HIKING THE APPALACHIAN TRIAL

May, 2018

During this Memorial Day weekend, before leaving Pennsylvania, and following Barbara’s question of “what do you want to do today”, I suggested that we should hike a small portion of the Appalachian Trail. Little did I know that we’d be on the Trail for 5 hours and hike almost 7 miles. For those that keep track of such things that’s over 18,000 steps and 44 flights of stairs! And I’m not sure why I keep forgetting that if you hike up you have to hike down as well. For this old timer up burns the hamstrings and down murders the knees.

Stealing from the National Park Foundation: “The Appalachian National Scenic Trail is a 2,180-mile footpath along ridgecrests and across the major valleys of the Appalachian Mountains from Katahdin in Maine to Springer Mountain in northern Georgia. The trail traverses Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia, Virginia, Tennessee, North Carolina and Georgia. The Appalachian Trail (AT) is used by day, weekend and other short-term hikers, section-hikers and thru-hikers (who hike the entire length of the trail, start to finish, in one season).

“The Appalachian Trail began as a vision of forester Benton MacKaye, was developed by volunteers, and opened as a continuous trail in 1937. It was designated as the first National Scenic Trail by the National Trails System Act of 1968. The Trail is currently protected along more than 99 percent of its course by federal or state ownership of the land or by rights-of-way. Annually, more than 4,000 volunteers contribute more than 185,000 hours of effort on the Appalachian Trail.”

Barbara and I followed the Delaware Water Gap Mount Tammany Trail past lookout point to the summit, and then we hiked back down following the fire road to our car. 3 things were noticed during our hike. The trail was blocked at several points by trees uprooted by the amount of snow this winter, paired with a very wet spring, and the path is rocky. There were also many individuals, couples, and families with and without dogs who also took the time today to hike the trail.

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