How were you introduced to the A.T.

Through a book, or as you crossed the trail on the highway, everyone who knows about the A.T. found out about it somehow. If you had a first time A.T. experience that was unusual, and that had a lasting impression on you that is worth telling, this is the the place. Send us an email relaying the story with all the great details to: trailtales@atmuseum.org

A story of how I was introduced to the A.T. by Larry Maurice

It was the fall of 1986, I was 12 years old. My father decided that it was time for me to experience the trail, and so we set off one Saturday morning to the lowest section of trail on South Mountain, a stones throw north of Harper's Ferry, WV. My first blue blaze a view of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers merging in the gap of the North and South section of the A.T, via Weaverton cliffs. A few miles in to camp and back out the next day is all it took. Since then, I have hiked different sections of the trail in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania almost every fall with my father, or anyone else who will take the time to enjoy what millions of people miss out on every day. I don't know what it is that draws me in, and I really don't care. What matters to me is that I go, and leave only footprints, and take only memories. Memories that I will never forget.

"My First Backpacking Trip to the A.T." by Kent Wilson (Tent-n-Kent)

My freshman year in College I had a friend named Michael High who loved backpacking. He was from Lancaster , PA and had participated in many short trips along the Appalachian Trail. That year he was always talking backpacking in our Adventure Club circle of friends while I was focusing on Rock Climbing , Caving and Canoeing. But he was continually selling me on backpacking with his tales of having met long distance hikers on the A.T. or letting me read from his collection of Colin Fletcher books, he owned all three.
So after coming back from Christmas break , soon talk began to settle mostly on the topic of Spring Break. Even though the cool thing to do is...go to the Beach , right...? Mike had little trouble convincing six of us to go backpacking with him on the A.T. I think for me it had something to do with my secretly holding naively to the fantasy I might likely help a female ward off hypothermia by climbing in to a sleeping bag with her wearing only , You know , Just a Bra and Panties. This was practically standard to all First Aid texts back in the Seventies regarding treatment of Hypothermia...committed to memory probably more by us Backpacking College boys than it needed to be...Ahh well , I never got to try it out.

Like other groups still to this day , when deciding to go do a piece of the A.T. , " So where else would You go ??? ", we decided to go for the Smokies. My Gear consisted of a borrowed Boyscout Daypack for light weight food stuffs and some dry extra clothing , a Woolrich shirt and the ubiquitous for those days, white cotton " THERMAL " underwear...picked out for me carefully by my mother of course. I also had a wool " Took " for my head and a Vinyl Backpackers Poncho. At the last minute I bought an Orange plastic " Tube Tent "...was it at the Sugarlands Visitor Center?...I no longer remember. On my waist a borrowed Army ammo belt with my L-1 Pouch which was also my Cave Exploring Pack on one hip with another L-1 opposite that , which was also borrowed from the Loaner of the Ammo belt. This was the configuration which bore the heavyweight items, water in My two Plastic Army canteens...( Yes I was too Young to go by a Couple of Years , but I am another of the Many examples of the one good thing to develop out of the Vietnam War , good cheap surplus Camping Gear )...a heavyduty Pre Leatherman Multi-tool with spoon and fork and 6 of my favorite flavors of Campbells' soup. Standard , 8 ounces soup 4ounces tincan , condensed of course , which played an integral part in our first night out camping.

With limited knowledge of how to go Backpacking in the Smokies and a little more knowledge of how to get along on a road trip , seven young Anderson College church kids set out into the " Great Wide Open" in Wanda's big Buick Station Wagon , before dawn. That Car should have had a name...it wasn't fancy but we weren't much crowded, maybe if we had gone on another road trip it might have been christened something cool , it should have been anyway. Just before noon we found ourselves looking at the Smokies twenty miles distant with easily twenty thousand big station wagons, V W vans , bugs , greyhounds ,schoolbuses and quite a few less Big Rigs than we see nowadays stretched across that twenty miles. We were all making about 10 to 15 m.p.h. , progressing towards Davenport Gap. Five miles and two hours later , we were relieved to see only maybe fivethousand vehicles in front of us as we sped up to 30 m.p.h. around the outskirts of Sevierville Tennessee now. The other fifteen thousand machines were headed to Florida , the only place to be back in those days. Even though we had to put up with traffic aplenty , I'm still glad to have been part of the change away from that trend. Of course nowadays good weather and vacation time off bring even more horrendous crowds down there.

