It was 39 years ago that I started the AT. I was a young kid and really did not know much about doing a long hike. I had done the John Muir Trail, which was a couple hundred miles, but nothing like hiking 2,000 miles.

I heard about the AT somewhere and decided to do the trail. I was going to Jr College at the time. I thought I would zip thru the trail in about 90 days and be able to make it back to school. Well, I never made it back to school.

If I remember, I had only planned on 4 or 5 resupply places for my hike. It didn't take long to figure out that that wasn't going to work so well. A heavy pack was the norm back in those days.

I did have a good pack, Kelty Pack. I did have a few problems with it. After my hike I would meet Dick Kelty, and talked about the troubles I had. I ended up testing equipment for him on my next hikes, and the company helped with some of our other equipment.

I did nothing to get into shape for my hike. I did end up losing 50lbs. That is the hard way to loss weight.

My AT journal is pretty basic. It might give you and idea what the trail was like in the old days.



When I was getting ready for my AT hike I was already planning on doing the PCT the next year with my old Boy Scout Master. We did the PCT in 1972. Then I did the CDT in 1977, becoming one of the early ones to do all 3 long trails.