WHEN and WHERE you first stepped on the AT?

[jbwood5]

For me it was in the early 1960's. Mom and Dad would take us up to Stokes State Forest and High Point in NJ and we would hike short sections. I was always fascinated that a hiking trail could go from Georgia to Maine. We did the High Point section a few times and it was a completely different and tougher trail that went up what appeared to be a rock wall property line (N to S) and the trail went right to the monument. Also, as a child we walked thru the Bear Mountain Zoo which is also the AT trail. That may have even been in the late 50's.

About 1964 or 1965 I went to a Boy Scout camp for 2 weeks called camp Wawayanda in NJ and 1 day a small group of us scouts climbed up a ridge and hiked along the Appalachian Trail.

So... probably I first set foot on the AT in 1958 at 8 years old at the Bear Mountain, NY park.

[DragAss]

Early February in 1986. I was in Ranger School and we hitthe trail somewhere around Hawk Mountain. I remember one night coming up on two tents that had been setup in themiddle of the night on the trail.I’vealways wondered if we scared them (if they heard us).Have walked the GA sections several times sinceand heard the Ranger Ops.Always bringsa smile.

[Carl7]

I saw the AT the first time when I was in Boy Scouts in 1975. We did a bushwhack to the top of Roan Mountain in the rain during a weekend camping trip. On Roan I remember asking one of the adults about the trail at the top of the mountain and the white blazes. He told me it was the AT. Later in 1980 I started section hiking, the Eastern side of the Smokies. I will never forget that trip, maybe the best ever. I hope to get in my first new AT section in years in a couple of weeks. It will be in Maine, and if I'm lucky I will get to the 75% mark. Maybe in 5 years or so I can finish. A young guy I worked with quit his job this year on April 7 and began his thru-hike on April 8 at Springer. He is now in PA while I sit in a cubicle looking a dual computer monitors. It's killing me. Man I hope I can make it a couple of weeks to once set foot on the AT.

[Riocielo]

For me & my husband it was October 20, 2014. I was 54, he was 55 and we were having our first taste of hiking. We hiked up Mt. LeConte, over the Boulevard Trail and onto the AT.

It was love at first step!

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[harnasb]

1992. I was doing some off trail hiking in the Smokies. Went up the Porter Creek Manway. Very steep climbing hand to hand pulling on trees. The first thing to hit the trail was my hand. Right on the edge of the trail. I remember the trail was less than a foot wide and I thought it was the coolest thing ever.
I hiked out to Newfound gap from there and hitched back to Gatlinburg.

[Grandscale]

When I was younger my dad used to take us hiking (he was actually scouting for hunting spots most of the time). It was ok but I never really got into it. When I grew up I wasn't really interested in the outdoors. I was too busy partying and trying to run a business. Once I started settling down hiking began to interest me again. There was one particular gap that I would drive through from time to time and as I would drive through I would always look up at the top of the mountain and remember my dad taking us up there and looking down at the town below. I didn't remember what trail we took to get up there. All I remembered was the view from the top. Eventually I looked it up on google maps and happened to see that The Appalachian Trail looked like it went to the top. I figured that this was most likely the trail that we took. One day along with my girlfriend I decided to hike up there and see if anything looked familiar. This was the trail. That trip sparked my interest in the AT and reintroduced me to hiking and the outdoors. The section was Lehigh Gap, PA (southbound).This was about 3 years ago and since then I've done most of the AT in PA. I will finish it up this year. I will also be doing parts of the AT in New Hampshire, Maryland, and New Jersey this year. Eventually I will thru hike.

[Dan Roper]

In the early 1990s, my wife and I joined a group of friends on a camping/rafting trip on the Nantahala. One afternoon, my wife and I struck out and hiked south on the AT to Rufus Morgan Shelter. Then we turned around and walked back. That has to be about the least auspicious start to section hiking ever.

By the end of the '90s, our family (by then with three children) began day hiking Newfound Gap to Charlie's Bunion.

My first backpacking trip on the AT was south from Fontana Dam in 1998. Me and a friend made it to Cody Gap and camped. It started raining and we scrubbed the trip, turning back to Yellow Creek Road.

But tomorrow me and my two boys, ages 21 and 19, will start at Dennis Cove Road on a section hike to Damascus. We started at Springer in 2007.

Inauspicious beginning, but the AT has become an important part of our family experience.

[BubbaGump]

All I'm gonna say is that my first steps was at neels gap on my birthday. I passed the trailer on the way back from vacation and went home and did some research and hike neels gap to hogpen and about died..

[Longboysfan]

1960's or 70's in Harriman State Park. N.Y.

[Wolfpacker]

My first hike on the AT was as a 13 year old Boy Scout. We hiked from Smokemont Campground up to the AT on a Monday morning in July of 1964. We crossed Fontana Dam about noon on the following Friday morning. From this we earned the 50 Miler Award!!

