Charming Boiling Springs, PA
Fishing in Boiling Springs
What do I look for in a backyard? Pink chairs, lakefront, ordnance
Free corn- don't tell anyone
I'm on a farm
Boardwalk, first of many in the mid-Atlantic
PA overlook
Access road
View of Duncannon, PA
View of Sherman Creek from Hawk Rock, outside Duncannon PA
PA was berry central, which was good, as there wasn't any water.
Someone got my picture coming into the Doyle. The Doyle is an AT hiker tradition, even a rite. Notice the somewhat crazed look on my face.
Tin Man and Pockets in one of the Doyle's distinguished suites. Note electrical wiring coming down from ceiling.
Susquehanna river crossing, longest river crossing on the AT
PA is starting to get a little rugged
Looking back towards Duncannon
Washed out miner community. They tore up so much of the ground it washed downstream and buried their homes. Apparently greed is not rational, someone call Milton Friedman.
Sign telling you how the locals poisoned their water forever, too.
More PA
Summer flowers
Historic Waterville Iron Bridge
Somewhere north of Port Clinton. Port Clinton was odd. In our guidebooks, it promised a supermarket, outfitter, post office, convenience store, candy store and Yuengling brewery. Only the candy store was accessible, so a lot of us ended up spending more time there than we planned, trying to get enough food to get us out of PA. I restocked at the candy store and lived off cajun mix for a few days.
This is what PA is known for.
PA trail
Some views
Felsenmeer- sea of rocks- combined with very little maintenance results in trails like this
Trying not to bust my feet up
Lehigh River near Palmerton, PA
Lehigh Gap, climbing out of Palmerton, which was probably one of the friendliest cities on the trail.
Top of Lehigh Gap. This climb is acknowledged to be the hardest south of New Hampshire, but through hikers take it on in mid-summer, leading to its being called "Dante's Inferno". This is the EPA site, so there are also no trees. Luckily I got up the slope before eight AM and the worst of the heat.
Great views down Lehigh though. Heavy metals give you great views.
Some company is doing this to China right now. Isn't globalization awesome?
If it wasn't for the pollution, I wouldn't be so tan. Seriously, though, this is as far as it's recovered in fifty years? What was it like fifty years ago? Glowing?
My first southbounder. He's heading on south, I'm heading on north.
Heading into New Jersey on the Delaware River Bridge after a wonderful stay in Delaware Water Gap. Crazy enough, I don't have any pictures of the gap, which really is something, like Lorelei on the Rhine.
Sunfish Pond, NJ, first glacial lake on the trip. There were sailplanes cavorting on the updraft in this picture, but I don't think they're visible.
New Jersey is surprisingly pretty, especially after the hell of northern PA
Sunrise Mountain, NJ. Someone had killed himself at the picnic shelter here some weeks ago. It didn't seem like a bad place to off yourself.
Tin Man at Sunrise Mountain. Tin Man is really tall and really fast, he kept me rolling through the Mid-Atlantic as fast as my stubby legs would take me. His SO, Scarecrow, decided she had enough of this walking shit and stayed home for the second leg of the trip.
Somewhere down there is a terrible restaurant
High Point monument in NJ
Coming down from High Point.
Secret Shelter, NJ
NJ is swampy. Felt like home
Swampy and grassy
And boring
Yes
Last of the summer flowers
Very long boardwalks in NJ
This particular boardwalk was more than a mile long.
Climbing out of Vernon NJ, one of the greatest trail towns. Tin Man and I didn't zero in Vernon, but he did remind me as I took this picture that, "We could have been watching Mythbusters and getting stupid drunk right now". Oh, didn't I know it.
The climb out of Vernon was surprisingly steep. Steep for NJ
Far, far away you can still see the High Point monument, thirty or forty trail miles back. It's probably half that as the crow flies.
The Lemon Squeezer, NY.
Creepy cavern and stagnant pool. I was expecting some tentacled beast to writhe forth. Not a nice place to hang out in the failing light of day.
New Yawk, New Yawk
34 miles to the City?! It took a lot of willpower to not hitchhike this
Bear Mountain, NY
Statue of Walt Whitman in the Bear Mountain Zoo
The trail goes right through the zoo. This point, where the trail passes the bear exhibit, is the lowest point on the AT at something like a hundred and twenty feet.
Me at low point
Hudson River, NY
Greymoor Friary, NY
Views
Empty beer cans and the Red, White and Blue.
New York
YOU SHALL NOT PASS
Going through New York like my pants are on fire
Nuclear Lake
Biggest tuliptree on the trail
The Appalachian Trail Train Station, Wingdale, NY
NY/CT state line. Hello Connecticut!
