Shakedown Hike

As some of you may know, we are planning to hike the Appalachian Trail next year. We hope to be able to blog our experience as it occurs and those postings will occur on this site, a child site of our main blog. Given that our main blog is titled “On the Road with Dan and Amy”, we figured “On the Trail with Dan and Amy” made sense for our blog associated with hiking the AT and any pertinent preparations for the hike that we wish to blog about. With that in mind, here’s an overview of our first shakedown hike that we took near Hanover, NH with our son, Doug.

The total hike was just under 17 miles and we spent one night out. The original plan was to spend 2 nights on the trail but after arriving at the first campsite at 2:30 PM and the second day’s hike only a few miles longer we decided one night will have to suffice. We were driven to the trailhead by Doug’s roommate, Sarah, and we would hike southbound on the AT back to Hanover and Doug’s apartment.

All went well with camp setup, cooking our evening meal and morning breakfast, and managing hanging the food bag in the tree. It did take several tosses to get the rope over the branch 15 feet in the air, but we eventually managed. Our feet and Amy’s knees were a little sore once we made it back. After cleaning up, we went out for some much needed pizza and beer.

Next up is a loop hike that we plan to do in Maine near Dan’s sister’s home. We will try to post from the trail using an iPhone to see how that will work. We hope to do that hike during the last week of June, so stay tuned.

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