hostels just south of HF, the Bears Den and the Blackburn AT Center.

Harpers Ferry is the psychological halfway mark of the AT, though the real halfway mark is a ways north. The long slog through Virginia ends with the crossing of two mighty rivers, the Shenandoah and the Potomac, and a visit to the AT Headquarters. By this time I was on familiar ground and hurried on to the actual halfway mark to go home for a few days of R and R. Before my wife met me at Pine Grove Furnace, I completed the half gallon challenge, which involves eating a half gallon of ice cream in one sitting. It’s amazing how much capacity to eat you develop after hiking over a thousand miles.

While on home ground I “slack-packed” (hiked with just a day pack) with hiking friends from Pine Grove Furnace to Duncannon. Shortly afterward I entered the rocky area that makes Pennsylvania noteworthy with AT hikers. The weather was almost perfect during this section, with warm days, moderately cool nights and just the occasional thundershower. After Delaware Water Gap, the trail bounces back and forth between New York and New Jersey for some time before turning into New York for good after High Point. It also gets fairly rocky again, reminiscent of northern PA. One highlight (or lowlight?) is the lowest spot on the AT, where it goes through a zoo near the spectacular Bear Mountain Bridge.

I was warned that the trail gets pretty buggy in southern New England. The bugs did not disappoint, and I was glad to have a tent that I could zip shut at night. I was also glad to be in the north, since I understood it was stifling hot in Virginia. The weather remained good and the bugs abated as I passed into Vermont, where the AT joins the path of the Long Trail for about 100 miles. The hills of southern New England were turning into mountains, however. I mentioned earlier that I met a lot of wonderful young people along the way. There were also lots of great folks “of a certain age”, like me. Some of my favorites included Rockman, Judo, Autumn Joy, John Knee-Mud, Diesel, Klipspringer, Dr. Bob and the famous Baltimore Jack, who has thru-hiked the trail eight times. I’ll also remember the wonderful folks who operate the hostels and otherwise help out thru-hikers. These few come particularly to mind: Gary Poteat of the Blueberry Patch, Bob Peoples of Kincora Hostel, the famous Miss Janet in Erwin, TN, and the folks who run the Presbyterian Church Hostel in Delaware Water Gap, PA.

Before and during the hike I heard people say that when you get to New Hampshire going northbound you have done three quarters of the trail, but only half of the work. I chuckled when I heard this, since I was sure it couldn’t be true. I am here to tell you that IT IS TRUE. There are lots of hills, mountains, PUDs, etc. south of NH, but NH and the first half of Maine are totally different. The hills are just as challenging, but the difference is that the footpath is much tougher. Most of the time up there you are hopping from rock to rock, rather than walking on smooth ground. That is extremely tiring, both physically and mentally. Before NH I was averaging 15 to 18 miles per day. In that section I was lucky to average 10. At the same time, the vistas were simply spectacular. The White and Presidential mountain ranges are unsurpassed for their beauty and splendor. My feet were crying for mercy while my eyes were crying for joy.

Since Tonto and I parted at Newfound Gap, I had largely hiked alone. I got to know lots of people, but this occurred largely at camp in the evenings. Starting in southern Maine, I fell in with two guys around my age, and we ended up hiking the rest of the way together. Pressure D is a physical education school teacher and basketball coach in Binghamton, NY who was doing a section hike through Maine. Walking Cowboy is a thru-hiker from north Georgia who is active in the Georgia AT Club. We had a great time trekking through the peaks of southern Maine, the hundred mile wilderness and up Katahdin.

The hundred mile wilderness is really a paper tiger, although it probably hasn’t always been that way. It is reputed to be a difficult and extremely remote section. I didn’t find it all that difficult, especially after NH and southern Maine. It is not extremely remote any more, either. Several logging roads have been cut into the Maine roads in the last few years. There is also now a nice hostel at about the halfway mark, White House Landing. That said, it might be more difficult hiking in the wilderness if it rained more than it did last summer.

The night before we summited Katahdin, it rained heavily with thunder and lightning around 8 or 9 p.m. On the big day, August 26, we got up early and went to the ranger station around 7 a.m. The forecast was for scattered showers in the afternoon so we wanted to get an early start. In addition to Walking Cowboy, Pressure D and I, we summited with Fred, a section hiker from Virginia we had met a few days before, and Flaxseed, a thru-hiker from Houston, TX. We slackpacked, with Flaxseed and I leading the way. When we left the campground at about 1000 feet elevation, it was about 60 degrees and partly cloudy with no wind. The climb was steep but gradual with some rocks and roots on the footpath until we reached tree line at about 3,500 feet. Then it turned into a difficult rock scramble over some large boulders. At The Gateway, around 4,500 ft., the trail leveled out for about a mile. The wind had picked up to at least 40 mph. The final climb was fairly gradual over smaller rocks to the famous sign at the summit. I finally got to touch the fabled wooden monument that has been in so many pictures. It was around 50 degrees with winds close to 50 mph in pea soup fog when we arrived about 11:40 a.m.

Flaxseed and I took each other's pictures while we waited for the others. They got there in about fifteen minutes and we took more individual and group pictures. They weren’t too clear due to the fog, but we sure will cherish them. As we hiked back down, it seemed to take a lot longer because we were no longer on an adrenaline high. When we got back to the ranger station we were back in a normal environment totally different from the big K. It was about 75, partly cloudy with a gentle breeze. We looked back up fondly at the other world from which we had just come.

How to sum up the consummation of a dream of many years. Walking Cowboy and I had many of the same thoughts as we shared a ride back home through Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Both of us have been planning our adventures for many years. Most of it turned out as we had expected. Some sections were much tougher than we expected, particularly New Hampshire and southern Maine. We met lots of people, the vast majority of whom are great folks. We are really glad to have done this adventure, yet at the same time we are also glad to be done. We both plan to do more extended hikes at some point, but we doubt that we will thru-hike the AT again or another longer trail such as the PCT or CDT. There is such a long time commitment needed to do these and we each have other interests that would make it difficult. But we're not ruling it out at some point. We'll miss the wonderful views and the splendid isolation that are so much a part of the thru-hiking experience. Most of all we will miss the countless wonderful people that made the last several months so memorable.

I kept an online journal of my adventure, including lots of pictures, which can be found at www.trailjournals.com/cumberlandvalley

- Jim Foster