Well, it’s been over a month since I finished the Appalachian Trail. I’ve had time to reflect on the accomplishment and gather some data for those of you that are into the raw numbers. The whole thing still feels a bit surreal and I often wake up and wonder if I really did hike the…
Author: danbknowles
A Perfect Ending
100 Mile Wilderness Part 1 – Day 173 Through Day 175: mile 2079.8 to mile 2126.5 After a great breakfast at Shaws Hostel in Monson, Poet (one of the owners of the hostel) took us back to the trailhead at the parking lot on Route 15. Before sending us off on the final leg of…
Three by Three
As I prepared to leave Becky’s (my sister) for the final time after slack packing and visiting with my family, I planned the next nine days to include three stays off trail. I knew I would stay at Shaws Hostel in Monson before doing the 100 mile wilderness and Amy and I decided it would…
Walking Home
Day 137 through Day 140 – Cold River Road to Velvet Rocks Shelter: mile 1691 to mile 1753.6 After Amy returned to Rochester, I resumed my hike with full pack and had to immediately cross over Mt. Killington. To get to the peak of Killington, you have to take a steep side trail for a…
Massachusetts to Vermont
Day 126 – MA Route 23 to US 20: mile 1533.5 to 1554.4 After a rough day on the 4th of July I decided to pay for a shuttle ride back to the trail so that I could slack pack. I was a bit concerned considering how tired I was the previous day but the…
Deli Blazing and More
Deli Blazing From New Jersey to Connecticut you can stop to get a meal almost every day. This has been coined Deli Blazing. Of course I didn’t learn that until after I bought food. So my pack was heavier than it probably had to be. My first stop was at Horler’s deli in Unionville, NJ where…
Pennsylvania: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
This post’s format will be a little bit different. I did not have a lot of daily content so I am going to just do a single section of the entire timeframe. If you were interested in the daily stops and mileage, I will list the usual section headers at the bottom of the blog….
Friends and Halfway
Day 96 – Harpers Ferry to Dahlgren Backpack Campground: mile 1026.3 to mile 1043.6 I had a nice breakfast cooked for me by my wonderful sister. After getting all my stuff packed up, Becky took me to the trail in Harpers Ferry to resume my hike. It was hard to say goodbye, we had such…
Front Royal to Harpers Ferry
Day 91 – Tom Floyd Wayside to US Route 522: mile 969.2 to mile 972.1 I had a great day in Front Royale. I arrived about 10 o’clock and took a shower and did laundry at base camp. I ate a pastry at the bakery. Had lunch at the brewery. And walked across the street…
Shenandoah National Park
Day 85 – Reed’s Gap to Rockfish Gap: mile 845.2 to mile 864.3 Tim and Emily picked me up at the hostel at 6:30 AM to take me to the trail head where I would hike 19 miles from Reed’s Gap to Rockfish Gap, where they would pick me up in the afternoon. I left…