The Appalachian Trail

For all the backpacking I’ve done, I hadn’t done any of the most famous trail in the country. It is too hot and humid to hike in Florida in September, so I took Amtrak to Harpers Ferry West Virginia and backpacked on the Appalachian Trail (AT). I ended up hiking 54 miles on the AT with a total of 11,218 feet ascent. This included AT miles in Virginia, West Virginia, and Maryland plus several miles on the C&O Canal Towpath and around Harpers Ferry.

It was completely different from both Florida Trail and the AlleghenyTrail. Florida Trail is flat and with a few people but over 5 days I might see 10 people. Allegheny Trail had similar hills as the AT but I saw no one while on that trail. During my 5 days on the AT, I saw around 10 thru-hikers, 5 section hikers, and almost 200 day hikers. The Allegheny Trail disappears at times since so few people hike it but the AT is well-traveled and much easier to follow.

However, the Virginia AT section I was on was much more rocky than the Allegheny. That was my most difficult part of the hike. The rocks sometimes required large steps between or were small loose rocks. Between the rocks, wet leaves, and acorns, it was slow going for me so I wouldn’t slip.

The ‘interesting’ part of the Virginia section was the 14 mile long “Roller Coaster”. It is a section with nothing but hills going up and down. It even includes a warning! 

I did enjoy snacking on paw paws in a couple of places along the trail. Good tasting but a bit messy.

In my opinion, Maryland had better trails. It helped that everything was dry and it was perfect weather for hiking. The trail went through both Gathland and Washington Monument State Park.

All along the trail in all 3 states were stops with great views.

The AT is also different since it has shelters. These shelters could have water, showers, bear poles, bear boxes, electricity along with the shelter if you want to sleep there. This was quite fancy to me. Surprisingly, I never saw another hiker where I camped, which was fine by me! I had never seen a bear pole before but they are quicker than hanging the bag from a tree.

There is a tradition that thru-hikers either uber or sometimes beg rides to get into town. I did both! There was a birding class at Washington Monument State Park. I asked if anyone was going into Harpers Ferry. Turns out this nice lady lived only a couple of blocks from the hotel. We had a great conversation into town!

I considered backpacking on the C&O Canal Towpath. But it was full of bikers who weren’t all so polite to a hiker. The trail was more like road walking with little shade. There are campsites, but they are right along the trail with no privacy at all. A nice trail for a bike trip, but not great for hiking.

I also spent a day sightseeing in Harpers Ferry. There’s a lot of history here. Plus by that point, I enjoyed food from restaurants instead of from my backpack.

I saw quite a few deer along the trails. I also saw this deer in a cemetery in Harpers Ferry while I was geocaching. Cool!

Fort Clinch Tent Camping

For something new, I tent camped at a nearby state park. The trip started exciting enough. When I got there, they said they didn’t have my reservation. After looking through the computer more, they realized I was a month early. I really screwed up on my reservation! I’ve heard about people doing this but this was a first for me. Luckily, there was an opening for tent camping (RV sites were completely full).

The sites were nice, but given that I’m used to camping with no one nearby it was weird having neighbors. But I had clean water and a bathroom fairly close so that was cool.

My first hike was a combined hiking and mountain biking trail. There were a lot of ups and downs with roots and rocks. Kudos to those mountain bikers. It was hard enough hiking without tripping over the roots. I am not a mountain biker so this trail looked tough to me.

The second hike was along the beach. Sunrise was pretty.

Lots of birds.

The fort.

I met a lady who was shark tooth hunting. She hadn’t found any sharks teeth either. But she met a guy who gave her a handful of teeth he had found that morning since he had so many at home. She gave me a few of those teeth. Very nice!

Short trip, but fun.

Ocala National Forest

I decided to backpack Ocala again after my trip last year (1,2). This time was shorter, only 3 days and 50 miles. The forecast changed for my 4th Day to steady rain and 40s during the day and freezing temperatures overnight. I was not ready for that so I called John for an early pick-up. I am quite wimpy.

The first night was interesting too. My shoes got wet getting water from the nearby pond so I kept them outside the tent. The next morning they were frozen solid. I couldn’t fit my feet into them until I brought them into my sleeping bag and squished them to break up the ice. Besides the shoes, instead of dew on the tent it had ice. What fun!?!

It was peaceful hiking then I would be surprised by a fellow hiker along the trail. Over the trip I met 1 thru-hiker traveling south, 5 day hikers, and 7 overnight hikers. Oh, and a Boy Scout troop hiking the trail. Compared to my West Virginia trip, this was a busy but very flat easy hike.

The most interesting encounter was a place called Hidden Pond. The locals hike out to this camping spot. I was there to fill up on water when I noticed 5 teenagers preparing to camp. There were reports of an aggressive bear there just a few days ago. I warned them but being teenagers, they felt they could fight the bear or something. The next morning they hadn’t seen the bear but had heard it. Nope...I was happy to be camping elsewhere.

