Highlights and excerpts from a long Appalachian Trail hike

Katahdin
Fall 2007:
CANADA
MAINE
Augusta
Appalachian Trail
Miles
0
100
John Ehinger/Huntsville Times
Montpelier
NEW HAMPSHIRE
Concord
Fall 2006: Before my 81-mile trek was over, I ended up hiking
two nights in the dark, one of them in the rain when Jimmy
had to hike in and bring me my head lamp. The year's hike
included hiking the Bigelows – Little Bigelow, Avery Peak and
West Peak.
Boston
Green Mountain
National Forest
Fall 2005: I’m back to hike the Saddlebacks and Crockers in
western Maine. The first day out, I’m attacked by a hiker’s
dog and end up making three trips to the emergency room
in Farmington, Maine, 45 miles away. My seven-day hike
becomes a three-day hike.
MASS.
Albany
NEW YORK
bad things. And Jimmy and I arrived at the same conclusion:
The hike wasn't fun anymore. Not only was it not fun
anymore, it was dangerous. We decided – together and
individually – that for us this was the end of the trail. We were
getting off, calling a stop to the 13-year effort to hike the
whole trail. I still had a desire to finish the trail – but not this
trail, not now.”
New York City
Delaware
Watergap
National
Recreation
Area
Fall 1997: In Connecticut
N.J.
Trenton
Reading Philadelphia
Harrisburg
Dover
PENNSYLVANIA
DELAWARE
Harpers Ferry
OHIO
Baltimore
Washington D.C.
MARYLAND
C&O Canal
National Historical
Park
WEST
VIRGINIA
Shenandoah
National Park
Richmond
George
Washington
National Forest
Historic marker
in Connecticut
VIRGINIA
John Ehinger/Huntsville Times
Roanoke
KENTUCKY
Hiking on
a warm
spring day
through
the Smokies
TENNESSEE
Dave Dieter/Huntsville Times
Spring 1989: Armed with our self-issued permits from
Fontana Dam, Times photographer Dave Dieter and I hike
70 miles in seven days through the Great Smoky Mountains
National Park. Our last night on the trail, at the Cosby Knob
Shelter, three bears arrive near midnight and spend several
hours trying to get through the chain-link fence. They fail.
Great
Smoky
Mountains
National
Park
NORTH
CAROLINA
Pisgah
National Forest
Asheville
Nantahala
National Forest
Chattahoochee
National Forest
Springer
Mountain
Raleigh
Jefferson
National
Forest
Cherokee
National Forest
GEORGIA
R.I.
Providence
Hartford
CONN.
Fall 2000: Still in new Hampshire. “Things were adding up –
and western
Massachusetts, Jimmy and
I hike through the
Berkshires – “a mountain
retreat, a natural
playground, a place to enjoy
the fall foliage. Although the
brilliant colors of fall were
still some weeks away, the
Berkshires draw tourists
year-round. There are bedand-breakfasts, antique
shops, organic farms and
countless little restaurants.”
Big Niagara Falls
en route to
Mount Katahdin.
White
Mountain
National
Forest
VERMONT
View from crossing on Maine highway 17.
The
Mahoosucs
and Baxter
State Park. A
long journey
reaches its
conclusion.
SOUTH CAROLINA
Charleston
John Ehinger/Huntsville Times
Fall 2002: Time softens my decision to give the trail up. Jimmy
and I tackle Maine’s 100-Mile Wilderness. “No, technically
speaking, it's not a wilderness. But it's remote. If you're
injured, it could take a day to get you to medical attention. But
the rewards are ample. Moose abound, and they always
seem to spring from the brush just in front of your car. On the
glacial lakes and beaver ponds, which shimmer on the
surface and offer views clear to the bottom, loons sound their
haunting calls and spotted sandpipers walk smartly along the
pebbled shores.”
Fall 1999: New Hampshire, the White Mountains; On a rocky
mountain decent, my trekking pole catches in a crevice and
breaks, sending me hurtling down the rocks. I am not seriously
hurt, but I worry about the miles ahead.
Spring 1998: The twice a year
trips are getting too long and too
close together. Jimmy and I
decide to come only once a
year. “As I walked up and down
Vermont's richly wooded
mountains, I realized this was
the last spring I would revel in
the northward bird migration of
warblers, vireos and thrushes,
birds that winter south of our
borders and return here to nest.
It was also the last spring I
would be a part of the season's
unveiling of wildflowers.”
John Ehinger/Huntsville Times
Lush green forest floor in Vermont.
Fall 1994: Through West Virginia and Maryland, “I'm now out of the South, out
of what geographers call the Blue Ridge province. I'm also, the guidebook
warns, about out of easy walking. A few more miles and the trail hits the
infamous Pennsylvania rocks, the large ones boulders the size of houses,
the smaller ones knife-sharp stones standing on edge – nice terrain in which
to sprain an ankle or bark a shin. Still, I'm over halfway. I've seen a lot in
1,100 miles. But I've missed a lot, too, or so I suspect.”
Spring 1993: It’s a long
hike – 100 miles –
between I-81 at Daleville
and the Tye River, both
in Virginia. In The Times
I reported of one
location, “Scattered
boulders punctuate the
open expanse. I took off
my pack and sat down
against the leeward side
of the biggest rock. The
John Ehinger/Huntsville Times
wind blasted harmlessly Trail crossing Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park.
a foot over my head,
and with full sun on one side and the black, radiating face of the rock
on the other, I might have been on a Gulf beach. A small comfort,
perhaps, and a fleeting one, but you take what you get.”
Fall 1992: I hike 86 miles between Pearisburg, Va., and Interstate 81 at
Daleville, Va. Of the woodlands, I wrote, “The power of nature is evident
everywhere. Lands that were forests when the settlers arrived were cleared
for homes and crops. The crops gave way to orchards, the orchards to
pastures, the pastures to meadows. And now the meadows were becoming
forests again.”
Spring 1988: John Jr. and I tackle the Appalachian Trail at its southern end,
Springer Mountain in North Georgia. It’s cold and wet. We take a day off at a hostel
at Neels Gap, another in Helen, Ga., and hike on a few days later to Dicks Creek
Gap, thinner and blistered but happy that we’ve done what we have.
Dulcie Teesateskie/Huntsville Times