The Appalachian Trail
The Appalachian Trail is the “Grand Daddy” of long distance trails. In it’s current form it stretches 2,190 miles running from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is the brain child of Benton MacKaye (conceived in 1921) and Myron Avery is credited with making it become a reality (completed in 1937). It was never intended to be a trail which people hiked from beginning to end in one go, but this is America and we have our own ideas about things.
The first person to thru-hike is was Earl Shaffer in 1948. To date, more than 12,000 people have hiked the entire length in a single go. It is our goal to add our names to the “2000 miler” club. We tried to get Axel and Heike from Nuremburg to quit their jobs and come hike with us this year, but, alas, they have to finish the GR10 first. Our friends, Peter and Marcia from Portland, Maine have both thru-hiked (back before we were even out of high school, but no comments about age are allowed here).
To read the blog of this trail from the beginning, follow the link below. At the bottom of the page will be a link to the next day’s entry.
0 – 500 miles (Day 1 – Day 60)
500 – 1000 miles (Day 61 – Day 111)
1000 – 1500 miles (Day 112 – Day 161)