We arrived shortly after dark at Cades Cove Campground. We were promptly informed by a Ranger that the Campground was full , we dare not set up camp here by the side walk and the woods...And no we could NOT just walk out in to the Back Country until we had gone back to the Sugarlands tomorrow and obtained Backcountry permits. He stopped short of telling us he might ticket our car , but there were parking spots everywhere. I bet he thought he should have as he drove away. We got all the gear out , laid down the seats for the two tall girls to lay in back. The two rather short girls layed their rolls out on the hood of the car , ate a snack and went promptly to sleep , commenting how surprising long the warmth lasted from that big block engine beneath them. Us guys , stayed up awhile playing cards at a picnic table after supper with the Campground skunks roaming around beneath our feet like everytime I' ve been to Cades Cove Campground. I had Chicken Noodle soup undiluted so as to concentrate the calories and salt for the exertion I was going to face tomorrow headed up Anthony creek trail. Soon after the fellas sort of went to sleeping sitting up in the front seat of the Buick. The packs and food sacks of course , were on top of the roof of the station wagon. Of course this was very risky, before Leave No Trace had come along to tell us how stupid this kind of behavior was, but hey , technically we were obeying the Ranger and had not set up an illegal campsite. And we of course , had the sacrificial short girls up on the hood not far from the food on the roof , so the five of us in side had nothing to worry about.

My meal of undiluted Campbells soup caused a gut to rumbling and an exertion I had better not describe much further , not very long after I went to sleep a bit. It required me to ask my friend Dave Riggs to give up his spot by the passenger door , which he did not mind. Ah well, up and away at 3 a.m. from Anderson , all day on the road , up all night with the trots in Cades Cove , what a perfect warm up for a 8 mile walk with a 4, 000 feet climb to the A.T. In the morning our trip planner Mike went with the car owner Wanda to Sugarlands to get permits for all 7 of us to hike together a twenty mile circuit out and back to Cades Cove. They came back with , just like today an Autocratic mandate with our group together 2 out of 5 nights in the shelters only, no communing out with the bears. I had walked around the visitor area and picnic ground enjoying myself more and more as the queasiness tapered off. Hiking up the Anthony creek trailhead in those days with the physique I possessed at the time by no means kicked my butt but the events of the past 30 hours issued me a significant handicap. We got to Spence field rested awhile , awaiting this supposed crowd of strangers to walk in to claim their allotted space. We then walked the girls 2 miles down to Russel field where the King decreed they must stay , made plans for the next day and returned to Spence field. I had Vegetable Beef soup , diluted , this time. By dark , some more hikers wanting to go the distance had rolled in and my gear envy was beginning to climb with the crescendoing roar of the SVEA 123's and the lone Optimus 8-R. I was also beginning to worry about my meager 2 cans of Sterno to cook with, Up here in the Cold mountains it had taken longer to warm my soup. My friend Mike High knew all the right questions to ask an " end to ender " We wanted to talk more but they all just laid down and went to sleep. Just then a Scout group came in with 10 people for 6 permits and one of the group headed to Maine spoke up and told them to be quiet but we made room for them , soon all were asleep. Not long after midnight the Soup attacked me again...

After my fourth trip outside in the night worrying about Bears taking advantage of me in my weakened state , the birds began to chirp , I also realized my tissue supply was dwindling. About this time the longtimers began to get up , one of them asked me if I was alright. 'When I told him my situation and that all I had to get by on was soup for supper, he dug in to his firstaid kit and gave me 3 pills called Pere-goric. " Take 2 now... , 1 later. Oh man , I didn't have to take a squat again until I got back down to Cades Cove...like a week almost.

The long distance hikers of course made a quick , impressive , display of efficiency as they cooked breakfast , packed up and began to leave. Mike admired one of their backpacks, a Trailwise frame pack ( the same model as Colin Fletcher's ). One of them advised him he could get a custom , thickly padded waistbelt he was seeking , at the outfitters in Gatlinburg.
Which he promptly did before we left for Indiana. Standing on the sidewalk outside of the shop after Mike retrofitted it easily to his Alpine Designs pack , several of us tried it out and agreed it improved the pack fabulously. Mike wished he could have made the change before the trip. I was also flattered by one of the end to enders taking note of my Dunham boots , which was the only decent gear item along with me that was actually mine. My parents had scrimped and saved to buy them for my Christmas gift a couple of years prior to this. After a high school friend got his that's all I would talk about , these huge clodhoppers called Dunham "Continental Tyroleans " Not a single pair of tennis shoes in the shelter that morning....