I didn’t see that many animals: sandhill cranes, egrets, herons, deer, and squirrel. I also saw bear scat and bobcat tracks.

Went through one area that had a controlled burn 4 days before. A few logs were still smoking.

With 50’s most days, the hiking was good. No sweating! So, an enjoyable trip.

Island Adventures

I’ve been visiting Cumberland Island for the last few years in October (1, 2, 3, 4). However, with the government shutdown I had to delay it. December was definitely different from October. It was colder (and I wasn’t quite prepared for early morning temperatures) but also much less crowded (which I liked). The campgrounds were maybe one-third full with fewer day trip people. Matter of fact, the ferry doesn’t run two days a week so us campers pretty much had the island to itself.

Perhaps it was because there were so few people, but everyone seemed so friendly. We exchanged stories of animal sightings and “secret” places to visit. I learned where to find fossil shark’s teeth though I found more fossil bones than teeth. I even borrowed someone’s phone to text John since their AT&T had service while my Verizon had nothing. A couple campers told me about the orange and grapefruit trees that had ripe fruit in one of the campgrounds. They say they grew from seeds that campers spit out. Online, it seems it might be seeds spread by birds from citrus trees grown as a cash crop. Who knows?

As far as animals, I saw 3 dolphins on the ferry ride.

When you hear a noise in the trees on Cumberland Island, it can be an armadillo, deer, raccoon, squirrel, wild pig, or a wild horse. I saw all of these this week. (They say there are bobcats on the island but I haven’t spoke to anyone who saw one.) I only saw a few deer. Most ran before I could get a good picture.

Armadillos were everywhere. Technically, this is a nine-banded armadillo. See the tail.

In previous visits, I only saw a few wild pigs. On just one hike in the North section of the island, I saw 13 different pigs. All stared at me for awhile then ran away.

The horses may be the most dangerous animals on the island. You are supposed to stay a school bus length from them though they sometimes walk up closer than that. They tell a story about a lady getting too close trying to get a selfie. The horse kicked her and she had to be life-flighted off the island. Then her insurance wouldn’t pay for the helicopter so she had to pay the $20,000 for the helicopter herself. Scary story, but I can’t find that it really happened by googling it, so who knows.

I’ve wanted to see the North section in previous visits but was either unprepared for the hike or the area was closed due to hurricane damage. I finally got there! There is a wonderful campground 10.5 miles north of the ferry landing. The campground is big enough and full of trees so that I didn’t even realize there were people at three other campsites until I wandered along the trail. At any time, horses may wander through the campground.

The sunsets every night was absolutely gorgeous. The pictures can’t convey the colors.

Of course, I had to do some general hiking. Overall, I hiked more than 40 miles over the 5 days. But much of my hiking was in the North section where the trails aren’t very clear. There are no blazes. The poorly marked human trail and the easy to see horse paths cross so I wandered off the official path several times. On one trail I ended up fighting my way through saw palmettos that scratched me. Turns out that a guy I talked to on the ferry back got lost on a trail and was scratched up by saw palmettos too. BTW, this picture was another trail with saw palmettos just on the side.

But I finally got to the church that’s 15 miles from the dock. It was a church, school, and meeting place for the black population that lived here through the 1900’s. It was also the location of the 1996 wedding of John F. Kennedy, Jr. I finally did it!

Stories from a Cruise

John and I took a short cruise on a Norwegian ship from our local Jacksonville port to the Bahamas. Some stories:

Our first stop was at Freeport at Grand Cayman Island. The last cruise also stopped here when we took an excellent excursion. This time we just walked 1.5 miles to a lighthouse then back. We thought we’d be the only ones silly enough to do this walk, but there was an older gentleman using a cane that did the same walk. So no complaining about the distance!

The second stop was supposed to be at their private island. We had an excursion booked for us to zipline, which is on my bucket list. Unfortunately, the water was too rough and the island was skipped. I will get that ziplining done sometime!

The third stop was Nassau. We walked about 3 miles around the town seeing a museum, old buildings, and a distillery. The difficult part is that sidewalks seems pretty optional in this old section of town. We had to walk along fairly busy traffic in some places but still a pretty town.

I thought that the most exciting part of the trip was at the Nassau port. We went out on our balcony to watch the ship get ready to leave port. Somehow, I locked the door behind me as I stepped out. So, the two of us were stuck on the balcony with no way to get back into our room and our room marked as “Do Not Disturb”! After shouting for help for awhile, someone on the level above us heard. They tried using their phone to call to help us, but couldn’t get anyone to answer. Finally, someone on our level and about 5 rooms from us stepped out to their balcony. They were able to get the steward to come to our room to unlock the door. It may have been only 10-15 minutes, but it was exciting!!!

More relaxing pictures.