so, for those of you who don't know, the appalachian trail (or AT) is a long distance hiking trail in the united states. it starts in maine and ends in georgia, and is over 2,000 miles long! it's one of three long distance hiking trails in the us, the other two being the continental divide trail, which is out west, and the pacific crest trail, which is on the west coast. the three trails are referred to collectively as the triple crown.
a couple hundred people "thru hike" the AT every year, which means they hike the entire trail at one time. this usually takes about 3-6 months to do.
after i graduate from lawrence, i plan on taking a year off before (hopefully, if i get in) going to grad school. the reason i'm doing this is so i can thru hike the AT! this is a pretty big goal of mine. i've wanted to do it for about three years and i occasionally obsess over the trail in my free time.
so today was obviously an important milestone for me! this was my first introduction to the trail, and was it a good one.
a couple of hours from oak ridge is great smoky mountain national park. this is the most visited national park. it's pretty large and, because it sits on the edge of the appalachians, it's quite hilly and forested. it's a gorgeous park and, like any other recreational area, as soon as you get ten feet from any paved surface you're basically alone. about 70 miles of the AT runs through the park. once i found out about this, i knew i would have to try the trail out!
i left the apartment this morning at 8 am and drove to the park. the drive itself kind of sucks because you have to drive through pigeon forge, which is a ridiculous tourist trap. it reminds me a lot of the wisconsin dells. ugh. actually, both pigeon forge and gatlinburg are similar tourist traps, but there's a highway bypass around gatlinburg, as i discovered today!
the drive in the park was fairly soothing. i just stayed on the main road, which slowly gained elevation as i went on. the road is at its highest point at newfound gap, which has an overlook and a bigger parking lot, and this was where i was heading.
when i got there, i wasted no time in getting on the trail. the trail ascended very gently for probably the first 3/4ths of a mile. after that, it was a bit more up and down, but the elevation change was never extreme. the trail was somewhat rugged but very well maintained. i actually passed a maintenance guy on the trail. he was using some sort of modified scythe thing to remove brush.
the vegetation was mixed deciduous-coniferous with a medium amount of underbrush. there were some sections that were totally coniferous, which made me happy, because i love coniferous trees. it was also perfect weather for hiking! cool, mostly overcast. the ground was still wet from all of the rain yesterday. when i got near the place i was going to eat, charlie's bunion, it got super foggy. i couldn't see more than like 15 feet away while i was eating, which was creepy. i realized later that what i thought was fog was probably actually clouds! that's how high up i was.
there were very few people on the trail, of course. i saw maybe ten other hikers the entire time, which is fine with me. i was hoping to see a thru hiker, but no such luck.
i hiked pretty fast. it felt good to just push my body, and i can tell i'm much stronger physically than i used to be. it's because of running. even though i haven't been running as many miles as i should be, the constant exercise has been adding up.
this is kind of a secret, but i started running to get my body in shape for hiking. so really, when running get extremely frustrating (which happens a lot), i always remind myself that it's so i can be a good hiker. haha. seems weird, but it works!
i took some good photos while i was out there. my lovely mum bought me a new digital camera this week. it looks kind of like an slr, but it's not, which makes me both proud and ashamed to have it. but anyways, i'm going to be able to add pictures to lots of my posts now! i really missed having a camera. i won't be able to put up any yet, though, because i can't figure out how to get them on my computer. stayed tuned!
newfound gap to charlie's bunion (and back): 8 miles
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