Appalachian Trail Journals 2012

The northern migration of Homo Appalachianus has begun.

A few brave souls have already left Springer Mountain in northern Georgia. As more folks start their treks north, we'll review their TrailJournals and blogs and select the most interesting and well written to follow.

Here's our selection of the best of 2012 Appalachian Trail Journals:

Bluevist - This 69 year-old woman is celebrating the 10th anniversary of her 2002 thru-hike. Bluevist's TrailJournal also has a partial gear list. (Off-trail 4/11/12)

Miister & Porcupine - Mindy and Drew started on New Years Day 2012. Haven't updated recently.

Ranger - This is a 64 year-old male who sectioned hiked a lot of the AT in 2011.

UPDATE 4/11/12

• Balls & Sunshine (NC)
• Blisters (GSMNP)
• DirtyGirl (NC)
• Granbob (NC)
• Gung-Ho & Tagalong (NC)
• Hooch (NC)
• Magpie (NC)
• Mamaw B (NC)
• Mouse (NC)
• Peach (NC)
• Ranger (NC)
• Slayer (NC)
• Team Irish Turtle (TN, ill)
• Valerie (GSMNP)
• Voltron (NC)

If you've found a really good TrailJournal that we should add, please send us a link using the comments below. We're looking for inspiring, well written journals with helpful details. A good gear list with photos, weights and prices are a definite plus.

Related posts:

Appalachian Trail Journals 2011

Appalachian Trail Journals 2010

Appalachian Trail Journals 2011

And they're off... The class of 2011 is slogging up and down the Appalachian Trail in droves. We've scanned their updated TrailJournals (TJs) and selected some of the more interesting hikers to follow. Already we've had one senior hiker drop off the trail for inflamed knees.

Here's who we've found the most interesting to date:

• Bluevist (GA)
• Cappy
• Chenango (NC)
• Flutewalker
• Fosters (TN)
• Mike & NOBODY (NC - ill)
• Model T (died on trail)
• PITA
• Sherpa (GA)
• Tater (GA)
• White Wolf (TN)
• Wingnut (knee injury)

We'll be updating their location in the right sidebar as they enter each of the 14 states along the way. Pick a few favorites and follow them this season.

(Between you and me, I think Bluevist is going to have a close up and personal bear encounter in her tent, if she does what she wrote.)

Mobile Web Content for Section Hikers

The Section Hiking the Appalachian Trail blog is now on the mobile web!

Recently, Google released a draft tool for making Blogger and Blogspot blogs mobile phone accessible. We have have added that tool to our account and now you may view Section Hiking the Appalachian Trail web content in simplified form on your favorite mobile device.

The mobile version removes the weather images at the top of the page and the right-side content pane. Posts appear with a small thumbnail and the first few lines of the post. A large arrow icon on the right-side of the mobile web content allows you to easily click through to the entire post.

There is also a mobile version of our Twitter web content. We update our associated Twitter account 1-2 times daily with many short informative posts that never appear here in the main blog. To make it easy to add the Twitter web page to your mobile device, we have added a QR code to the right side content pane just below the Twitter widget. Its the big ugly black and white image.

Appalachian Trail Journals 2010

Below are the 2010 Appalachian Trail journals that we followed. There's plenty of good information inside each and we encourage you to browse through these and learn from the experiences of others who have hiked the Appalachian Trail before us.

• Anansi (bear ate food 3/30, left)


• Avatar (injured foot)


• Big Daddy (SNP)


• Canadian Geese (Summitted 10/5)


• EZ Hiker (ME - Katadin)


• Fahmah (NH, left 8/04)


• Frankie The Sleeper (left 4/30)


• iTrod (Summited 9/16))


• Jack Straw (ransacked 4/20, left)


• King (#51 - Summited 7/16))


• KingCrawler (Summited 9/16)


• Mom (MA - off trail 'til 6/11)


• MotoGypsy (injured knee)


• Ridley and Panther (Summited 08/11)


• Ripple (Summitted 10/14)


• Seeker (Summited 9/16)


• Veggie (Summited 8/30)

Follow Section Hiking the Appalachian Trail on Twitter

Follow Section Hiking the Appalachian Trail on Twitter!

Often a full blog post is not appropriate for the many short Appalachian Trail articles and discussions we find weekly. The new Twitter account allows us to provide more frequent links to items that section hikers might like to know, such as alerts from the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC). We also will tweet the availability of new blog articles.

If you are a provider of hiking services and have a Twitter account, please follow @Section_Hiking, as we want to follow you! We hope to follow a growing group of parks, hostels, outfitters and deli's along the entire AT and provide a comprehensive source of information for section hikers.

If anyone knows of a Appalachian Trail resource (lodging, eating, sightseeing, trail angel) on Twitter, please leave a comment to this post.

Section Hike: Harpers Ferry to Harrisburg

While not what was planned, here's the section hike schedule we actually hiked along the Appalachian Trail from Harpers Ferry, WV to Harrisburg, PA.

May 24, Mon - Harper's Ferry

May 25, Tue - Ed Garvey Shelter

May 26, Wed - Rocky Run Shelter

May 27, Thu - Annapolis Rocks

May 28, Fri - Raven Rock

May 29, Sat - Deer Lick Shelters

May 30, Sun - Rocky Mountain Shelters

May 31, Mon - Milesburn Cabin

Jun 01, Tue - Pine Grove Furnace State Park

Jun 02, Wed - Whiskey Spring

Jun 03, Thu - U.S. 11 Footbridge

You can find full details for each day of the 10-day section hike in my TrailJournal.

