Maryland: The First of Fourteen

Most thru-hikers have trail names that they go by while on the trail. If you don’t have them when you start out, one is usually assigned to you based on an unusual quirk or embarrassing situation that others witness. We wanted to start the trail with established trail names, so we tasked our good friends with helping us come up with some great ones. Lily is “Sidewinder” referencing her sideways walking that she does to show her displeasure upon first putting on her loaded backpack—and also her unpredictable disposition. Jim, who wanted a nautical themed name, is “Red Rudder”. The rudder steers the boat just like Jim steers our travels (I tend to wander and get lost easily without some direction). The “Red”, besides being great alliteration, refers to Jim’s flaming red hair when he was a child—also, it could have something to do with our friends being huge “Red Raider” fans. My trail name is “Turnup” (not a typo), a play on the natural turnout of my feet after so many years of ballet and my recent tinkling trail blunder that left my feet turned up—if you don’t know to which I refer, you should check out “He Had a Dream…” in our blog. Thanks to KeliAn we have this great trail memento.

We parked at 7AM at Penmar Park on the border of Pennsylvania and Maryland, and it was starting to rain pretty good as we left our car. Even through the excitement of starting this big new adventure, the rain seemed to me an ominous omen that kept me wondering what on earth I was getting myself into. Then a rainbow appeared erasing my doubts. “String Bean”, our driver and former AT thru-hiker, shuttled us towards Harpers Ferry, West Virginia where we left the heaviest rain behind and were on the trail shortly after 8AM. The start of the trail was a beautiful, wildflower-lined pathway where the Shenandoah River converges with and becomes the Potomac River. The air was a bit cold even with the exertion of a quick pace and the weight of a fully loaded pack. It didn’t seem too long until we were full out sweating in spite of the chill as we began the steep uphill switchbacks to out first stop at Ed Garvey Shelter.

As we are older than the average thru-hiker who boasts of 15 to 20 miles a day without days of rest, our plan is not unlike that of the tortoise—slow and steady. If I have any hope of completing this journey, I need to make sure not to get injured and allow my body time to recover as we go. So, we are starting slow, taking time to enjoy a cup of coffee in the mornings, and keeping our mileage at less that 10 a day for at least the first month of hiking. In our first section we started in West Virginia and traveled just over 43 miles all the way through Maryland. We met lots of recreational hikers and a couple of thru-hikers that had already hiked over 1000 miles of their journey.

Our day of rest has just flown by and we are back on the trail first thing tomorrow morning, so I will end with some of our observations and impressions of the AT so far. Spring has Sprung in Maryland. There are wildflowers coming up everywhere, and all the trees are starting to blossom and leaf out. Lots of people in Maryland are using the trail and shelters. While we hike alone, we typically pass half a dozen or so hikers each day, and there have been lots of people at all of the shelters and campsites each evening. While hiking you feel like you are in the middle of nowhere, but in the evenings your realize how close to civilization you are by the city lights down in the valley and the sounds of cars and trains that travel up the mountains. Maryland is beautiful, and green, and wet. There are rivers and streams and springs everywhere—water is literally just flowing out of the ground! (I guess we spend a lot of time in the desert.) There is so much history here, and the trail goes right through lots of it. And finally, though we have done a fair amount of hiking, the AT is hard! We didn’t really expect this level of difficulty since the trail is mostly at lower elevations than we live. But it is a LOT of steep uphill and downhill hiking. I’ve read that hiking the entire AT is the equivalent elevation gain as hiking Mount Everest 16 times. If Maryland is any indication, I believe it!

marks the trail