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 070 - Big Pine Flat Ridge to Peach Glen

Day: 070

Date: Monday, 03 July 2023

Start:  Big Pine Flat Ridge (AT Mile 1091.1)

Finish:  Peach Glen (AT Mile 1109.5)

Daily Kilometres:  29.9 (Ascent 1903', Descent 2605')

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

Total Kilometres:  1865.9

Weather:  Warm, mostly overcast and very humid.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts

  Lunch:  Trail mix

  Dinner:  Hiker burger & fries/Bacon & Cheeseburger & fries, ice-cream 

Aches:  Dave - thigh still a little sore from yesterday's fall; Julie - cuts and abrasions on her left knee and shin after a fall today.

Highlight:  Passing the halfway mark, 1099 miles, this morning.

Lowlight:  None really.

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We were on our way by 6:30am on a warm and humid morning. During the night there has been a very intense thunderstorm so things were still a little damp including our tent fly.

For most of the day we were following low ridges on a mixed bag of trail ranging from.very rocky and technical to easy paved paths through State Parks.  There were some sections of very open forest and we encountered our first (and very docile) rattlesnake.

In the late morning we passed the halfway mark of our journey from Springer Mt to Mt Katahdin and a mile later the 1100 mile mark at this, the end of our 10th week.  It feels good to know we have less distance to go than we have already done.

In the early afternoon we reached Pine Grove Furnace State Park where there is a store famous with thru-hikers for the "half gallon challenge" to see how fast they can eat a half gallon (~ 2 litres) of ice-cream.  The record for this year is 4:48 apparently.  They also have a reputation for good hamburgers so we started with those and then Julie and Dave decided to share the half gallon of ice-cream without going for a time.  Since Dave ended up eating the majority of the ice-cream, he wondered whether he should have gone for the record on his own!

After eating so much we virtually waddled back on to the trail which initially passed through the picturesque State Park and then climbed gradually back up on to a wooded ridge where we found a campsite beside the trail at around 5:00pm.  There was a forecast for severe thunderstorms in the late afternoon, and we did get some rain and could hear distant thunder, but seemed to avoid the worst.  Nevertheless, we put our tents up quickly just in case and then had a relaxed and peaceful evening in the woods.

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