The Long Haul

Walking 500 miles through the American South. 

This June, I walked 520 miles from the Nolichucky River in Erwin, Tennessee to the Blue Ridge Mountain town of Waynesboro, Virginia. My route, following the Appalachian trail, snaked along the Tennessee-North Carolina border up into Virginia with an elevation gain of 128,000 feet, more than four times the height of Mount Everest. In total, the trip took 28 days. June is past peak season on the trail, so most days I only ran into one or two other hikers. It was a pretty good time. Here are some pictures. 

A misty forest coming out of the Smokies.

The view into Tennessee from North Carolina. 

A typical setup inside my tent. It was pretty coffin-like, but became very comforting to me.

My entire worldly possessions and four nights of food laid out in a parking lot. This scene was pretty common on resupply days. 

A snack atop Hump Mountain. One of the happiest moments of my life. 

One of the many black bears I encountered, staring at me through the woods. They're bigger than they seem in photos and faster than you'd probably think, but generally ran off as soon as I saw them. The fearless ones who started to approach were a little offputting.

I did a thirty mile day into Damascus, Virginia, and when I arrived the streets were empty. I really liked these quiet Appalachian towns. 

My aching, taped-up feet and a beer. 

Hiking through cow pastures. 

A typical shelter sleep setup. Less creepy than it looks.

Wild ponies in the Grayson Highlands. The young ones were amazing, like awkward beautiful dogs. You weren't supposed to pet them, but one approached me so...

Crossing a state highway on foot. These moments were some of my favorites. Made me feel like a dustbowl vagrant lighting out for the territories. 

The prettiest shelter I didn’t stay at. It was converted from an old forest service cabin and stood on top of a mountain with a gorgeous view of a valley town below. There was an old guy staying there with a really bad attitude and I slept in my tent.

Doing laundry in a motel room sink. 

Damn.

One mile of the trail upon a hilltop was lined with these massive stacks of rocks. According to my map nobody knows who built them or what they were used for. Must’ve been a few dozen of them. 

The Eastern Continental Divide. All water that falls on the left side drains to the Gulf of Mexico, while on the right it drains into the Atlantic Ocean. I spat once towards each. We’ll see how that goes. 

I shot hoops at this trailer park for about an hour waiting for my battery to charge. I don’t think it was regulation. 

The prettiest sunset I saw, from the final week. I hiked through the night after this for a couple hours, but in the pitch black mountain night I thought I saw figures in the woods a couple of times and tweaked out so much I just pitched camp and went to bed. Fun time though.

My favorite picture from the trip. McAfee Knob, the best view in Virginia. 

This year I finished a thousand page novel I’d always wanted to read, typed a thousand iterations of the same sentence, and now have walked a thousand kilometers. Maybe it’s time to focus on quality rather than quantity. Who knows.