I made it!

To the top of Baxter Peak and Mount Katahdin, that is…
Traditionaly, this truly treacherous climb is the end of the AT for northbound hikers. You have to summit and climb back down in a single day since the weather can be deadly on top and changes quickly. It took me about 13.5 hours to do the loop. Yep, this included some unanticipated night hiking. Tough way to start a southbound hike, but I made it and made the next 10 miles out of Baxter State Park today in beautiful weather. A true blessing!

The Flip!

  I made it to Maine and am blogging from the Appalachian Trail Lodge here in Millinocket. Tomorrow morning at 5am, I'll get up and shuttle out to Baxter State Park to summit Katahdin. The early northbounders have already started to finish and over 400 southbounders are on their way at this point as well. Given my late start (see earlier posts…), I'm flipping. In the AT community, this means I started out in one direction and changed directions along the way to avoid weather issues or for some reason.
In my case, I will probably flip again once I get to the Hudson River in early October and start northbound from Roanoke. It's not conventional but it means I can complete my thruhike at home in New York City. And that will be pretty cool!

Dragon's Tooth

Just a cliff, right? No; it's the AT climbing up Dragon's Tooth outside Roanoke. Still hot today!

Eastern continental divide

I'd experiment and pour some water on both sides of the sign but it is so hot and humid up here today that I don't have any to spare!

Bland County, VA

One of the great benefits of my hike has been enjoying the people and countryside surrounding the Trail as much as the hike itself. This was exemplified by my great transit through Bland County, VA. For this, I am deeply grateful to Elmer and Anne for their hospitality, assistance, and frienship this week. From the "prize winning" Pig Roast celebrating Independence Day in Ceres to the last stop at the Falls of Dismall Creek, they made my hike fun and fulfilling. Thank you!

The Great Valley

Yesterday, the trail ran across the great valley of appalachia. The great valley extends from pennsylvania down through virginia. In the early 1700's, this was the primary migration path into what was then the colonial frontier. At the foot of the Wilderness Wagon Road was the Cumberland Gap and Daniel Boone's Wildrness Trail to Kentucky. Many of the immigrants seeking new land in southwest virginia were Scot-Irish or German families. The Appalachian Trail passes through a living history museum that was a farmstead settled during the colonial days and maintained as it was in the 1890's. The original log cabin built even earlier is still a part of the main family house.
Upstairs is a loom used to make linen and linsey-woolsey from the flax grown on the farm. Check out more info at www.settlersmuseum.com.
Today, I left the valley and climbed big walker mountain which forms one ridge of the great valley. It's clear after today's climb why the settler's smartly came down trails in the valleys!