Well we left for Russell field soon to discover a note from the rest of the party saying they had gone ahead to Mollies ridge shelter where we actually had permission to all stay together. Arriving at Mollies ridge we found another note saying they had decided to go on to Birch Gap irregardless of what the permit said. This was kind of untypical , girls bending the rules , not the rebellious college boys. We actually set out in a huff with just canteens on our belts , to go catch up and "give them a piece of our minds " but turned back after a mile or so returning to Mollies ridge just in time to meet the people we were destined to spend the night with there
It was a group of seven college students from New York city , 6 guys and one girl. They promptly started lightening their packs of mass quantities of glass bottles of , I suppose about 10 different kinds of Alcholic beverages. We being the church college types we were, we politely turned down an offer to join the party at that end of the shelter as it began to grow raucous. And after dark the lighter weight party substance began to make it's presence known, soon filling up the shelter with the aroma of something besides firewood a burning. We were kept up late in spite of the fact it was growing colder , but we had our revenge the following morning...It would seem that when you have your pack full of glass bottles , there isn't much room for stuff like ...extra clothing and insulated jackets , etc. The Ice storm that had blew in during the night transformed them into some real unhappy campers. The young woman who was a giggly party girl the night before was now complaining loudly about what a wretched idea this all was and could they at least pile another of their sleeping bags onto her there in the middle of the group where it was warmest but not to touch her because somebody's hands were cold as ice.

The three of us were in the upper bunks with our heads to the wall where a little of the heat from the fireplace was trapped beneath the tin roof actually, but not much , it was indeed , very memorably cold. I was well off as long as I stayed burrowed inside of my Fathers excellent down sleeping bag he had bought for himself to use on a couple of hunting trips to Wyoming with his friends. I had an inspiration , I reversed my position up there on the bunk , easily rotating around on my knees , still inside the sleeping bag. I reached down over the edge of the bunk and got my oatmeal and tea out of my knapsack hanging just below on a nail. Soon I was eating a warm cooked meal and drinking hot tea without leaving my sleeping bag. I spilled a little bit of my oatmeal. In brushing it off my bag it disappeared through the wire mesh of the bunk without my being able to see where it went. The 3 of us up there had decided to get up when one of the jerks who kept us awake all night stumbled over from the pile of party campers looking for some more " Pot " in his backpack to warm up with , I guess. It was sort of like a scene out of a Cheech and Chong movie when I heard this guy call out to his group..." Oh Wow, Man" , " Some mouse puked up on my pack, Man..." I looked over the edge of the bunk and saw this hung over city kid trying to brush off my oatmeal crumbs with a 2 foot long twig from the wood pile. He probably feared he could get something awful from a mouse that was so sick it puked , I guess. I burrowed back under my sleeping bag hood , not to get warm, but to hide myself away. I had tears in my eyes, I wanted to laugh so hard but couldn't

I have repeated this part of the story many times in the company of camping friends, it really happened like that , without embellishment from me, the famous mouse that puked story. I wander if that guy is still talking about " This one time in the Smokies , a mouse puked on my pack, I swear it really did...." Maybe some day on a visit to New York...ya never know. Well anyway we met up later that morning at Birch Gap with the two short girls. They were very worried because the taller ones still wanted to hike even more after they changed our plans to all stay together at Mollies ridge. They thought they would hike down to the dam at Fontana and return but they had not. It had been only slightly less cold there , though it was now a beautiful day , we began to worry what to do , staring at the empty bed rolls of our friends. But just then they came over the hill into Birch gap , red cheeked and dying of thirst. We sat amazed listening to how they also had experienced a miserable night. It was almost dark by the time they got down to Fontana dam. The visitor center was closing up and they were told there was no camping nearby allowed. ( This was quite a few years before the " Fontana Hilton" shelter was built...) A rather bossy ranger told them they were going to have to tough it until morning light. There they sat on a concrete bench , hugging each other and shivering. A person came back and said he would let them inside the pump house now that his boss was gone home. They were quite warm the rest of the night but , without food and sleeping pads they really didn't sleep at all. They were suitably humbled by the experience, especially after we showed them the map which had been with us. Not knowing how huge Fontana lake is , they had mistakenly assumed it was just a mile or so away. One of this pair now had a sore knee.

