I've been obsessed here lately watching YouTube videos of people hiking the Appalachian Trail. The AT (for short) is the longest hiking-only trail in the world, running 2,200 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine. As an inspiration to get some exercise this summer, I decided to walk the AT "virtually" using my Fitbit steps as a guide.
To kickoff the event, Bruce and I went out to Hawn State Park and hiked the Whispering Pines Trail. Normally this trail is only 6 miles long, but because we had such a late winter, the creeks are still running fairly high. I crossed a couple of shallow ones, but drew the line when I slipped off a rock in the middle of one swiftly-flowing stream (I'm still a city-girl at heart). So we backtracked down the trail to the cut-off and continued on the part that had a lot more hills, but no deep streams.
I ended the day having hiked 18,000 steps (or 9 miles), totally justifying our lunch stop at Dairy Queen - not bad for a first day. That put me at the Hawk Mountain Shelter along the AT. Since my sister, Janet, has been trying to walk 2,000,000 steps this year, I invited her to join me. I don't know how far she got today, but I figure even if she only walked around her living room she should have made it at least to Stover Creek (5,600 steps or 2.8 miles). Let's see how long it takes us to get out of Georgia.
