This is the official website of my 2004 southbound Appalachian Trail thru-hike.

The Appalachian Trail (AT) is a "Foot Traffic Only" trail which runs the length of its namesake mountains from Mt. Katahdin in Maine's Baxter State Park to Springer Mountain in Amicalola Falls State Park in northern Georgia. The AT was originally conceived as 2000 miles, but since the trail is being continually reconstructed and re-routed, it has undergone a certain amount of meandering and lengthening. By the latest count the trail is 2,174 miles long. It is the longest footpath in the world.

It was originally envisioned by Benton MacKaye in the 1920's as a recreational resource for a nation he found too tense and overworked. The trail slowly became a reality, first linked completely in 1937, but early trail maintenance being patchy at best, the AT frequently became incomplete again due to storms and blowdowns. Though most, including MacKaye, imagined people would use the trail for day hikes or short section hikes, the first acknowledged thru-hiker, Earl Shaffer, northbounded in 1948. He hiked it all again, this time southbound, in 1965, and again 50 years after his first hike, becoming the oldest thru-hiker at 79.

Since the early years the AT's following has skyrocketed. According to the Appalachian Trail Conference website, hikers from Australia, The Bahamas, Belgium, Canada, Chile, the Czech Republic, Denmark, England, Finland, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the Netherlands have reported completing the Trail. It is estimated that every year 4 or 5 million people use the trail for any kind of distance, explaining the spoof which amended its official title "Appalachian National Social (not Scenic) Trail." A small fraction attempt to walk the whole thing, and, of those, only 3 in 20 gain "2000-miler" status. The legendary "Baltimore Jack" has hiked every season for the past 8 years. The "Barefoot Sisters" northbounded some years ago. They amazed even the most devoted trail-rippers by turning around and walking back to Georgia. Barefoot. "Wyoming Skateboarder" carried over 80lbs because he thought he should bring "two of everything" and carried a kayak paddle as his walking stick. "Flying Porkchop" started as clinically obese, finished emaciated. Eustace Conway hiked the whole way hunting and gathering everything he ate. It has been run in under 40 days; it has been hiked piecemeal over decades.

The AT attracts hikers from all walks of life, all ages, all budgets. On my section hikes of Maine and New Hampshire over the summers of 2002 and 2003, respectively, I quite simply fell in love with the subculture of AT hikers. On the trail, the gap between perfect stranger and good friend shrinks to almost nothing due to the common goal you share. Very often you have little nothing in common with your fellow hiker except that you are both willing to walk over 2,000 miles, walking over the same mountains and crossing the same rivers to do it. You know that every week of unrelenting rain in the sodden Maine lowlands just makes the sun and the breeze above treeline all the more precious. You know that every mile is worth more than either terminus.

The bond is tight, and the trust that develops is strong. Your fellow hiker is the one who will carry you to town if you break a tibia. Your fellow hiker will pass you his stove if you run out of fuel. Even past hikers return to trailheads to perform "Trail Magic," anonymously left pleasantries for passing hikers. A tin of chocolate chip cookies. A cooler containing 12 cokes, 12 waters, 12 Pabst Blue Ribbons — and a register to sign your name and say thanks. Thru-hikers on the whole are generous, fun-loving if not outright hedonistic, and hungry. Their annual gathering is called Trail Days, usually held in the middle of May in Damascus, Va., often called "the friendliest town on the trail." Trail Days, by all accounts, is as gleeful and spectacular a gathering as any biker rally.

On this website, which has been created by my mother, Susan, you can read periodic dispatches, complete with pictures, which I will make from sufficiently equipped towns.

I begin on June 15 at the northern terminus, the 5,268' summit of Mt. Katahdin. A noteworthy factoid is that Katahdin's summit is the first piece of the United States to receive the sun's rays every morning. Because Maine is by far the most remote in terms of frequency of towns and availability of resources, my first dispatch may not arrive until somewhere in New Hampshire, where things start to get populated.

Because there are so many variables in a hike of this length it is rather pointless to predict a finish line date. I conceive that the walk will take me at least 5 and potentially a bit over 6 months.

As long as I get home by Thanksgiving.