I've made it to Dalton, MA, which is about 30 miles short of the Vermont border. I'm hoping that not walking today will mean that I'll really, really walk tomorrow and get into Vermont by the time I call it quits tomorrow evening.

I've been riding a bike all around town, so doing laundry and getting food has been a breeze. Sadly, though, I've got 3 days of food in my foodbag... and nine miles to go before I pick up 4 more days of food. So I may be hauling over 20lbs of food up Mount Greylock (the first real mountain since southern Virginia!), but that just means I'll be eating a whole lot more than normal. You'll hear no complaints from me on that score.

I've caught yet another group of friends in Dalton, most of whom have started to slow down to savor their time on the trail. I'm still of the finish-as-soon-as-possible mindset, especially because Mr. Burns and I seem to be firming up plans to finish the rest of the trail from Bear Mountain Bridge to Katahdin in the coming years. I'll take my time then!

The library here is closing now and I have to get back to the house I'm staying at because we're heading to an AYCE buffet soon and I'm not one to turn down that sweet, sweet acronym.

Since leaving Port Clinton, PA, we've endured some horrific anklebusting rocks in the last miles of Pennsylvania, a fun exposed climb up from Lehigh Gap, a town (Delaware Water Gap, PA) that the trail goes right through but doesn't have a laundromat (smart thinking, guys!), a state chock full of bears and humidity, a state chock full of pointless boulders and pointless ups and downs (PUDS), and a broken leg.

There's a large mass of rock called the Lemon Squeezer in New York that has a little bit of bouldering immediately following it. It had rained only a few hours before we got there and the air was humid enough to not let anything dry at all. Slick, worn down boots and a wet climb added up to a very, very scary moment. I had already ascended the boulder, I took Mr. Burns' trekking poles from him and he started the climb up the boulder. He slipped, falling backwards down a steeply inclined boulder field, breaking his leg in the process. I was up on top of the boulder so I couldn't safely jump down to help him, and I was totally powerless to do anything about it. I can't think of any time I've felt anything so awful as that moment, wondering if he'd broken any limbs or cracked his head open on the tree he came to rest against, or if he was knocked out cold, or worse. I hope I never experience anything so terrible again, and I certainly hope the same for him.

Because it was the smaller bone in his lower leg, he was able to walk... which made us (note: we're not doctors, we're hikers) think that he must've just bruised it badly. So he hobbled another 16 miles from there to Bear Mountain, New York. That hobble took him over a couple of large hills, and across several roads where I asked if he'd like to hitch into town to give his leg a rest or if he'd like to trade packs... he said, in true Thru Hiker fashion, "no, I'm fine."

If we hadn't had the fortune of meeting a trail angel named Gene who ferried us around the very spread out area of Fort Montgomery, NY, we wouldn't have been able to get an X-Ray and Dad would maybe still be hiking on his broken leg, tempting a compound fracture with every step. In a way, I'm glad he's off the trail and recovering, because it could have gotten much, much worse. At least this way we'll be able to finish together next year.

In the meantime, I'm going to complete my thru hike if I can. It's hard to get used to hiking with someone for 1400 miles, knowing they're in the area to help you and vice versa and growing closer to them than you'd ever been before, only to have their hike terminated so quickly. When I was walking across Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson, Mr. Burns was being driven by Gene to the train station in nearby Peekskill, NY to catch a train back home. Seeing him heading home and seeing 800 miles of trail in front of me that I'd be hiking alone was absolutely crushing. That bridge was definitely the hardest stretch of trail I've encountered so far.

Since the Hudson, my goal has been to get out of New York as quickly as possible. It took two days to cover the remaining 55 miles to Connecticut, and fortune thus far seems to have turned around a bit. A few minutes across the state line, and there was a cooler with trail magic. Several hours later and I'm in Kent, CT (not terribly hiker friendly, but at least I could get a shower, laundry and free camping), recuperating a bit and gearing up for a short stretch to Salisbury, CT for a maildrop on Monday morning. After that, I'm going to push through Massachusetts quickly, catching some friends who are currently far, far ahead. If I can cover 25-30 miles a day I can be done with the Trail in early to mid-August. The terrain might be tougher once I get to New Hampshire, but I'm eager to summit Katahdin and look forward to really enjoying the hike with Dad next year. Obviously I'm enjoying my hike this year, but at this point my pride and anger are really pushing me along. Maybe my attitude will change in a few hundred miles, maybe it won't. The Trail does funny things to you, it seems.

I love you Dad, thanks for a really great first 1390.5 miles... we'll finish it out whenever you're ready. Until then, I'm a greenshirted ultralighter.

It's been a while since I've posted anything... it doesn't feel like it's been so long, though. Days and miles are flying by at an alarming clip. We recently passed halfway, we more recently got to within 1000 miles of Katahdin, even more recently we realized "hey, we've been living in the woods for three months!", and just now we're taking a day off in Port Clinton, PA.

