Tricia and Dave

And what we’ve learned in the process is that hikers have fairly simple needs and the five easiest ways to help Appalachian Trail thru hikers are actually pretty basic but go a long way towards helping a hiker out! Hiker hunger is real my friends, and the number one easiest way to help Appalachian Trail thru hikers is by filling their bellies. Thru hikers in general eat a pretty monotonous diet day to day and hikers definitely crave home cooked comfort foods. I always keep several gallon jugs of water on hand to help Appalachian Trail thru hikers so that they can fill up on water that doesn’t have to be treated and they can refill their water bottles throughout the day when I see them at road crossings.

As planned, Maya and I came back home to Ohio in August just in time for school to start after hiking 500 miles of the Appalachian Trail with Naomi. It was an awesome adventure for the three of us to hike from Baxter State Park in Maine all the way to Rutland, Vermont, and while I wish we could have kept hiking together, it was really good for Maya and I to get home and reunite with the rest of the family. With less then 500 miles left to hike, Naomi is more than three quarters of the way finished and only has a few states left until she completes her Appalachian Trail thru hike on Springer Mountain in Georgia. Some of the highlights of her hike so far have been doing a work for stay at the Lake of the Clouds Hut, enjoying the best trail breakfast around made by the unforgettable Omelette Man, a chance encounter with the truly amazing String Bean, who was in the middle of smashing the Appalachian Trail speed record, completing the Half Gallon Challenge in Pine Grove Furnace State Park, hiking a 53 mile day through the night to survive the 4 state challenge from the Mason Dixon Line just before Pen Mar Park to the Blackburn AT Center, and hanging out with the famous Ellie on the AT who just completed a flip flop thru hike with her parents.

Not only was the terrain throughout the White Mountains absolutely gorgeous, we were lucky enough to have amazing weather at all of the higher elevations when we were hiking the Whites. While we weren’t alone up in the mountains, except for our time on Mt. Washington I never felt crowded. I was even lucky enough to stay at the beautiful Lake of the Clouds Hut just after summiting Mt. Washington as a gift from two hikers we met whose buddy had pulled out of their hike at the last minute so his hut stay couldn’t be cancelled. So the only money we spent was for food at the numerous huts dotted throughout the White Mountains which was an awesome deal.

Is Mahoosuc Notch the hardest or most fun mile of the Appalachian Trail? I would say the first 3/4 of a mile was just fun, but by the last 1/4 mile I was tired and ready to be just plain walking again. It took us about 2 hours to get through the mile long Mahoosuc Notch with a rest and snack break about half way through. I talked to one hiker who said he always took the upper route over the boulders and he never had to take off his pack.