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PERSECUTED
Bridge over Thayer Brook, CT
Thayer Brook joins the Housatonic, CT
Kent, CT
I'm glad I was going down this
Housatonic
Great Falls of the Housatonic, CT, the biggest waterfall on the trail
The mountains return in CT
Standing stone, CT
Graveyard near Sheffield, CT
Views from Lion's Head, CT
More views from Lion's Head
Lion's Head views
CT views
Little creeks at Sage's Ravine
More of Sage's Ravine. I'd like to come back here someday.
Views from Race Mountain, CT
Shay's Rebellion marker
An organic farmer allows hikers to use an abandoned greenhouse as a shelter. Good thing, because it started raining. From left you can see Hitech, Porkchop, Jackson the Wunderhund, two southbounders whose names I do not remember, and Crescent City, who was doing the hike to raise funds for New Orleans.
Thickly settled, near Sheffield, MA
Pond in MA
Beaver den
Walking in MA
Last of summer in MA
Fall is coming
Upper Goose Pond cabin, MA. The caretaker made pancakes every morning. I zeroed here as opposed to waiting in town for Monica, and didn't regret it for a minute. Got into a canoe for the first time since I got on the trail- it was great.
Trucking toward Dalton and my sweetie
Waterfall off trail, where Monica and I made a day hike
And she springed the question. What did I say? Why, yes, of course!
Bromley ski lift, VT
Map of the Bromley ski complex
Skipatrol cabin on Bromley
Interior of cabin. It was very courteous of the ski patrol to leave the cabin open for through-hikers. Unfortunately, some locals had used it as a drinking shack. The plus side is that there was a half-full bottle of cognac in one of the cabinets.
Bog logs in VT
More bog logs
Rivers in VT. Around Vermont I started realizing that my trip was coming to and end, and I started taking a lot more pictures.
Vermont is gorgeous, at least in those parts where we shared the trail with Vermont's Long Trail, the oldest long-distance trail in America. And the hardest, according to Backpacker Magazine.
Vermont
More Vermont
Near Lost Pond, VT
Bridge
Big Branch, VT
More Big Branch. Beautiful river
"I am here now"
Little Rock Pond, VT
AT teleporting hiker Stoker poses in one of the most surreal places on the trail. Apparently a lot of hikers have made a lot of little stone stacks. It was sort of creepy, as if we all decided we wanted to be surrounded by built things instead of growing things.
More stone structures
And, well, a lot more stone structures
We are all getting a little crazy. There must be hundreds of the things. Perhaps they are shinto shrines.
Small airport near Wallingford, VT
Clarendon Gorge bridge
Clarendon Gorge
More Clarendon Gorge
Whistle Stop diner, near Clarendon VT
Walker at the Whistle Stop
Rabbit at the Whistle Stop. Rabbit, if you're reading this, you still owe me forty bucks.
Porkchop and Jackson, and some well-needed pancakes.
Governor Clement Shelter, VT
Going toward Mt. Killington, VT
Up Killington
Onwards and upwards
Near Killington Peak. Sleet for the first time since May.
Vermont really is fine
Long Trail Inn, VT
Gifford Woods State Park, VT
Near Kent Pond, VT
Kent Pond, VT
Hostel on Kent Pond. Very expensive, moving on.
Winturri Shelter and lookout tower
Mushroom
Last parts of VT
Vermont farmland
Logging
Goodbye Vermont
Odd street name
Happy Hill Shelter, right before Hanover
Happy Hill
Old iron door, Hanover NH
Entering Hanover
Stoker, El Diablo Rouge, Frankenfoot, Bobcat, a guy whose name I should really remember, and me
Bobcat and Stoker look down at Pockets eating the Vermonster, an eight pound pile of ice cream
Newly mohawked Riceburner can also not believe that Pockets is handling the Vermonster
Walker, Pockets with the Vermonster, and Tonka yuks it up as her SO is about to make himself very sick
Tunnel from Hanover
Storyteller and 46er. They flipped up to Katahdin, I met them in NH coming south. They are really great folks.
Cat in Virginia
Dirtnap in Damascus
The one, the only, Doc Gnarley
Hot Sauce- I think he dropped out in Tennessee
JP, JP's Mom, and Stretch in Fontana Village, NC
Locomotive Joe and Stoker in Erwin, TN
Rainbow Brite and Mountain Dew in the Whites
NoPain, the only black through-hiker I met.
Pookah in Sugar Grove, VA
Shenandoah sheriff, watching out for escaped convicts
Straw in Sugar Grove, VA
Twinkle Toes in the Whites- one of the first people I met on the trail, back in GA. He flipped north and was heading south
Zamboni. Z-man, if you're reading this, I have one word to say to you: LOOONGHOOORRRN!
