AT Day 1: Trying to be a hiker again

5th July

16.1 miles

Greenwood Lake (1369.7) to Bushcamp (1385.8)

We started at Greenwood Lake, a small town only one and a half hours by bus from New York City. There was a side-trail of about one mile leading to the Appalachian Trail itself. I was excited. Shepherd was hiking in front of me and after the first little uphill section I was already breathing. I am not trained enough but hey, I am back on trail! What a great feeling!! Shepherd is a very strong hiker but he adjusted his pace to mine right from the start. I never had to run behind him and I was very thankful for that.

The Appalachian Trail is a lot different from the PCT. The forest all around looks very familiar and similar to the forest we have in Germany. Very soon the trail disappeared and there were only rocks. We climbed up and over and Shepherds fear of the heights was forgotten. Indeed he felt more comfortable than me balancing on rocks with a steep drop-off right next to us

Greenwood Lake

Hiking behind Shepherd

Shepherd

That’s the trail

We saw lots of animals on our first day of hiking: two snakes, a frog and a nice, green caterpillar. I nearly stepped on it. Another adventure we had to face was the crossing of a big Interstate with lots of traffic. We had to run between all the cars! In the evening I was very tired but I had a wonderful day with Shepherd out in the wild!

Shepherd signing the trail register

snake no. 1

snake no. 2

That’s what some locals named “a nice rock-scamble”

the not-so-dangerous-Highway-crossing on a bridge