Our first expedition on the A.T. By Evan Harr

My group went hiking on the Appalachian Trail for 2 weeks. We stayed in a cabin, had an 11-hour hike, and gave each other trail names. We also ran into other hikers, and even hiked through coyote filled areas.

The cabin we stayed at was very nice, especially for the rainy night that we had while we were there. Luckily the inside was very warm and it kept us from getting too cold. We did a lot of homework in there, and then ate a very good meal of macaroni and cheese, which I got to serve after someone else on the team mainly made it. Also, the 11-hour hike before that was very gruesome. We didn’t really stop the whole time, and just kept going and going until we finally reached a shelter to stay the night in. Other hikers usually took the shelter, so we would have to set up tarps at the campsites near the shelter.

Our trail names could often times be very random. Alec is braveheart, Isaac is scarface, Kyle is chopstick, Dustin is Donkey Kong, Alex is Alex the great, Billy is Billy the Kid, Tristan is puma, and Coley is cool-hand Luke. They are all very fun trail names to go by instead of our simple names. Many other people we met had trail names too, and one was named Hitman.

Hitman was a through hiker, which meant that he was hiking the whole Appalachian Trail all the way without stopping. He was a very speedy hiker, just like many of the other hikers that we met. One of the parts of our hike was through a bunch of wild coyotes. One of our group members howled like one, and then it got a whole pack of them to howl back at us.

Overall, it was a hike full of adventure. We hiked many miles, whether it was rain or sunshine, and met a few other hikers along the way. There were many different struggles also, especially with people getting along. It was a fun experience for the most part.