WHEN and WHERE you first stepped on the AT?

[Flash Hand]

Front Royal, Virginia in the year of 2003, to make sure if Appalachian Trail is REALLY there!. And after that, I believe it is! LOL

And my first feet landing for long distance hike of course at Springer Mountain.

Flash Hand

[wacocelt]

July 20th, 2000, Abol Bridge. I was carrying more weight in wet cotton than any two Ultralight packs with 5 days of food. Those were the days...

[ffstenger]

A week-long section hike in the GSMNP, 1999. I was ready to quit by the end
of the first day ( a REALLY bad start) but completed the section and hooked
ever since Never had a bad day like that first one either !!! Showme

[papa john]

Mid 80's, we were camping up in Shenandoah at Big Meadow CG. Went hiking on some of the trails looking for waterfalls. Followed one trail up to the ridge where it intersected with the AT. I started to do some research on the trail and the seed was planted.

One article that I found in a magazine talked about thru-hikers and how they resupplied and about life on the trail in general. I am thinking it was in Readers Digest but I haven't been able to find the article since then. There was another article that talked about this person who simply vanished while on the trail never to be found or heard from again. Sure would like to find those again.

PJ

[peter_pan]

Age 16, summer of 1963, with four good friends from our Baltimore MD boy scout troop we did the bottom third of the SNP on the AT. A trip never forgotten. We had a bear larger than us stand on his hind legs, look at us, roar, then bound over the side of the hill and out of sight. Never forget stuff for sure.

[grizzlyadam]

the summer after 5th grade- i was rafting at the NOC with scouts and we took an afternoon to hike north on the AT for a few miles. at the time i couldn't comprehend that the trail i was walking on extended all the way to maine, much less, georgia.

[Frog]

Around 1975 was the first time i can remember being on the AT but the first time i heard about it was in 6 th grade around 1964 in a geography book and i started day dreaming then about going to places in my home state that the trail went threw and i guess i have been day dreaming and full filling that dream ever since.

[The Scribe]

I had been to the summit of Mt. Washington (car), to Pinkham Notch, and a few other places along the AT since the mid 70's but they don't count. Kind of like saying I was there when the Sox won game seven against the Evil Empire last fall when in fact I was in my living room.

First time ON it was early last May with Attroll. We (and his wife ans stepson) hiked in from the Jo-Mary Road to the Cooper Brooks Falls Shelter then back out the next day. He took it easy on me as a newbie. It was a close-to 80 degree weekend, even way up there. Beautiful. There was still snow on the ground on the other side of the river from the shelter.

Last September we did Caratunk to Monson over the Labor Day weekend.

LOVED IT.

Last night, with the snow piled up against the bottom of some of my windows, I had the maps out and was dreaming.

PCM

[cupcake]

about a year ago, fall, a short walk on the trail across the street from pinkham notch. it was flat, rooty, and slippery --- the beavers had flooded much of the trail. this was THE A.T. i'd only read about it. and down the trail comes a couple of guys --- one looking very official, with blood running down from his knee. i can't imagine the horror on my face, my eyes wide open, and i asked, "is the trail that hard?" this was an honest question. his buddy just busted out laughing. it wasn't hard at all, he'd just fallen. oops.

[neo]

my first hike on the the appalachian trail was oct 1974,i was almost 16,i hiked with my explorer post from waterville rd to lemmon gap,i remember it just like yesterday,we camped less than 2 miles north of snowbird mountain. neo

[grrickar]

October 2004 was my first experience. We started in Hot Springs, NC and ended up in Wesser, NC at the NOC nine and a half days later. I got a couple of trips planned this year, and hope to get a couple of 50 mile sections completed.

[LionKing]

For me it was August of 1985. I'd made the decision a month earlier to hike the AT starting March of 86. I was living in R.I. and drove to Mt. Greylock, parked and walked north for about a mile. I've been screwed up ever since.