[ChuckT]

1965

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[Lnj]

Thanksgiving weekend, 2013. We went camping at Vogel State Park with a family we had made friends with because our sons played football together for their middle school. We left for Vogel early black Friday morning and spent the weekend there and the other kid's dad asked us if we had ever hiked Blood Mountain. We had actually never done much hiking at all so... it was a day trip, just up to the top and back down. There were 7 of us total, and 2 dogs. It was a slow trod, as none of us except the kids were/are in great shape. I couldn't walk for just staring in awe at my surroundings. At that time I knew we were on the AT, but I didn't know much about it, certainly not enough to appreciate any significance. I just knew it was big hiking trail. I do have 2 funny memories of it now though... at some point on the trip up, there were a couple of "backpackers" coming down a rock face and they were seriously moving, while we wheezed and gasped for air and they were loaded up tot he teeth. I remember one of us asking them how long they had been out and they said something like 3 or 4 days. I remember just being astonished that someone would just go hiking for DAYS without stopping. I wondered why in the world anyone would even want to do that. After they moved on.... cause we were all sitting there for quite a few minutes...I said something like "Now that's hard core, right there yall". Then when we got to the top and saw the shelter, my son was asking what it was and I just said it was probably some historical building site or something. I had no idea that people actually slept inside that building... currently. It looked like an old house/monument, not something being used regularly.

Funny... this is what planted the seed for the AT in particular but hiking has been in my blood since I was like maybe 5 or 6, but not in the technical sense. It was more just playing/walking in the woods. When I was 5/6 my home at the time was unhappy and loud. We lived in a house in the woods, so running off into the woods and climbing trees for hours on end was my escape. Fast forward a few years to a very happy home with my dad and I stayed with my granny and papa after school and we would walk in the woods on little trails out behind their house too, those these were very small little trips, not more than a mile or two at the most. It was in these walks with them that we had the best talks and I still hold those days very near to my heart.

Never did any woods walking or hiking again until I married my husband in 2007. He is retired Army so he introduced me to camping and sleeping in a tent for the first time in my life and also to hiking. Fast forward to now..... I want to be hiking at every quarter of an opportunity and he dreads every moment of it. He will not let me go alone and he suffers through every step I make him take. So my next mountain to climb is getting him to come around to letting me go by myself!

[The Roaming Gnome]

Summer of 2014 New Found Gap

[becfoot]

Summer of 1987 or '88. I was in junior high school and my folks had planned a three week (car) camping trip covering Maryland, West Virginia, and Virginia. Harper's Ferry was on the list of places to hit and I remember my dad talking about how we were on the AT while we were there. Honestly, as a kid from Brooklyn who would rather have been home with her friends, I really didn't care much at the time.
At this point, I live ten minutes from the trail--totally unplanned when I moved up here, but when I rediscovered hiking, it was such a welcome surprise.

[Lear]

Tanyard Gap to Hot Springs, May 2014. The weather had been horrible but the day of the hike it was gorgeous and we went to the top of a lookout tower. Could not fathom how nice the vegetation was and how well kept the trail was. There were native orchids along the trail and that was the first time I had seen them.

[jj dont play]

Springer 4/18/16


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[Capt.Scott]

In Kindergarten, my teacher informed us that her son had just finished hiking the entire AT. (about 1968) I was fascinated. What is this Appalachian Trail? In 1979, I was hiking with my father in the Blue Ridge of VA. A loop-hike that included the Belfast, Gunter Ridge trails and AT. Upon reaching the AT for first time at Marble Spring (Shelter had burned) I met two fellas thru-hiking. They were chilling in a "tarp tent". I looked north and south, and was hooked. Hiking ever since. Capt.Scott

[EdgeCase]

Hiked up from Kephart shelter on the Sweat Heifer Creek trail in the Smokies and joined the AT just east of Newfound Gap Thanksgiving week 1978 with my wife to be. Very nostalgic. I think I'll go and find some pictures from that hike.

[LoneRidgeRunner]

I think 1995 GSMNP on a hiking/trout fishing trip from Clingman's Dome to Welch Ridge Trail to Hazel Creek Trail to backcountry campsite #86. I think that's the correct site number. The one that is 8.6 miles upsream on Hazel Creek from Fontana Lake. Stormed and rained and the creek rose several feet so didn't get to fish but did have my first bear sighting. ( a sow with two cubs on Welch Ridge.) Not a claw or bear tooth scar on my carcass though.

[LIhikers]

The AT was just another trail in New York's Harriman State Park for me even though I knew it was much more than that.
Then when we were visiting the town of Harper's Ferry I saw the white blazes and it dawned on me that we could walk back to New York state, our home.
The next summer, 2001, my wife and hiked north from Harper's Ferry to Penn Mar park and have been working our way north since then, in short sections.