Hiking
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Hiking
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Steve, Erica, and Heather had the goal of hiking the Pennsylvania portion of the Appalachian Trail before Erica graduates from high school. (Cheryl won't go with us because there aren't any showers along the trail.) The PA section is 229.4 miles and our first hike was in the fall of 1999. When we started, Heather was 11 and Erica was 13. We were inexperienced and had relatively bad (translation: big and heavy) equipment. That first hike we averaged 4 to 5 miles per day and accomplished only 18 miles in four days. Since then the girls have grown and we have much improved equipment (translated: smaller, lighter, more expensive). On our most recent hike from April 18th - 20th of 2003 we covered the final 36.7 miles in 2 1/2 days to accomplish our objective of hiking the entire PA Section!! Since we finished the PA Section a year early, we are now trying to decide what state to do next... Where do we hike next? One suggestion is Virginia. We are tired of Pennsylvania's rocks and hills, hills and rocks, over and over again. Virginia appears to be much more level and smooth; however it is 550 miles long. The West Virginia section is only 2.6 miles long and we could polish that whole state off in a little over an hour. The Maryland section is only 40.5 miles...easily one hike. New Jersey is 72.4 miles. We will decide at least the night before the next hike...click the AT logo below to the left to see a state by state synopsis of the trail.
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