OF Books and On-line Journals.

For A Good Read

So, you are thinking to yourself, what is it really like to hike the Appalachian Trail? What trials, hardships, and joy do the hikers experience?  Do people actually walk the whole thing?  Well, here are several links to sites that publish trail journals and discuss life on the AT.  Some of these journals are very basic with simple descriptions of miles and weather, others are detailed journals of emotions, psychology of the trail, trail descriptions, milages, and travelogue.  So check them out.

This first link is an excellent online journal from an unemployed man who hiked the Trail in the early 1980's. 
http://www.skwc.com/exile/Hail/Hail-pro.html

The other 2 links are websites that are geared towards the thru-hiker community.  The first one, www.whiteblaze.net is dedicated to the Appalachian trail and is more of an internet forum where hikers discuss trail conditions, planning, best towns and hostel, gear and such.  It is a great resource to use for camping and hiking even if you are not going to attempt the AT.

The second site can be found at www.trailjournals.com.  This is a site dedicated to trail journals of long distance hikers.  I recommend finding the link for the Appalachian Trail, and look at journals from the last 2 years.  In fact, look at only the journals that have large amounts of entries, this is a hiker that either finished whole trail or hiked a majority of it.  Some of these journals are incredible.  After reading a few of these, you can't help but get a feel for what it is like to hike the trail.

So, find an hour or two and peruse the cool travel journals available.

Go out and hike your hike,