Appalachian Trail - 2024

We're in PA! From Tuesday to Thursday, we averaged 32 miles per day. We did the expected 24 then a 28, then a 45! Followed up with an easy 2 mile day yesterday on Friday.  There is a challenge on the AT called the 4 state challenge, which goes from the Virgina / West Virginia state line to the Mason Dixon line, or the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland. We woke up at 4:15 and started hiking by 4:45. I did 13.5 miles by 9:30, 27 miles by 1:30, 38 miles by 5:30, and 45 miles by 9:05. I can't quite describe to people what it's like to have done that many miles, and to have changed over 15,000 feet of elevation over the day. And I'm not quite sure if it was more mentally or physically exhausting. What I do know, is that I will absolutely never be doing a 45 mile day again! It was a cool experience and I'm sure that I'll remember completing this challenge for many years to come, but the level of soreness that my feet were in is not something I'd like to repli...

Today was the first day where I really got the sense of what finishing the trail and slapping the sign on katahdin might be like. We are now at mile marker 972. Within the next 10 days, we will be on the verge of 1200. That means, we'll cross out of Virginia (the largest state on the AT by a longshot), cross out of West Virginia, Maryland, and enter Pennsylvania. We'll also cross both the 1000 mile mark and the halfway point. The trail will feel like it's speeding up. Instead of counting up to 1000 and the halfway mark, we'll be counting down, and quickly as well. The central part of the trail is not as challenging as the southern or northern portions, and as a result, we are planning on doing more 25 miles days and even trying a few 30's as well. Between now and the end of May, roughly 5 weeks, we are estimating that we'll get to somewhere in New Hampshire -- we'll see how accurate that estimate becomes shortly. Details since last recap: Miles hiked - 1...

I've been meaning to write a really good post for awhile but a bad one will have to do.  We've been loving central Virginia. The weather has been great, there's barely any people, and the hiking has been hard yet completely within reason.  We are 2 days our from starting the Shenandoahs. For the past couple days, and this description will include tomorrow as well, we've been knocking out the hardest section since the nanthahala section probably. These mountains go allllllll the way down and then allllll the way up. Each day there's at least 1 climb that goes down to 800 feet and then back up to 4,200 feet. And with the 80 degree sun beaming down on us, it's hot!  It's been really rewarding hiking a new section of trail, and it's extremely hard to believe that we are less than 180 miles from the 1000 mark.  As for the lack of blog posts, I haven't really had the motivation or time. I'm aware that documenting this trip will provide a lifetime of en...

I have been really slacking on writing blogs.  We're doing well. We got back to Pearisburg which was incredibly rewarding, the girls came down which made for a fantastic weekend, and we're going to hit the 700 mile mark today and dragons tooth. We have about 50 miles to Daleville and other than the standard aches and pains, we're feeling decent. Thanks,  Tyler M.

We're currently camping at the last campsite walker and I stayed at in 2020. Tomorrow, we will wake up and do a very simple 20 mile section. The elevation change is the easiest that we've potentially ever seen and the weather should be decent.  Before I wake up and hike though, what did we do today? Well we started moving around 7 and by 8:15 we were ready to start getting the show back on the road. Chuck took us to Arby's, where I got a bacon, egg, and cheese on a biscuit, a sausage, egg, and cheese on a biscuit, and a smokehouse brisket sandwich, which is just brisket, cheese, BBQ sauce, and a bun. Needless to say, I wasn't hungry again for another couple of hours.  We started hiking around 9 and I remembered most of the trail today for one simple reason, it wasn't very hard. We started the morning with less than a 1000 foot climb, and once we got back some of our elevation, we mostly just ridgewalked for the rest of the day. Surprisingly, we got a good dusting of...

All we did was zero at Chuck's today. We played darts, ate a bunch of food, and we did a resupply.  We have 45 miles to pearisburg which we plan to do in two days. Then the girls come down and we'll zero with them.  Should be a fantastic time.  Thanks for following along,  Tyler M.