Neither Mr. Burns nor I are too terribly jazzed about hiking in Pennsylvania, so we've minimized the dilly-dallying. In the last five days of hiking, we covered a stretch that normally would take a full week. The aggressive pace and the brutal terrain have taken their toll, however. There are more wobbly, ankle-breaking rocks in Pennsylvania than I was expecting, and I thought I was prepared for the worst. Add an infected bee sting on Mr. Burns into the mix and it becomes clear why we're sitting today out.

The good news is that some friends who are a day back have a chance to catch up, so tonight will be full of stories from folks we haven't seen in 600 miles. Our thinly spread nomadic family is getting slowly stretched farther and farther apart, so chances to spend time with old friends are becoming increasingly rare, and increasingly appreciated. The last several hundred miles haven't been very heavily trafficked, some days we see only each other and the wildlife. It's serene and wonderful, but sometimes it makes me miss the days when the trail was a highway bustling with my smelly friends.

Earlier this morning we chatted with Bag of Tricks, the guy who gave us our first trail magic! We hadn't seen him since Woody Gap, on the afternoon of March 20, only our third day on the trail. He didn't recognize Mr. Burns's svelte new shape... it's amazing what 1200 miles on foot will do to you. Having not walked any appreciable distance, Bag of Tricks was very recognizable.

We successfully got our food drop, so we're resupplied and ready to get the heck out of Pennsylvania starting tomorrow morning. Less than 24 hours in town and I'm already antsy, yearning for the trail. 970.9 miles left!

Last Friday, Mr. Burns and I both got to road crossing near enough to home that Mom came and picked us up... I had a wedding to attend in Atlanta (Lori, I second your review: "casual and intimate and fun and pretty." Thanks Rob and Bonnie for getting hitched so well!) so I flew down on Saturday and returned yesterday.

Prior to departing, however, we went to REI and I got some new toys... you'd be amazed at how readily your wallet comes out when you've walked over 300 miles with the following thought nagging you: "For $400, this pack could weigh 10 pounds less." So I now have a new tent coming from Henry Shires Tarptents and a new pack that's much, much smaller than my old one. New toys! Yay!

I think I've come down with Giardia, which isn't much fun... so we've taken an extra day off to see if my system can calm down a bit and allow me to get back on the trail without spending too much time digging holes. I seem to be making progress on that front, and the extra time has allowed me to finish uploading pictures from the first half of our trek! Check out the Appalachian Trail gallery here for the full set, or if you're too lazy to do that I now inflict upon you a sample of my favorites:

Here's Mr. Burns and me at Neels Gap... only 30 miles in but we felt like we'd come an awfully long way.


A lot of people have asked me what I eat on the trail... a lot of peanut butter, a lot of Clif bars, and a lot of peanut butter and Clif bars. I've been casually tracking my peanut butter intake, and it's sitting at about 10 pounds per month.


The Trail wanders along the ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains for so long that you frequently pass by incredible vistas... everyone who carries a camera has to exercise great discipline when they get to an overlook, lest they return with a thousand pictures that all look the same. It's usually pretty hard to restrain yourself, though, especially when there's a sea of clouds 1000' below you, washing up on mountains in the distance.


On my last morning in the Smokies, the snoring in the shelter was so awful that I was up most of the night... which allowed me to make it to the Mount Cammerer Fire Lookout at dawn. Slight miscalculation meant that I had to scurry 4.1 miles in 55 minutes, but I made it in one piece. Here's one of my favorite shots of dawn, and photographic proof that I, a fierce opponent of mornings everywhere, was actually there at dawn:



One of the most incredible things about the Appalachian Trail is the abundance of Trail Magic. One sunny afternoon I was moseying along and came upon a large group of people all hiking together. When they heard me, they stopped and the handful in the very back started rummaging through a daypack. I got closer and they asked if I'd maybe like some cookies. Obviously I'd love some cookies! Things like this happen every so often, usually when you're least expecting and most in need.


We've seen a lot more snow than we thought we would... this snowstorm in southern Virginia near Mount Rogers was probably the most dramatic:


Ever since we've been near enough to home, we've gotten the occasional visit from Mom... this was one of my favorites, spending a couple nights in Marion, VA. Yes that's a real live beer in front of me, something that's hard to find in the woods. (But don't worry, beer is pretty findable out there... Trail Magic is frequently beer.)


My rarest find so far... identifiable fossils! Fossils are pretty frequent along the trail, but most are plant matter or such early animals that it just looks like a rock that was carved to look like spaghetti. These seashells were about 1/2" across, at an elevation of 3500'.


And no batch of AT pictures would be complete without the feet-dangling-off-McAfee's-Knob picture:

Mr. Burns and I got out of camp early this morning to get a free lunch at The Dutch Haus B&B in Montebello, VA... we're staying the night here and just had a really nice dinner.

The computer I'm using right now is the closest thing to capable I've come across since the start of this trek, and it's only barely adequate for uploading pictures. It turns off every so often just to make sure I appreciate those precious moments that it's on... so the uploading has been very, very painful.

