Great Eastern Trail - Appalachian Trail Hike

Welcome to the official website for the GET-AT Hike!

We’re so excited we had the chance to hike 2,174 miles to spread the word about the Great Eastern Trail, one blaze at a time.  It took us from March 15 - September 4, 2008 -173 days - to hike the entire Appalachian Trail!  You can read more about the trails, view maps and photos, read about the hikers & our blogs about our journey on this site.

Scroll down or use the archives to the left to view the blog entries from our hike.  Read more about the GET-AT Hike in the “About” section, and about Andy, Corley, & Susan in the “Hikers” section.  There are a bunch of photo slideshows organized by state in the “Photos” section of the webpage, or you can link to our google photos site to browse them all.  Feel free to contact us with any questions or comments - we love to talk about the hike and wish we were still out on the trail!

 Read short update here

Our hat’s off to everyone working hard to make this trail a reality!

best,

susan

Click to read the article

It’s got a photo from day one and day 173 (the last) right next to each other.  We look so different!!

enjoy!

susan

Last night NBC had an interview with the two men that were shot on the Appalachian Trail this past summer by Randall Lee Smith.  This happened near Pearisburg, Virginia.  We happened to be camping less than 10 miles from where this incident happened - many of our trail friends woke up that night hearing the sounds of the sirens and the life-flight helicopter.  We hiked down to the road the next morning to find the trail blocked by yellow caution tape and a big DOT sign saying “Trail closed to Pearisburg”.   Needless to say, this event caused a huge stir among trail lovers & hikers and scared the daylights out of me.

If you want to read more about what happened go to the article on NBC’s website here 

There is also a book about the 1981 murders on the AT that happened almost in the same spot, by the same man called “Murder on the Appalachian Trail” by Jesse Carr.  You can get it on Amazon here.

Happy Trails!

susan

We got to drive to Acadia National Park in Maine and see some beautiful coastline. We ran into our hiking friends Red Dog & Lucky Dog by chance in Bar Harbor and had dinner and drinks with them. Then we drove back to Rangely, Maine to pick up Andy’s broken backpack and came back to the Phairs for one last night of home-cooked dinner & good company. We set off the next day to get a rental car to drive to Portland and then back to South Carolina. After much ado, we got a Hyundai Tuscon that is very much like my Honda CR-V and packed up and got on the road. We stopped off in Freeport, home of the famous L.L. Bean store, and did a little shopping before heading to Portland. We walked around a bit in downtown Portland, checked out the port area, then ate dinner at a Mexican restaurant (we couldn’t resist!). After dinner we heading down the interstate toward home. We drove a couple of hours then booked a hotel in Mass. somewhere for the night. The next day we drove all the way to Columbia, SC, getting home around 1:45am.

Since then we’ve been seeing all of Andy’s friends and trying to organize the boxes of random stuff we sent home over six months on the trail. We also did our spring cleaning in September. None of our clothes fit either so we’ve had to go get some new outfits (darn). Other than that, we’re preparing to go to Gauley Fest, a white-water festival in West Virginia, this week and Andy’s brother’s wedding next week in Ohio. Then after that we’ll look for jobs, promise.

Thanks again a million times over to the Phair family for all their kindness and generosity - we’re so sorry you couldn’t keep Corley! Thanks to the Bellaire Moms for the HUGE card (awesome), HAT & Dan, beall+thomas, Sammi, Jeffrey & mom for the cards of congrats! Thanks to Mindy for the box of clothes to make us look like real humans again!

Thanks to everyone we met along the way who gave us support, and to all our contributors to the Great Eastern Trail! We’ll try to keep ya’ll updated on it’s progress.

That’s all for now!

Best,

susan, andy & corley

 We finally made it to the last mile of our journey!

We were so excited and nervous about the last day - a 4,000 foot climb in 5.2 miles, half of which is exposed above treeline.  Southbound hikers had been shaking their heads when they told us about Katahdin: “It’s a butt-kicker for sure”.  So we couldn’t sleep too well for the three nights leading up to our last day; we were like kids right before Christmas! 

We stayed at the thru-hiker campground in Baxter State Park the last night with some old buddies and some new: Aboman, Half-Ounce, SeatoLand and Snakebait.  We carried in S’mores and snacks from the Abol Bridge Campstore we passed ten miles before just as we left the 100-mile Wilderness (which was awesome!) and had a feast.  We all sat around the fire reminiscing about our journies, the good, the bad and our disbelief that it was finally coming to an end.

