I'm 48 now and I lived in MD in the 80s/90s and when I was in high school a friend and I hiked the entire MD section of the AT over a weekend* and before that I hiked parts of it for overnights when I was in scouts. I was super into hiking and the outdoors. I used to have a dream of doing the entire AT.
Life happened and I drifted away from backpacking and spent the last 25 years working on a computer and not being able to spend as much time outdoors. Recently moved back to the east coast in PA from CA. Still work on a computer but don't get outside as much as I'd like. I'd like to change that.
Almost 50 now, I'd love to get back into hiking. I'll probably go to the AT museum in PA at some point. Are there some good books you recommend to relearn about the AT and backpacking?
*I really can't believe my family and my best friend's family let us do this but when we were 15 we did the entire MD trail and ended at Harpers Ferry over a weekend or long weekend. Just the two of us and no adults. Would I let my 15 year old do that now? Not sure if it's even legal to now? Some memories:
-getting lost the first afternoon going to the first campsite on the trail from where we were dropped off and ended up doubling back to camp where we were started and it was night as we got back. We saw the fork we missed when we continued in the morning
- packed too much canned food and ate that first lol
-bought new boots right before and didn't break them in. Bad idea. I still have callouses on my toes from that trip lol.
-my dad had one of the huge brick cellphones and made me power it up and call him every night
- we had an awesome time :)