What would I have done different?

First, I should have planned for a shorter first day and anticipated staying at Ed Garvey Shelter. You really do want to stay at this historic monument and see the photos on the second floor.

Second, I should have done better research and stayed at the posher new Rocky Run shelter. I missed an opportunity to meet new trail friends. Remember, take the right hand (northern) blue blaze trail.

Third, I shouldn't have dawdled as long as I did at Raven Rock and PennMar park. I left Raven Rock after 9 a.m.. I stayed at Penn Mar about two hours. I should left earlier from both places and used the extra time gained to press on beyond Deer Lick to either Antietam or Tumbling Run shelters. Tumbling Run is much nicer than Antietam and worth the extra mile or so of easy trail. The extra miles from bypassing Deer Lick would have enabled me to resupply a day earlier and enjoy Quarry Gap shelter as I had originally planned.

Fourth, I really should have held at Boiling Springs as planned. Boiling Springs is a trail town to be enjoyed and savored.

Fifth, rather than stopping short at Highway 11 near Carlisle PA, I should have executed my original plan to catch the bus there and then take the bus north to Clarks Ferry. This would have emabled me to knock out an extra 30 miles in just two more days and over a weekend. Now I still have to section from Duncannon to Delaware Water Gap plus do the 30 miles between Duncannon and Carlisle PA.

Trail Journals: Slowly Updating Section Hike Details

Posting at Section Hiking the Appalachian Trail will continue to be light for a few more weeks as we get caught up at home, office and online. We are making an effort to update at least one page in our TrailJounals.com account each evening before heading home. We're just shy of the PA border in our trail journal. If you've previously read our trail journal, you might like to go back and get the details for that day.

We've got another roll of film to upload to the photo album. Then, we'll make a second short Youtube video with the second set of photos. Hopefully you enjoyed the first video in our previous post.

We also plan to go back through our gear list on TrailJournals and update our comments on some of the gear shown.

Then we plan to start adding more information for section hikers based on our experience along the AT in Maryland and Pennsylvania. We plan to cover some of the parks along the way, more details on Henicle's Market near Caledonia State Park, and experiences with shelters and water sources. So we should have plenty to keep ourselves busy until the new year. Then, it will be time to start planning for the next section hike and sharing what we learn during the planning phase.

Trail Journals: Following BigHodag Online

We're close enough to our hike that we opened an account at TrailJournals.com. This is a well thought out journal service for both through hikers and section hikers needing a trail journal. A trail journal account includes a journal, gear list, photo album, a video album and a guest book. TrailJournals.com is not free, but is donation financed. The suggested donation of $25 is a fair price for the value.

We've largely finished our TrailJournals gear list and have uploaded pictures of all our major gear, save a vintage aluminum pot. One of the less obvious steps in loading gear is picture first, text second. One you save your gear details there is no way to add a photo except delete and re-enter. Also, you don't need photos of your actual gear as chances are someone else is using the same gear and has already uploaded the photo. Its fascinating scrolling down a list of hundreds of stoves, followed by hundreds of cups.

We have also added three pre-hike trail journal entries. There's a short list of requirements to have one's trail journal "go public". Three journal entries is required to trigger appearing in the hiker listings.

We plan to ask a family member to transcribe our TrailPhone audio trail journal entries to our written trail journal. The section we are hiking doesn't include many opportunities for a section hiker to lollygag and update a trail journal. We also are not taking a smartphone or other technology for journaling from camp.

As we are taking disposable cameras for our section hike, photos of our section hike will not be available until after we are back home and the film developed and transferred to CD-ROM.

We have also setup a personal YouTube channel. We plan to take our photos and create the obligatory slide show video showing the same highlights from our section hike as everyone else - Weaverton Cliffs, Annapolis Rocks, Correspondents Memorial, etc. Chevy Chase driving in circles in London comes to mind: "Look everyone, Washington Monument!"

By the way, once this post cycles off the homepage, you'll still be able to find mine and other interesting hiker journals in the bottom of the green trail section on the right side. Oh, look! There they are now.

Appalachian Trail Journal: TrailPhone Audio Journals

Many Appalachian Trail hikers keep online journals of their trek. While reading one such journal, I discovered TrailPhone.net, a FREE (as in beer), toll-free, audio trail journal service. You'll find a Google Map with hiker pins in the right-side green sidebar. Click on a hiker and their most recent audio trail journal will play.

Clicking through to the TrailPhone.net website will display a larger map and six of the most recent audio trail journals. There are over 28 pages of archived audio journals covering nearly every section of the Appalachian Trail.

TrailPhone.net is a free service and uses a toll-free number which can be accessed by cell phone or from the many pay phones found along the Appalachian Trail. The ability to record brief audio messages is a great way for family members to keep abreast of their loved ones progress, or lack of progress, along the trail.

I highly recommend all first time hikers listen to several reports for their planned section hike. Hikers often report conditions along a section of the Appalachian Trail, as well as bear activity, wildlife, and useful intelligence such as weather, ticks, etc.

TrailPhone audio journal is donor supported. If you use the service on your section hike of the Appalachian Trail or you become a regular follower of particular hikers, please consider donating to help keep this valuable journal service up and running. Vounteer labor only goes so far. Some of the commercial services used to enable TrailPhone only accept cash.