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 129 - Hall Mountain to Bemis Mountain

Day: 129

Date: Thursday, 31 August 2023

Start:  Hall Mountain (AT Mile 1947.3)

Finish:  Bemis Mountain (AT Mile 1960.1)

Daily Kilometres:  18.9 (Ascent 4656', Descent 4465')

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

Total Kilometres:  3195.9

Weather:  Cool and sunny.

Accommodation:  Tent

Nutrition:

  Breakfast:  Pop tarts 

  Lunch:  Trail mix

  Dinner:  Rehydrated meals 

Aches:  Dave - left knee sore and other niggles; Julie - head and neck injuries after she slipped going downhill and fell head first into a tree trunk driven by the weight of her pack resulting in a goose egg lump on her head, a bloody forehead and sore neck.

Highlight:  None really

Lowlight:  None really

Pictures: Click here

Map and Position: Click here for Google Map

Journal:

We got away at about 6:45am with a wet tent from rain overnight.  We were hoping to cover about 16 miles today but after the first 4.5 miles took nearly four hours we became more pessimistic.

We had two slow, steep and technical ascents and descents, the second over Moody Mt (2379'), and the ford of knee-deep Black Brook that cost time because Dave didn't want to get his boots and socks more wet than they already were, so crossed in his camp shoes.

After a breakfast break on the other side of the brook, warming up in the sun, we followed the trail steeply up to Old Blue Mt (3600'), another slow climb with some good views on the way up.  However, most of the time we were in mossy, gnarly and boggy conifer forest and there were no views from the summit.  It was on the descent from Old Blue Mt that Julie had a nasty fall (see above), though she resumed hiking almost immediately.

We took a mid-afternoon break at a lookout and reassessed our day's plan, deciding to head for some tentsites on Bemis Mt, which we reached around 6:30pm.  It was a cold evening and we set up camp, washed and ate as quickly as we could so we could get into the warmth of our tent and sleeping bags.  Autumn is coming!

Maine is wearing us both down and neither of us is really enjoying it so far.  Maybe we were too ambitious in our schedule, but it has also been historically boggy on the trail after record summer rains and this has slowed us down and made the hiking less pleasant.  From his position in the rear, Dave can hear Julie regularly cursing as she sinks ankle-deep in mud once again.  We may need to add a few days to our schedule to make life easier.

By

1 comment:

  1. Tracey PassSeptember 4, 2023 at 9:47 PM

    OH Julie I hope you are ok and that your neck soreness heals quickly<3

    ReplyDelete

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)