During quarantine i’ve been doing a lot of research into long distance hiking. It’s been a dream of mine for years to hike the 2,000+ miles of the Appalachian trail. Founded by Benton Mackaye around 1930, the Appalachian trail follows the Appalachian Mountains from Maine to Georgia. The original blazing of the trail took 7 years and hundreds of volunteers. It wasn’t till about 11 years later that Myron Avery became the first person to through hike the entire trail. Avery had just gotten out of the Army and armed with road maps and a compass he set out to “walk the army out of his system”. Like many people Avery caught the bug, hiking the trail again in the other direction starting in 1965. The trail takes most people about 3 to 6 months. The fastest hike was set in 2008 by Jennifer Pharr, named appropriately, at 57 days, 8 hours and 32 minutes. Personally i’m planning to get my feet wet in a few days going on a 20 mile 3 day hike. I’m excited to hopefully get my feet wet in long distance backpacking.
King Krendan 