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Showing posts from April, 2024

Day 67 Half Way

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Today we walked through the woods past the half way point of the Appalachian trail.   We all slept in this morning. Instead of waking up at 6:30 like we planned we woke up closer to 7:45. My alarm went off at 6:30 and I was sleeping so well I just shut it off. We were moving by 9 with 25 miles to hike. The fog cleared in the morning and all our gear had a lot of condensation on it. With a couple days of sun and 80 degrees ahead it should all dry out quickly.  In the morning we walked through a variety of woods, from  dense old softwood forests to  open hardwood that looked like it was logged recently.   After about 9 miles of hiking we crossed the official half way point on the trail and the 1,100 mile mark. Just past the official point at the exact mileage was a bigger sign. Half way feels like a huge accomplishment and it’s crazy to think back at all we went through to get here. We’ve pushed through cold and wind in February, being as sick as I’ve ever been and stuck out in the woods

Day 66 Pennsylvania Forests

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We didn’t start hiking until 12:30 but still managed to finish 21 miles before 9PM. We slept in until 8 this morning and it felt fantastic to have a full night sleep in a real bed and fully recovering from hiking 45 miles. I really didn’t feel too sore at all today. We definitely recovered quickly. My feet are a little tender but that is the only noticeable difference from a normal day of hiking.  Tyler’s grandparents fed us tons of awesome food and were amazing hosts. We really appreciate the help! The home cooked food was incredible and we especially appreciated it after a couple months of trail food and restaurant.  On the drive back to the trail we picked up resupplies to get us through Friday. We will carry a couple of days of food at a time and Tyler’s grandparents will meet us a couple times to drop off the next resupply. Again this help will be incredible. Carry 2 days of food at a time is so much easier than 4 days of food.  So far PA has been awesome. It was overcast and fogg

Day 65 Tyler’s Grandparents

I slept like a rock last night after pushing so hard the day before. Our tent site was right next to a stream what always adds nice background noise. We hiked out two miles and got picked up by Tyler’s grandparents. Our first stop was a breakfast diner, then we went to the house and took showers.  We will relax today and hike around 23 miles tomorrow. Goodnight, Walker  If you want to follow Tyler or Spencer, here are their logs as well: Tyler:  https://tylerat2024.blogspot.com/?m=1 Spencer:  https://www.instagram.com/baxter.bound?utm_source=qr&igsh=MWx4MzRqa3M4dGk3Mw==

Day 64 45 Miles and 4 States

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We hiked over 45 miles today in 16 hours 15 minutes. We finished three states and entered a fourth.   Last night there were a couple drunk people who walked past our tents yelling at each other at about 10PM, so that kept me up for a bit. But I slept decently from about 11:30 to 4:15. We packed up and started walking in the dark by 4:45. We hiked down into Harper’s Ferry and over the Shanondoah River as the sun was rising.  We hiked through the town of Harper’s Ferry    and accidentally took a half mile detour to the ATC headquarters at around 6AM.  We then passed some ruins and hiked over the Potomac and out of West Virginia.  The first few miles of Maryland involved a flat walk 4 mile walk along a decommissioned canal. I was surprised at how much the flat and consistent trail tired my legs. Were used to walking on varied terrain and pitch so 4 flat and even miles were unexpectedly difficult. We passed some ruins of stone buildings in MD before entering a consistent young growth fores