We decided to go all the way to Chuck's. The first thing we did in the morning was go up 1000 feet in a mile. Thankfully, before I was really awake, we started to level out and 3.8 miles into our day, we summited chestnut knob.  For the next 8 miles, we walked a section known as burgers garden. Here, you ridge walked and overlooked the valley known as burkes garden. The trail was fairly rocky, but the ascent and descent over the 8 miles wasn't anything more than 1,500 up and down.  Once we finished this section, we dropped up and down two different mountains / valleys until we hit a trail crossing known as "unmarked trail." Up until this point, we had done roughly 18 miles on the day. Seeing that it was only 330, we made the decision that we would push another 8 miles to Chuck's house.  For those of you who don't know, chuck was a guy who in 2020, randomly drove by us at a road crossing and invited us to spend the night at his house and have a cookout. Now, 4 ...

We took our sweet time today.  I woke up around 7:15, called Kristina while she was on her way to work, told her of our plans for the next couple days, and started packing up around 8. After taking it easy in the motel room, eating breakfast wings and pizza, we got back on the trail around 10.  Our goal for the day was to camp slightly uphill from the base of chestnut knob, one of the larger peaks in southern Virginia. Last time, walker and I camped on top of the mountain, but with weather on the horizon, we didn't want to get caught in a thunderstorm like last time.  Our morning went pretty slow. Anyone want to guess what we did? We climbed back up to a slightly higher elevation. Surprise! I remembered that this section had several half mile meadow / pasture ridge walks, and they didn't disappoint. Although Virginia still has a lot of elevation change, it's nice to have the occasional field walk, where the birds and chirping and the sun is shining.  Sometime in the ...

We made it into Marion a day ahead of our original schedule. When I had started planning for this trip, I had us getting from banner elk to Damascus in 4 days, and us getting from Damascus to marion in 4 as well. Both segments only took 3 days. I slept pretty good. Our campsite wasn't super level, but with good sleeping temps and a light breeze acting as background noise, I slept very well. There wasn't any particular standalone mountain that we were aiming to get over today, just walk slightly over 25 miles into marion. The weather was perfect, and we did exactly that. By the end of the day, my feet were extremely tired. At this point in the hike, a lot of the muscle and joint pain is completely gone. Sure, my calves, hips, and shoulders aren't perfect, but the only really noticeable thing that consistently aches are my feet. We started hiking around 8am, and by 5:30 we had gone 25.2 miles. We ordered $130 dollars worth or pizza, burgers, subs, and wings, and by the t...

The Grayson highlands are still as unique as the last time. We woke up before 7 and got back on trail before 8:30. We started our morning off by ascending Virginia's tallest mountain, mount Roger's. Thankfully, since we had just done whitetop the day before and camped between the two, we only had to go up less than 1500 feet of elevation, over 4.5 miles. On the way up, we again realized just how many people were out and about, enjoying the beautiful weekend. The Grayson highlands are a very unique part of the south. Although there are a plethora of balds, there's really nowhere that looks like the highlands. There are a lot of exposed ridges, grassy Meadows, and stubby trees. It's hard to explain, but Google it if you're curious. There is also a decent herd of "wild" ponies that get managed by the state but are essentially allowed to roam freely in the park. Just like last time, we saw a handful of them during different sections of the day. The highland...

Day 37 Being in Damascus again was a somewhat surreal experience. Even though it's only mile marker 472, just being back in Virginia seems like we're finally making decent progress. Also pushing out marathon days will do that. We got on trail around 9:45 and started the ascent out of town. Even though the climbs are less steep and long, going into town is always followed by a climb back into the mountains. Most of the morning was spent going up and over ridges, trending upwards.  Around noon we stopped next to a beautiful, clear mountain stream and ate our first lunch. For some reason, I must have thought that I was going on a 7 day expedition -- I way overpacked on food! I don't know what was going through my mind.  After lunch, we could see whitetop mountain, our big climb for the day. Our plan was to camp right after whitetop but before mount Roger's.  Going up whitetop was pretty much as challenging as it was last time. Over the course of 4 miles or so, you gain 220...