Appalachian Trail

Trip Planning This is the first of a 3-part trip report describing the two week, Appalachian Trail section hike I took in April 2011, beginning in southern New Jersey and ending in southern Connecticut. Covering 173 miles and spanning 14 days, I’ve broken the trip report out by state. This …

When you hike the Appalachian Trail, you get in the habit of looking behind yourself periodically to make sure you are still on the trail. If you get into “the zone,” it’s all too easy to miss a turn in the trail corridor and amble off along some other road, …

I just got back from a short section hike on the Connecticut Appalachian Trail where I finished the northern half of the state, hiking from Bear Mountain to Rt 7. Autumn is past its peak here, but hiking in the woods was quite beautiful and easy compared to my last …

I took a 75 mile section hike on the Maine Appalachian Trail last week and it was simply divine. The autumn color was in full glory and I had 50+ mile views for days on end. This hike had everything: drama, magic, danger, fear, thirst, fatigue, awe and one singular …

Last week, I finally finished section hiking all 161 miles of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire. Now that it’s done, it’s hard to believe that it was only 161 miles. I’ve probably hiked twice that just to reacquire the AT each time I bag a section of trail. I’ll …

The 1.9 mile section between of the Appalachian Trail from Mt Wolf to the Reel Brook trail junction is one of my last remaining sections of the Appalachian Trail in New Hampshire and I finally got to hike it last Saturday. As usual, I had to hike a lot more …

In July, 2007 I went on a 4 day backpacking trip along the Appalachian Trail starting on Rt 2 outside of Gorham, NH and ending at the Wild River Campground. During our hike, we walked from the Rattle River Trailhead at the Androscoggin River to Zeta Pass (this is all …

On August 5th, 2007, I did a 9.2 mile (RT) day hike from Kinsman Notch to Mt Wolf on the New Hampshire Appalachian Trail. This is the section right after the decent from Mt Moosilauke, which is the first really big peak that northbound thru-hikers encounter in the White Mountains. …

When planning an Appalachian Trail section hike, the first thing I do is to consult a ragged 2006 copy of the AT Thru-Hikers’ Companion that I use to keep track of all of the miles I’ve hiked. I provides a mile by mile account of all of the shelters, water …

One of my regular readers contacted me recently about a car break-in they experienced at a trailhead parking lot in the White Mountains. Unfortunately, it happens, despite the efforts of the park service to patrol these lots. Your best protection to prevent a break-in is to not leave anything in …

It's been a while since I've done a section hike on the Appalachian Trail, but I got back to it on Saturday, completing a very short section that I'd missed last Autumn along the Kinsman Ridge Trail in The White Mountains. This hike was special because my regular winter hiking …

Connecticut Appalachian Trail My work-hike balance has been seriously off kilter the past few weeks, but I got back into the groove this weekend with a 1 night backpacking trip on the Connecticut Appalachian Trail, my first foray into the state. Spring has arrived in Connecticut and we saw a …

After spending the past few months section hiking the AT in New Hampshire and Maine, I did a big section down in southwestern  Massachusetts on Wednesday, finally finishing the state. As usual, I got off to an early start, sneaking out of the house at 5am (we're visiting relatives for …

I had a benign bear encounter this weekend at Lower Gentian Pond on the Mahoosuc Trail, way up in the northern part of New Hampshire, near the Maine state line. I stupidly left some beef jerky in my rain jacket which was hanging inside my tent vestibule overnight. At about …