I tossed a very small sample of Georgia and some of Tennessee/North Carolina up in the gallery here, I hope that'll keep you wolves at bay until I'm able to get on my computer at home next weekend and actually upload everything. I bet you can't wait to see me dangling precariously over the edge of McAfee's Knob!

The walking since Daleville's been really great... if a little intense. On Monday through Wednesday of this week, we did 7000, 6600 and 6200 vertical feet, respectively. To celebrate the last 3000' worth of elevation, I hitchhiked into a town and picked up a couple of pounds of Krispie Kremes to bring to camp that night... they're delicious when roasted over a roaring campfire.

We left Daleville, VA today after a nice near-0 with Mom. The stretch of trail from Pearisburg to Daleville was amazing, with more than a few beautiful overlooks and cliffs. The weather's been a little obnoxious, getting frigid the day after I sent my winter stuff home. That meant a couple of really short days, getting into the sleeping bags in the early afternoon to thaw.

I've seen fossils, gotten blackberry pie from a USFS guy for breakfast on top of a mountain, dangled my shiny yellow shoelaces over a cliff, and eaten a whole lot of everything that happened to make the mistake of getting in front of my gaping maw. Today I packed out a big Entenmann's coffee cake and had half of it for dessert. Mmm, sweet gluttony.

Well that was a bizarre few days. We started hearing rumors about the Wapiti killer being somewhere near the Trail on Tuesday afternoon, so we stealth camped (pitched our tents off the trail to avoid being seen by passersby) that night. That same night, about a day north of where we were, he shot two fishermen after eating dinner with them. Crazy stuff. I'm glad we took an extra zero day in Marion, VA with Mom, otherwise we'd have been right in the area of the shootings.

The Trail was closed the next day so authorities could search the area for clues, so we ended up spending an evening at Trent's Grocery, where we ate enough honey buns to give an elephant diabetes. We got back on the trail yesterday morning, watched a downpour from inside a shelter, and arrived in Pearisburg around noon today. We've rented a car and are about to go hunt down an outfitter so I can pick up some trail runners... I've walked about 130 miles in Crocs and I'm awfully tired of not having actual shoes.

Other than the new shoes... the exciting thing about Pearisburg is that it's one of the traditional places where you send your winter gear home. That ought to shave at least 5lbs from my pack, putting me below 40lbs unless I'm carrying way too much food! Hooray!

Oh, and I'm quoted in this Roanoke Times story about the shootings. Sadly I didn't get my ugly mug attached to a story like my fellow hiker Bear Trap did. (When he was at Trent's, he was three spoons shy of finishing a half gallon of ice cream... then he tossed it up. Silly hikers, thinking they can eat anything.)

On Thursday night, Mr. Burns and I rolled into Partnership Shelter, located about 0.1 mile from the Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area headquarters... I guess they want to impress the casual visitor, so that shelter has a shower (disposable towels, aka tiny paper towels, are available for $0.25!), sink, no mice, etc. Pretty cushy! Obviously I took myself a nice long (sometimes scalding) shower to clean off the funk of forty thousand steps. After the shower, we walked over to the headquarters building and ordered pizza??? Talk about luxury! That was a whole lot of calories I didn't even have to carry! For the record, I had a 16" pizza, a stromboli (14" or so) and a loaded baked potato. I can't get town food without getting inordinate amounts of town food... I've got a reputation to look after.

The next day was a nice little amble to I-81, and the weather was absolutely perfect. I couldn't have asked for more. On top of the lovely walk, it was a walk to a motel where we were meeting Mom, who came down from the DC area with a picnic lunch for us. And a cooler full of Belgian beer. Mmmmm, beer.

To make things even more ridiculous, we then checked into the General Francis Marion Hotel in Marion, VA, which is certainly one of the swankest hotels I've ever stayed in... let's compare, shall we?

Tent	Hotel
1" thick sleeping pad	impossibly thick king sized mattress
sleeping bag just long enough to fit in, that smells like, well, me	no fewer than 4 different layers of sheets, blankets, quilts, etc, all freshly laundered
a tiny little 8"x14" towel that's about as thick as a paper towel	ELEVEN, COUNT 'EM, ELEVEN TOWELS IN A WAY-TOO-BIG-BATHROOM

In other words, this is definitely the cushiest zero day I've taken so far... egad.

The last bit of good news for this post: the 200ml Nalgene bottle I bought in Nantahala (slightly over 100 miles into the hike) that's been empty since then because every county we walk through is dry... it'll be full of some lovely single malt Scotch this afternoon. I've toted the silly thing about 400 miles and finally it's going to get some use!

Ok, one last bit of good news... I'll be trekking up roughly parallel with I-81 for the next 4-5 weeks, so if you're a Virginian (Richmond kids, NoVA kids...) you should email me and we can figure out how to hike together. The hills here aren't nearly as brutal as GA, NC and TN, so I wouldn't even feel too bad about making you walk up them.