Driving over NewFoundgap as a child with family and actually walking(although I didnt know it then) walked about 100 yards past the momument on the AT until my Mom yelled at me to get back in the car.

Then the next time...May of 98...Springer...late, uneducated with hiking, fat, tired, and annoyed at life.

Things changed a lot from then till October 13.

[zephyr1034]

The first time I technically set foot on the AT was in the spring of 1962. My family used to go for drives on Sunday after church (yeah I know, no one does that anymore. Why not?). Anyway, one day we went to Washington Monument State Park on top of South Mountain. We walked up to the monument on a wide, smooth trail. But we returned to the parking lot on the AT. All 0.11 miles of it. I was fascinated by the Trail, but at 14 I had neither a license nor a car.

About a year later, I discovered the train service to Harpers Ferry. Over a couple of trips, I quickly covered the Trail between the Sandy Hook Bridge and Keys Gap.

[Jaybird]

i guess my very first time i ever stepped on part of the Appalachian Trail was in the late 80s....my girlfriend (now wife) & i stopped @ the TN/NC line, near Clingmans Dome & walked for approx. 1 mile on the trail.

BUT, it was a few years later, 2000, when my friend "TeePee" & I, standing on the A.T. @ Carvers Gap on a windy, icy, foggy day...that we decided........." we're gonna hike part of the Appalachian Trail!"

[J.D.]

Spring 1958 - Hitch hiked from Ohio to NYC and along the way HAD to see/touch/smell the AT which I had only read about... Just a short walk.

Summer of 1962 - Proud that I had kept the weight under 60# in my Red Kelty pack! SVEA 123 - Still have them both! - Delaware Water Gap over to the N.E. Extn. of the PA TurnPike. Can't remember 2 -3 days...?

Great Thread Idea - Thanks!

Happy Trails,

J.D.

[totally Boagus]

I was a young kid maybe 6 to 8, in the mid to late 1960's, My Aunt had a cabin near Pine Grove Furnace Pa. She would take all the kids over to the camp store for ice cream and then we would run up and down the path. Now and then we would see a hiker come in and they looked very rough and ready. The ice cream and the look of those hikers may be what got me interested in the trail

[NotYet]

I have a picture of me at age two at a family picnic on Roan Mt. I remember coming to Roan for similar gatherings many, many times, and at every picnic we'd walk over to explore some of the AT. So I don't know the exact moment I first stepped on the trail, but I know it was before I can remember!

Although I grew up in Texas, my Dad was a hiker from Bristol, TN. His childhood "stomping ground" was the AT. He told me many stories of the trail, and I wanted to hike the whole thing for as far back as I can remember. Although my Dad had died 13 years prior, he was there with me every step of the way during my thru-hike.

[Rain Man]

If you don't count the few times my family stopped at Newfound Gap to gawk at the vistas while driving through the GSMNP, then my first time on the AT was July 31, 2003.

My daughter Sarah (aka Grass Picker aka Grass) had announced she wanted to hike the AT, after running into two thru-hikers at the NOC in Wesser, NC, during a college whitewater outing she was on.

I said "Well, let's go find the start in Georgia and hike for a weekend, so you get the feel of it and know for sure." I had only been out for a single one-night hike before then. On July 30 we drove down to the Forrest Service Road #42 parking lot, where we slept in the van. Early the next morning we hiked the 9/10ths of a mile south to the summit of Springer, checked everything out, took photos, and headed north. Came out at Neels Gap three and a half days later and didn't want to stop.

Now I've section hiked all the way to Fontana Dam and in April I'm doing the GSMNP section. woooooooo woooooooo!!!!

Rain Man

.

[hiker5]

October 2002
I had just started grad school at Virginia Tech and did a day hike from VA 311 to Dragons Tooth with some other new students. I was blown away by the view.

[TankHiker]

I was probably on the AT many times as a child, but didn't know it.

But the first time that I knew I was on the AT was in 2001 at the Rangeley road crossing. I walked about 10 feet into the woods while my family sat in the parking lot with the car running.

-TANK