My Trail Journal

Welcome! These are entries from my summer hike through Maryland. Enjoy!


DAY 1: GATHLAND ST. PARK, 1:38 PM
Right now, I'm sitting on a wooden bench with golden brown leaves falling around me. It took a lot of hard of hard work to get to where I'm resting, Gathland State Park. I woke up from my nice warm bed at Comfort Inn at 6:00 to take a shower and eat a stale bagel at the 'Continental Breakfast.' My dad and I left around 7:00 AM, and it was a 5 minute walk to the A.T. From there, we hiked an hour to get to Harpers Ferry, and passed some old churches on the way. After leaving the town, we crossed an old railroad bridge and began a boring 3 mi. walk on a gravel path. We passed an old Lock and a lot of nasty lime green colored swamps. Then we hiked a short distance to get to the bottom of the mountain. The section of the A.T. we are doing is on top of a mountain chain ridge, so to get to the top...well, you obviously have to go up. (Note to self: 16 switchbacks and a ton of rocks can do much damage to a hiker in tennis shoes.) On top of the ridge, we saw a beautiful view, and began the boring 5 1/2 mile walk to reach Gathland...
now that we're here, we're meeting Marcia (my mom)...Yay! She's here!...with a box of pizza? (Hmm...that's cheating isn't it?) While waiting for my mom, we met a nice campground salesman from Tennessee, Sarge. All right, I have to go, we're headed to the Shelter. Until then, bye!

DAY 1: CRAMPTON GAP SHELTER, 4:21 PM
Wow, the trail to get here was really hard-it was a steep uphiller, and now my feet are killing me because I was only wearing my Teva's. Dad and I had to climb it twice, the 1st time to drop our packs off, and the 2nd time because we had to go to the car (again) to say goodbye to my mom and also get sleeping pads that we forgot. Dinner will be in an hour, I imagine. After that, I think I'll go into my mummy bag for some much needed rest... :)

DAY 2: HAMPTON HILL HOTEL, 8:28 PM
17 hours ago, I woke up from my bag, shivering. The temperature had gone down to about 50. I was cold, sore, tired, and miserable when I woke up at 3:30. Don't get me wrong, I got 8 hours of sleep, which is the recommended amount. And even though I felt terrible lying on the cold wooden floor, listening to the deafaning roar of the fall wind, hell- I loved it...it gave me a natural high. I managed to crawl out of my bag at 6:55 after Sarge and boy (his dog) were up (My dad and I shared the shelter with them.) I woke up dad for the second time (he had snored the entire night, so around 4:00 I got too annoyed and woke him up...the snoring, however, started back up 15 min. later.) We had a granola bar for breakfast, and then we were off. I was dissapointed that we had to say good-bye to Sarge and boy, we had grown quite close. I'd say the morning hike was the best, about 3 miles of slight uphill walking. Contrary to popular belief, I think hiking uphill is better than downhill for a few reasons...1-easier on joints (mine, at least) 2-If your walking downhill, you have a bad feeling in your stomach because you know your giong to walk back uphill again (Hm, you probably think I sound foolish. Hikers, you know what I'm talking about...right?) 3-easier to sprain your ankle going downhill with all the rocks. Anyways...For a morning snack we had raisins, but we missed the overlook we were supposted to eat them at. Around mi. 3.7, it was all downhill and very rocky. This went on for another 3 miles. We crossed a few roads, passed some south-bound hikers...not much else to say. At mi. 7.0, Dad decided to drop out...I was pretty upset, because I was hoping to go for another day or two. After discussing things, we left the Backpack campground we talked at in silence, and walked flat for 1/2 mile. Then we crossed a road and continued uphill, for around a mi...wow it was pretty hard. About 1/2 way up, we found mom sitting on a rock. After chatting awhile, we continued another mile uphill. Once we got to Washington Monument Park, we headed up to the tower-what an amazing view. Once we got into the car, we said good-bye to the trail...and I can't wait to say 'hello' again next year.



Back to Main Page


Back to Appalachian Trail