George Steffanos' 1983 Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike

11/18/24: I had planned to celebrate the 42nd anniversary of my hike with a sequel Appalachian Trail hike in 2025 and a new book, but Hurricane Helene had other plans. March 2026 now seems much more likely as my start date.

In the very likely event that we don't thru-hike in 2025, we intend to get out for a long section hike on the Appalachian Trail, covering the 570+ miles between Harpers Ferry, West Virginia and North Adams in northern Massachusetts. A good trial run for 2026 and a chance to hike a part of the trail in May that I only saw in the peak of summer's heat in 1983 (PA-NJ-NY) and would likely hike through around the same sizzling time in 2026. Also, a chance to practice blogging and social media posting from the trail. We also plan to take a crack at Vermont's Long Trail in September. That would be around 270 miles. The closest road crossing to the Long Trail's southern terminus is North Adams, Mass., so if all goes according to plan our 2025 consolation hike would take us from West Virginia to Canada with a summer break.

I intend to blog both hikes on this website with words and pictures, and the Long Trail hike should become the subject of my next book assuming I successfully complete it.

3/1/24: You can read or listen to my book for free if you are a Kindle Unlimited (eBook) or an Audible Plus (audiobook) subscriber. Follow The amazon link above for both these options. More about my audiobook just below.

There is now an Audible audiobook version available. This uses virtual voice narration. I vastly prefer human generated works to those generated by AI, but the modest sales of my work were never going to support paying anyone for all those hours of narration. It's available for purchase or free listening if you are an Audible Plus subscriber. Follow the Amazon link or get it at Audible.com.

4/21/24:

You can follow me on Spoutible, Post, Mastodon, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook, Twitter/X, Tribel and Linkedin.

My name is George Steffanos, and I live in Waterbury, Connecticut. A long time ago I took a long walk. Along the way I wrote a great many words about that journey.

The Appalachian Trail is a continuous footpath which winds for more than 2,000 miles along the Appalachian chain in the eastern United States from the summit of Springer Mountain in the Blue Ridge of northeast Georgia to the summit of Baxter Peak on Mount Katahdin, deep in the evergreen forests of north-central Maine.

On May 3, 1983, I started walking north from Springer. Along the way, I kept a very detailed hikers journal, which formed the basis for Then the Hail Came, a book about the adventure. Over the years, I have received some very kind feedback from readers on the draft, which I posted on my personal website for several years. The story is now available for purchase on Amazon, just follow the link above. Paperback, eBook and Audible versions are available. You are welcome to view a sample chapter, the link to which is also available above. Any intelligent comments or advice are welcome.

I'm planning on using this site as sort of an adjunct to the book. I've scanned hundreds of my old AT slides and posted them with short text blurbs connecting them to their parts of the story. These pages have become a visual journal of the hike. I believe this to be one of the oldest thru-hikes on the Internet to be documented in photos and words to this extent. Working with analog non-geotagged images was a marathon compared to opening my digital photos from more recent trips and looking at the handy little Google Map that Google Photos generates from the metadata.

3/31/24: I mention below that Steve Adams read my book in its entirety over many episodes of his podcast. He has now also interviewed me. Check out Episode 418 of Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis.

2/22/24: I am celebrating the 41st anniversary of my hike this year with daily posts on social media of HD photos and excerpts (including 41 years ago today posts May 2 - Oct 3). Hopefully I will begin a sequel Appalachian Trail hike and book within the next two years, if I can stay healthy. I am aiming for a 2025 hike, with 2026 as a fallback if I cannot be ready in time. It should be an interesting contrast. I was 24 when I made the original hike.

You can find these posts on Spoutible, Post, Mastodon, Instagram, Threads, Bluesky, Facebook, Twitter/X, Counter.social, Tribel and Linkedin.

1/26/23: I have finished with an update of this entire section. I have added a number of slides that I skipped the first time because they needed a lot of clean-up and further cleaned up the pics I had already posted.

I want to post answers to common questions like why I wrote so many words during the hike. Some people think I added a lot afterwards, but I actually had to do a lot of cutting to make the story readable.

Free Audio Book Available (Sort Of)

Steve Adams hosts a great podcast on the Hiking Radio Network called Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis. Each week he interviews great guests and then finishes the episode with a chapter from the latest hiking book that he’s reading. Starting with Episode #321, the May 5, 2022 episode, he plans to read my entire long-winded epic a chapter at a time. Reading his fascinating bio blurb towards the bottom of this page, he might just be crazy enough to do it. For Episode #321, he's easing into this Herculean task with the book's Prologue.

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