In the morning we were all up by 5:30.  We were only carrying food, water, extra clothing and cameras to the top so we packed our other gear in trash bags and left it at the ranger station.  The sky was partly cloudy when we started out, looking like there were some winds up on the mountain tops.  There’s a mandatory sign in/sign out when you summit Katahdin; we signed out to leave at 7:17am. 

The first mile was mostly flat, which surprised me and made me nervous at the same time because if we didn’t gain any elevation in the first mile then we still had the whole 4,000 feet to climb in the remaining four miles - it means a much steeper climb.  After we crossed Katahdin Stream, one of the clearest and and coldest streams I’ve seen, we started the climb.  It was just like any other mountain in Maine for the next two miles - some rocks, some roots and fairly steep.  Then we reached treeline at the Hunt Spur after climbing around and over some boulders.  The weather had become less than beautiful; the mountain above the Hunt Spur was covered by a cloud and the wind was blowing harder and making me nervous.  No turning back though and we began climbing from the Spur to the Gateway.

This was probably our toughest part of the climb - something like 1200 feet in .6 miles.  It was like walking a narrow ridge straight uphill on big rocks with a pushy breeze coming across our left side.  Yikes.  Looking back, I’m glad I couldn’t see the top of the climb because it probably would have scared me.  The Gateway was the top of the steep climbing where we reached the Tableland, the flatter ridge of Katahdin.  It was still foggy, windy and rocky, but less precarious.  It was still a mile to Baxter Peak, the highest peak in Maine.

Because of the fog we couldn’t see the peak until we were about 50 yards from it.  We were so excited to be done, although it really felt like we had climbed just another mountain on the trail.  We were taking photos with the sign and celebrating when suddenly the clouds parted and then dispersed, giving us a beautiful view of the mountain.  Blue skies!  Then we took tons more photos, ate, toasted our finish with some Nassau Royale and just took in the view.

After about two hours we started back down - the first time we’d hiked the same section of trail twice.  When we reached the Gateway again the clouds rolled back over the mountain and covered it again.  We were so lucky to have had a view!  It took us two hours to get back down where we hung out with our thru-hiker buddies, drinking some wine and talking about how we never have to hike again if we don’t want too! Yay!

We got a ride into Millonocket where our buddy Beatbox picked us up and took us to Bangor.  We went out to dinner, then got dropped off at the Phair’s home in Levant where we were reunited with Corley!  He was so excited to see us, and we were estatic to see him.  He looked healthy, happy and pudgy!

Now we’re travelling around Maine a bit and hanging out with the ever so generous and fun Phair family.  We’ll head back to the South this weekend and back into the real world.

Check out the photos!

best,

susan, andy & corley

 Let me just say that we had such a great time at the post office in this town… I think we cleaned out an entire shelf when we got our mail!  There’s a photo in the Maine section of our photos that shows the towering stack of packages and letters we got.  Thanks so much to everyone; we feel very loved!

We had a nice, easy day out of Northern Outdoors, up Pleasant Pond Mountain and back down.  We were staying at a shelter about 22 miles out of Monson and decided we’d rather do a long day into town and then take a day off than two short days into town.  So we got up early and hiked our tails off for 9 hours to get to the road to Monson at 3:30 (the P.O. closes at 4).  We were nervous about getting a hitch, but after about 10 minutes a nice Maniac (Maine-iac)(ha) picked us up and took us right to the P.O. with seven minutes to spare.  Yay!  So we had a feast with all the food we got - dried fruit, cookies, chocolate, sour patch, snickers and some Nassau Royale to top it off!

We’re staying at the Lake Shore Hotel, which has both a laundromat and restaurant/bar in the same building.  Perfect for hikers!  Rebecca is the owner and she is a wonderful, hospitable lady, plus a lot of fun.  Tonight is all-you-can-eat Taco night and we’re planning on doing some damage.  Speaking of, it starts at four and I’m ready so off I go!

Thanks to Tammy, Claire, Whitney, Crystal and Bahama for the packages, and Courtney, Vanessa, Cory and Tonie for the letters!!  Y’all are some great friends for sure.

