To start things off, I'm keeping this blog to keep track of my progress towards hiking the Appalachian Trail. The A.T. is about 2,180 miles long and stretches from Maine to Georgia, spanning about 14 states. It takes 6 months to hike if done from start to finish in a thru-hike. Only about 1 in 4 hikers that attempt the trek actually finish it. I haven't ironed out any of the details yet, but I've got a while before I'm anywhere near actually hiking the A.T. I first fell in love with the Appalachians when I was a little kid. My family would drive from Kansas to North Carolina and pass through Virginia. The old mountains just captured my heart at a young age and held on to it for the rest of my life. I wasn't fully aware of the A.T. until a few weeks ago I was watching a documentary about it and decided that I had to do it. I really just want to do something that would define me, and I can't think of a better experience than hiking across 14 states in the most beautiful scenery that I have ever seen. I don't hike much, so I'm pretty much starting from scratch. I have time to prepare though. I figure I'll probably attempt it after I get my Undergraduate in three years. Thats when I'll have the ability to take six months away from everything.
So, today I hiked at MacLennan park (The Governor's Mansion) with my friend, Sara. It was a pretty short hike, but we started at 4:30 or so and finished up around 6:15 and I would say we hiked maybe two miles? Three? Its hard to tell. We kept a pretty good pace, I think. We saw a deer right off the bat, so that was kinda nice. The weather wasn't bad. It was in the 80's with a nice breeze so I had a healthy sweat going on! We ended up on the far side of the old Menninger's campus that is next to the Governor's Mansion, so it was a bit of a jaunt. We took a long and convoluted way there, but the way back was pretty direct and no nonsense. It felt good to actually begin the process of preparing! Hopefully I'll get to hike more this week. A friend of mine mentioned maybe going out to Colorado and hiking Pike's Peak. Fingers crossed!
MacLennan Park Information
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