WHEN and WHERE you first stepped on the AT?

[Rift Zone]

A while back, in California, I got involved with this girl. Before long she had to leave Back to School. She wasn't gone long before I missed her and had to visit. She Attended Dartmouth in Hanover, NH. My first time on the AT was back in April '98. I flew into Boston/Logan and took public transpo to Hanover. The bus actually dropped me off in VT so the final stretch to my baby was on the AT. The cool thing about it is I don't own luggage. I don't travel with luggage. I travel with gear. I hiked to my baby carrying a pack!

[Rift Zone]

I should also say that while she was in class I was making good use of the Dartmouth Outing Guide that she gave me. I still have that copy.

[celt]

I didn't know it at the time but Mount Washington on July 4th 1974 was the first time I crossed paths with the AT. I was five and I'd come up the Tuckerman Ravine Trail with my Dad. I guess that means I first crossed the AT near the Trading Post at Pinkham Notch the day before. July 25th +26th 1979 was my first hike along The Trail: From Mount Lafayette to Zealand Hut and I remember my Dad telling me I was on a trail that went from Georgia to Maine. I was completely blown away by that.

[Lilred]

I don't remember when I first learned about the AT. Sometime when I was a teenager and was fascinated with the thought of walking from Georgia to Maine on a trail through the woods. March, 2003, I was hiking to a waterfall in the Smokies and saw a sign pointing out the AT. I wanted to jump on it then. I decided then that I wanted to hike the AT. Found Whiteblaze and started learning and buying gear. Nov. 2003, Rain Man was kind enough to let me tag along to Neel's Gap with him and I took my first backpacking trip ever. Seven days it took me to get to Deep Gap N.C. Now I'm hooked and will be hiking Springer to Neel's Gap the last week in March. That will close up the first 90 miles of the AT for me. Starting June 1st, I'll have 4 weeks, starting at Carter's Gap. CAN'T WAIT!!!

[The Solemates]

No idea. I suspect I was on the AT before I could even walk.

[RockyTrail]

June 1975; hiked up the access trail from Cosby Campground to the AT carrying a truck load of heavy gear (ugh!). Went over to Cosby Knob shelter for the night. The shelter was slam-packed full of hikers. At that time the shelter had a chain-link fence and door across the opening (to keep bears out?). All the trees around the shelter had been clawed badly. Slept out in front of the shelter a pup tent alone while everyone else was behind the fence talking about the bears, felt like bait on a hook! Ha ha

[Pootz]

I attended a conference in Knoeville TN back in the spring of 2003. I drove from there to the top of the mountian above Gatlinburg TN just to take a look at the AT. I had never seen the trail but I was already planning a section hike for the summer of 2003. It took about an hour or so and was worth every minute. It was love at first site. I am now in the planning stage for my third section hike this coming summer. Some day I plan to do a thru-hike. Work always seems to get in the way.

[steve hiker]

It was just over a year ago, in the first week of December 2003. I drove to the Smokies for a few days of hiking, parked in the Cosby lot and headed up the Deep Gap trail. It was cool and raining lightly when I started. As I rose in elevation snow started appearing on the ground and the rain turned to sleet.

I finally reached the ridge and saw my first AT trail sign, pointing north to Maine and south to Georgia. I'll never forget that moment.

It started to snow just after that, and as I followed the white blazes to Cosby Knob shelter I imagined the footsteps of hundreds of SOBO thru-hikers who had walked the same steps all the way from Maine. By the time I got to the shelter everything was covered in white. It was beautiful beyond words.

The next month (Jan 04) I went back and hiked the northern half of the Smokies, and the following month (Feb 04) the southern half to Fontana. Since then I've sectioned from Fontana to Dick's Creek Gap and from Hot Springs to Sam's Gap. Don't know if I'll ever have time for a thru-hike, but the AT is in my blood for good.

[Mags]

Columbus Day Weekend, 1986 with my Boy Scout troop. We climbed Mt. Lafayette in NH.

