You will be hiking on the Appalachian National Scenic Trail, generally known as the Appalachian Trail or simply the A.T., is a marked hiking trail in the eastern United States extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. The trail is approximately 2,200 miles long, though the precise length changes over time as parts are modified or rerouted. The trail passes through the states of Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine. The path is maintained by 31 trail clubs and multiple partnerships, and managed by the National Park Service and the nonprofit Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
The notion of a “super trail” had been a parlor topic in New England hiking-organization and even academic circles for some time, but the October 1921 publication of “An Appalachian Trail: A Project in Regional Planning” in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects is almost universally seen as the moment of birth for the Appalachian Trail. Benton MacKaye—former forester and government analyst and newspaper editor, now intermittently employed as a regional planner—proposed, as a refuge from work life in industrialized metropolis, a series of work, study, and farming camps along the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains, with a trail connecting them, from the highest point in the North (Mt. Washington in New Hampshire) to the highest in the South (Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina). Hiking was an incidental focus. By March 3, 1925, MacKaye and the Regional Planning Association had enough support to convene the first “Appalachian Trail Conference”. On August 14, 1937, the Appalachian Trail finally was on the ground, a continuous “wilderness” footpath of an estimated 2,000 miles from Mt. Oglethorpe, Ga., to Baxter Peak on Katahdin in central Maine. October 2, 1968 — National Trails System Act becomes law; A.T. becomes a national scenic trail under federal protection.
Parking is Available at the A.T. Crossing of Three Mile Road.
Please bring you own writing implement and replace as found.
Coordinates should get you to the GZ and as always just let your GeoSenses kick in.
Have Fun!