George Steffanos  

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May 9, 1983, 41 years ago today: Dave and I had lunch in Bly Gap, just across the state line into North Carolina. One state down and eleven to go.

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George Steffanos  

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May 9, 1983, 41 years ago today: Dicks Creek Cap in Georgia is the point where the Appalachian Trail crosses a lonely stretch of US 76 less than nine AT miles from the North Carolina border. Our tents were pitched in the woods a short distance from the roadside, a few feet away from a roadside picnic area beside US 76 where we could make and eat dinner and breakfast in style.

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George Steffanos  

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May 8, 1983, 41 years ago today: There is nothing like trying to pack up everything you own in a downpour. My sleeping bag was soaked, my tent was hopeless; everything was drenched. Adding insult to injury, the rain came to a dead stop about five minutes after I had finished packing.

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George Steffanos  

🧵 May 8, 1983, 41 years ago today: Awakening in my tent just after midnight, I instantly felt a vague sense of uneasiness rippling through the dark forest. Outside, the air seemed leaden and dead. The evening breeze had died, and the gorgeous starry canopy beneath which I had gone to bed had faded to dark grays and black.

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George Steffanos  

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May 7, 1983, 41 years ago today: Dave was shooting for a fifteen-mile day to Montray Shelter, and I tried to stay with him. I struggled on through a haze of pain and fatigue until almost dark, but I only made thirteen miles to a campsite located on the site where an old “cheese factory” once stood, perched on a ridgetop high up the slopes of Tray Mountain.

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George Steffanos  

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May 7, 1983, 41 years ago today: And then, disaster struck. Last night, swarms of mice, the only permanent inhabitants of almost every Appalachian Trail shelter, staged a mass assault upon my backpack. Dave, more experienced than I, had put his food in a stuff sack and hung it from a nail projecting out from a rafter beneath the shelter roof. I stood up,

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George Steffanos  

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May 6, 1983, 41 years ago today: Cowrock Mountain was the star of the show today, with many views from the open, rocky ledges and terraces around the summit.

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George Steffanos  

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May 6, 1983, 41 years ago today: My camera received heavy use this morning as well, as I traversed another group of scenic ridges with equally picturesque names.

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George Steffanos  

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May 5, 1983, 41 years ago today: It was a comparatively gentle climb for the most part, but I have a long way to go before my body is truly ready for this adventure. The day was sunny and hot, and I ran out of water about halfway through the climb. The heavy backpack I was carrying, and the extra pounds of my overweight body had taken their toll on the soles of my feet,

#trails

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George Steffanos  

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May 5, 1983, 41 years ago today: There was a nice view along the way from Ramrock's ridge crest and there were some excellent vistas from the summit of Big Cedar. It was still early spring at those elevations, there was not a lot of foliage to block the views. There was plenty of green in the valley far below, but trees were just beginning to bud up here.

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George Steffanos  

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May 4, 1983, 41 years ago today: Dave and I only made nine miles today. We were tired and sore and got off to a late start this morning. The terrain was heavily wooded with no real views, although there were some steep climbs.

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George Steffanos  

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May 4, 1983, 41 years ago today: I went to bed right after dinner but was not destined to get much sleep. Somewhere around 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning, the stillness of the mountain night was broken by the long, eerie shrieks of mortars plummeting to earth and subsequent loud explosions.

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George Steffanos  

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May 3, 1983, 41 years ago today: At a spot called Three Forks, four miles from Springer Mountain, the Appalachian Trail crossed a fire road beside the convergence of three streams which had become raging torrents. A blinding mass of rain was creating a surreal, semi-aquatic woodland.

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George Steffanos  

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May 3, 1983, 41 years ago today: Temperatures dropped considerably last night when the wind kicked up and stayed down today. Rather late on a cool, damp morning, I set out from Frosty Mountain, having smoked my last two cigarettes with breakfast.

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George Steffanos  

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May 2, 1983, 41 years ago today: I woke up to the sound of freight trains. One after another, they came clattering up from the distant mountain range to the west, circled the woods around my tent, and churned off toward the eastern horizon. My tent was pitched in a small, grassy clearing on the summit of Frosty Mountain in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northern Georgia.

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George Steffanos  

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May 2, 1983, 41 years ago today: At 4:20 p.m. on the afternoon of May 2, 1983 — a very warm day for early May — I was at the Visitor’s Center in Amicalola Falls State Park in north-central Georgia. I strapped on my heavy backpack and started wheezing my way up the first steep mile of the Amicalola Falls feeder trail.

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George Steffanos  

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September 2, 1983: The trail descended past a water source called Hairy Root Spring (I know — sounds yummy, doesn’t it?) to the shores of Wachipauka Pond, the mountain tarn I had just seen from above. The AT crossed a marshy area and climbed over a wooded hill before dropping down to state road 25, another small two-lane highway,

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George Steffanos  

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September 9, 1983: I made my way to Thunderstorm Junction, a spot where several trails intersect in a high saddle between three of the five peaks of Mount Adams.

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George Steffanos  

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August 23, 1983: I followed this road for a mile to an outcrop called Prospect Rock, located at the salient formed by a precipitous set of southward-facing cliffs meeting a vertical westward-facing cliff. A sweeping panoramic view of the town of Manchester, Vermont, its green valley, and the surrounding mountains detained me for fifteen minutes

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George Steffanos  

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September 12, 1983: There was some steep, rocky scrambling down into the col between Mount Hayes and Cascade Mountain. Cascade was a visual feast.

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George Steffanos
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