We reached a decision that Dave and Mike would stay up there for two more nights in the backcountry while I would go back down into Cades Cove from Mollies ridge with the 4 girls. Because of the slow pace necessary for our friend with sore knee , we did not reach the car back at the campground by sundown like we were hoping to. We bivouacked for the night in one of the historic old settlers cabins on the loop road. The Park service probably has high tech sensors in there nowadays to prevent such freeloading. We would certainly have been in trouble if caught but totally enjoyed this unique stealth camping site.

The following day was a bonanza of a blue sky day , even our friend with the sore knee , Antonina Ivanova loved hiking the loop road back to our car. We called her Toni , she was the prettiest of the group and very athletic from having grown up hiking in the mountains of Bulgaria or someplace like that. I forget where exactly , if only I had wrote a journal of this back then , I would enjoy reading it now rather than just rememberiing it. Although it's fairly obvious I remember it pretty well too. I must confess I was a little smitten by her beauty and her foreign exchange student mystique.

We returned in time to tool around the park in the station wagon for most of the day , we found plenty of available camping spots in the primitive campground at Elkmont. The following day we saw some more sites , waterfalls etc. , then drove back to Cades Cove to await Dave and Mike. I finally had a return to normal bowel function there in the bathroom...without further medical intervention. This was a concern by now , the fourth day. What a blackmail picture they might have taken, if we had brought cameras. But no one did and I had kept it a secret from my female companions, so they didn't notice the smile on my face afterwards. Sundown arrived , the skunks began to roam and the same Ranger came by to ask us our plans for the night. He told us we had better get back over to Elkmont before they closed the registration office. Apparently they had a problem with people sneaking in and out without paying for all those privileges , or he had a perception that this was a problem. We must have looked like the type , I guess. We were running out of money and Cades Cove ( a Class A campground at the time ) was again booked full.
The next morning we got up early, picked up a quick cheap breakfast at the campstore and rushed over to the Cove to look for Dave and Mike. There they sat on the side walk in the parking lot with their backpacks , looking a little pissed off , as we rolled into a space. They were a little sore with us until we compared notes. The same ranger that made us leave , circled by in the parking lot soon after they showed up there looking for us. He made no mention to Dave and Mike that we were over at Elkmont. He just launched into them about they better not dare sneak into the campground or set up in the woods margin around the parking lot. He sat there for an hour with the car running , listening to his radio. He gave them one more threat with a fine , drove off but returned twice to check on them. They spent the night sitting on their foam pads , leaning their heads against their packs , so their last night was even more uncomfortable than setting up in a Car seat. It dawned on us there in the middle days of April 1978 , that not everybody thought Backpacking College kids were cool.

We managed to not let that get us down. We drove over to Gatlinburg did some free stuff , watched Mike shop for his fancy waistbelt and headed home to Indiana. We had fun talking and listening to the radio. Nobody got laid , just a backpacking trip with a weird start and finish. Oh yeah , and a mouse puked and two long-legged girls found out you can't hike down to Fontana dam and return by dark unless you start out real early.

Mike and Dave did a few more weekenders with me by semesters end that year , our freshman year. Mike transferred to Marquette for a pre law batchelors track. I stayed in touch with him by phone and letter quite a bit the next year hoping to get together another fun backpacking trip. I left the protective little bubble of a christian college myself the next year for Indiana University in my hometown of Bloomington Indiana. On a visit to Anderson the fall semester of 1980 I was shocked to learn from Mikes' younger sister that he had died , most tragically , on the operating table. He had a large tumor in his abdomen , it's only hint was indigestion and an increasing girth during the spring semester of our sophomore year. If I had seen him I might have made a crack about his fancy waistbelt on his backpack. But nobody knew until the week he died , she said.

Having lost this friend , so soon after this wonderful trip in the midst of our days of youth , each day an adventure...it put's a tinge on my memories I' d rather not have there along with the image I have of a guy scraping oatmeal off a pack. And the picture I have in my mind of Toni stretching there in the front seat next to me leaning herself over the back of the seat , smiling and talking to the gang in the back seat. Well maybe , just maybe , if Mike hadn't died and we had never met that Control Freak Ranger , this would be a better A.T. Trailtale. But I am grateful for having been introduced to the Appalachian Trail , it so enriches my life.

In memory of Mike High...

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