I wrote a ton in words in my journal as I hiked the Appalachian Trail. This was the foundation of my book, "Then the Hail Came", the story of my 1983 thru-hike. I also shot a ton of Kodachrome slides in that pre-digital age. There are around 800 photos here scanned from my 1983 slides. 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 in Google Photos and looking at the handy little Google Map that Photos generates from the metadata.

I took excerpts of text from the book, combined that with some new writing. I'd never tried to connect all these slides with all these words before. It helped me remember details of that long-ago hike in new ways. A few things I forgot to write down in my journal came back to me once I was able to connect the pictures with their exact locations.

I hope hikers both of the 1980s era and later will enjoy some of the nostalgic looks at places that are no longer on the AT, in some cases that no longer exist, like Old Antlers Camps in the North Maine Woods and the great views from Standing Indian before the summit became mostly overgrown. Also, the many great places on the AT that look virtually identical decades later, a real testament to all the agencies and organizations dedicated to preserving them.

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 above or get it at Audible.com.

1/26/23: I have finished with an update of this entire section. When I created the first version of My 1983 Appalachian Trail Hike in Photos in May and June of 2022, all of my 40-year-old Appalachian Trail slides needed a lot of cleaning up.  I skipped those slides that needed a ton of clean-up. I've spent the last month or so cleaning up and adding those slides, while also doing a great deal of cleaning up major flaws in the posted slides that got by me the first time.

All serious feedback is welcome.