Julie and I are hiking the Appalachian Trail in the US from Springer Mt, Georgia, to Mt Katahdin, Maine, in the north, a distance of almost 2,200 miles (3,540 km). Our journey will start in early May 2023 and is expected to take about five months. We will be mostly camping, carrying 3-5 days of supplies to get us between resupply points, where we will be staying in hostels/hotels/motels where we can. I hiked the entire Appalachian Trail back in 1986 so it will be interesting to see how much has changed and how much it has stayed the same.

Appalachian Trail - Day 026 - Cherry Gap to near Stan Murray Shelter

Day: 026

Date: Saturday, 20 May 2023

Start:  Cherry Gap (AT Mile 362.3)

Finish:  Near Stan Murray Shelter (AT Mile 384.0)

Daily Kilometres:  36.5

GPX Track:  Click here for Julie’s Strava & Photos

Total Kilometres:  649.1

Weather:  Overcast all day with drizzle and fog in the evening.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts

  Lunch:  Trail mix

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals

Aches:  Dave - very tired:  Julie - nothing to report

Highlight:  It was a day for orange salamander spotting and Julie counted fourteen.

Lowlight:  After making good progress most of the day the last few hours, as we encountered technical steep trail, rain and fog, was a drag.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We woke at 5:30am and were hiking by 6:30am on a grey day for which rain was forecast.  The trail was quite good so, despite it having plenty of ups and downs, oscillating between 4,000’ and 5,500’, we made good time. Mostly we were in deciduous forest, but occasionally at the higher elevations we had moss carpeted pine forest.  Good views were few, but we could always sense through the trees that we were quite high.


We only saw a few hikers today until we reached the Roan Mountain area which is popular for day hikers.  This was towards the end of the day and the ascent of Roan High Knob (6,270’) seemed to take forever on difficult trail.  It also began to drizzle and by the time we descended to Carvers Gap, around 5:00pm, it was starting to get unpleasant.  Nevertheless, the carpark was still quite full and wet day hikers were returning to their cars.  We took a break there, sheltering under a sign before beginning the last stretch of the day.


This involved more climbing over some treeless knobs - Round Bald and Jane Bald - and getting back up to near 6,000’ in very wet conditions. On the former, there was a bedraggled wedding party getting some final pictures taken.


Dave was getting tired and progress was slow.  We plodded on, looking for a tentsite.  The one we were aiming for already had four or five tents there, some loud music playing and the smell of pot wafting in the damp air.  There was no real room for another tent, even if we were interested, so we continued on and eventually found a spot that suited us.  We set up in the drizzle and everything feels either wet or damp.  Not a great day.
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