Can read about it here:

http://www.magnanti.com/miscwritings/troop_71.htm

[Tha Wookie]

Hey Wolf,


Do blue blazed trails count?

My first was a blue blaze, right off Tray Mt. in GA. down to the High Schoals Falls. Man it was great -my brother, me, and my dad. I was a couple years old.

God Bless ALL the trails!

[Tha Wookie]

I forgot to say the year was 1978, July.

[swamp dawg]

I first set foot on the AT in the summer of 1964 while in the Smokies and I somehow knew that my fate was sealed. I wanted to walk parts of the trail but figured walking the whole trail was out of the question. It took a great deal of time to get back to the trail but it has been one of the most special adventures of my life. As I section my way up the trail over the years, I realize that it is more than a hike. What it is will have to be defined but your experience as you travel on the AT but it will surely change you. Life is good on the trail.....Swamp Dawg

[fantasmagris]

Embarrassed/ashamed to admit it - long ago my mom and i were passin near Pearisburg WV on our way to Hillsboro WV. my mom detoured, stopped and walked onto the AT with me in tow. i'd be surprised if we walked a half mile before heading back to the car. I was like "gee maw, do we have to..." And now MANY years later i'm like "gee maw, would i love to - and hope to someday!" And my poor old ma probably never will (tho i think she still badly wants to).

[c.coyle]

When I was about 6 (roughly 1960), my dad took me up "Showers Steps", a couple miles north of 501 Shelter in Pa. These are about 500 crude rock steps built in the nose of Roundhead by a guy named Showers after WWII.

When we got to the top, I asked my old man about the white stripe on the tree. "If you keep going that way, you can go all the way to Maine. If you keep going the other way, you get to Georgia." I thought that was very, very cool.

I still feel like a little kid when I'm out there.

[hungryhowie]

I was probably about 4 or 5 when I first set foot on the AT. My family used to visit Great Smoky Mountains National Park during many of our vacations, and we hiked out of Newfound Gap a few times, so that's probably the first time I was on the AT, that would have been 1986-87ish.

The first time I was congnizant of the AT on a dayhike near the AT in the Smokies several years later. I remember passing a barely recognizable side trail with a sign saying that the Appalachian Trail was a mile or two up the trail. I remember asking my father what is was and being told that it was a really long trail stretching through the entire mountain chain.

My first encounter with thruhiker was in the mid 90s. I was climbing LeConte and when I met them. I remember that there was a girl and a guy, and was intrigued by their stinch and her unshaven legs. They told me what they were doing, but it didn't really make sense to me at the time.

Spring of 1999 I hiked a loop trail (a new one for me), up to Gregory Bald and over to Russel and Spence Fields. It was a beautiful spring day and several thruhikers passed by. The one I'll never forget, WaterBoy, stopped and talked about his adventure with my mother and I for 10 minutes or so. He told me how he started in Georgia several weeks ago, and how he'd gotten food poisoning in Hiawassee and had to layover for a week or so before continuing on. He carried everything he needed on his back, and said he was going all the way to Maine, 2000 more miles, and that it would take him another 5.5 months.

I couldn't get that out of my head. I knew I was going to do that. My father helped me devise a way to graduate from HS early so that I could set out the next Spring. I got a job at a local outfitter, learned about gear, and bought a good deal of it. The very next spring, I was in the same place as Waterboy, and on my way to Maine.

I got a really special birthday present that year, I walked into Maine on my 18th birthday. I think that's they best birthday present I've ever gotten.

-howie

[Lone Wolf]

I've really enjoyed reading everybody's first AT encounter. Good stuff. Keep em coming.

[RockyTrail]

Yeah, ain't this a good thread?

[Lone Wolf]

Yup. No BS, fighting or anger.

[bulldog]

April 29, 2000. The day I started my thru-hike.

[Tabasco]

July 2003, Delaware Water Gap walking South. Went to the Poconos on a family vacation, did short day hikes 3 days of my vacation.

Met thru hikers: Magic Rat and Turtle, Payphone and RedDirt and Fluffy Nutter

Great times