Day Hikes on the Appalachian Trail and the Benton MacKaye Trail.
Well, it's been five months since I last posted. I had intended to do more hikes during the fall and winter but life get's in the way sometimes. When I left the Appalachian Trail last October at Clingman's Dome in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, my plan at the time was to pick up again this year and continue on my thru hike. Here we are in a new year and Covid-19 is still with us. More importantly for me, during the winter I decided to start another Master's Degree program in World War II studies (thus the blog post title) because who doesn't need another expensive hobby? So my plan for this year is to do some longer section hikes of three to four weeks during semester breaks and then maybe try and complete the AT next year.
Tuesday, March 2nd, I finally got back out on a trail for a day hike. I did about 6 1/2 miles hiking to the summit of Springer Mountain where the AT begins and completing a sort of figure 8 loop hike on the AT and BMT. Tuesday was quite cold, cloudy and blustery. It was good to get back on a trail even though the hiking conditions were not the best. But it wasn't raining, so that was nice.
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| On the trail to Springer Mt. |
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| The view from Springer Mt. on a cold day. |
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| Back to the beginning. AT start on Springer. |
Thursday, March 4th, I did another 4 1/2 miles of a loop starting at Three Forks, hiking up the AT to the BMT junction and then back to Three Forks on the BMT. On both hikes I met lots of thru-hikers beginning their journeys as part of the Class of 2021. Also met a great group of 15 teenage boys from a Boys Club in Ohio hiking on the AT for two weeks.
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| Sunshine at Three Forks. |
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Crossing the bridge at Three Forks. "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" - The Andrews Sisters |