See y’all on the other side of the wilderness!

susan, andy (and corley)

ps. Corley decided he likes doing nothing with the Phair’s more than hiking so we’ll pick him up in just over a week to drive around Maine with us.  They don’t want to give him up so it might be a fight to get him back!  Thanks so much for watching him Mark & Julie!

pps. Our buddy Sampson had to undergo surgery for an abcess on his back in New Hampshire (yikes!) so we wish him a speedy recovery to get his skinny butt back on the trail to Katadhin!  Bondi, Rocksteady, Butters, Superchunk…. we miss you guys!

We’ve gotten through the toughest part of Maine, we think…  It’s been big climbs and big decents for a week and a half, but the past two days have been low and easy.  We saw some incredible views of the Maine mountains and valleys, hopefully I’ll be able to upload some in the next few days.

We crossed the Kennebec River today!  The official AT route is a ferry ride in a canoe, so that’s what we did.  It was raining this morning so we were slow to get out of the tent and get going.  It was a race to get to the river before the ferry closed for lunch at 11, but we made it (10:45!).  Our ferry-man was Dave, aka Hillybilly, a river man through and through.  The last ferry-man did the job for over twenty years.  This is the last operating man-powered ferry in the whole United States.  Andy and I donned our PFDs like pros… almost… Andy had a little trouble with his (and after all those years rafting!  it’s that silly pillow they have on the back for your head– does it even do anything really?!).   Anyway, we hopped in the canoe with Dave in the back, me in the middle, and Andy in front paddling. It took about three minutes to get across the 70 yard wide river.  I’m glad we made it to the ferry though because we probably would have tried to ford the river without knowing that the river was rising… yikes!

We had a food drop in Caratunk, ME and found out that there was a rafting outpost with a restaurant, brewery and camping just down the road… we couldn’t resist.  We figure with only 150 miles, less than two weeks left, we can take a short day and have a brew or two.  So we rented a little cabin tent for the night and have been hanging around the outpost just like old times.

We expect to be in Monson in two and a half days then heading into the Hundred Mile Wilderness, after which is Katadhin.  So close!!

All the best to y’all,

susan, andy (and corley)

ps. we’re hoping corley will get to come through the hundred mile wilderness with us!

We never thought it could be this cold anywhere in August!  We came into Rangeley, ME yesterday around lunchtime to re-supply with food.  This is the last “big” town we’ll come to on our journey so we bought extra food and sent it forward to Caratunk, ME, 100 miles down the trail, a town with only a post office!  The towns in Maine are actually perfectly spaced out every 3 days or so which means our packs get to be fairly light as we trek over these tough mountains.

We stayed at a motel in town and were excited to take a hot shower, except we couldn’t get the hot water to work! Argh.  Turns out the hotel owner had to turn on the propane to heat the hotel as it was to be in the low 40s last night, and when he tinkered with the propane it somehow turned off the hot water to our room.  An hour later we were washing off all the mud and dirt in a steaming hot shower and it was fabulous.

We’re leaving this afternoon again, never a day off when you get this close to Katadhin!  Less than 220 miles to go now, yippee!

Thanks so much to Erin out in Montana for the package!  No-Bake Cheesecake, what?!

Best,

susan, andy (& corley)

The sun came out too, and has stayed out for the few days we’ve been here.  The terrain is rugged, very rocky and steep, and we are more “in the woods” than we’ve been so far.  We are hiking in the Mahoosuc range and got to go through one of the more famous sections of trail yesterday: the Mahoosuc Notch.  It’s a mile long section of car-sized boulders at the junction of two steep mountains that hikers have to pick and choose thier way through.  It took us over an hour to go that mile section, and we got bumped and bruised, but it was exciting!

We ran into our old buddy Slowstepper who lives around this part of Maine.  He finished his section hike of the AT this year by hiking Springer to Harpers Ferry.  We were there the day he finished!  He and his wife have been tracking down all his hiking buddies and bringing them trail magic.  He showed up at the road we hiked to today with some fresh watermelon and candy bars.  It was great to see him and to meet his wife.  Have fun hiking the Mahoosucs!

The latest update with Corley is that he’s getting tons of loving attention from Mark & Julie, he went car camping with them last week and slept a good bit.  Perhaps we’ll be getting him back near Monson, ME.  We still miss him a lot!

We’re in Andover, ME staying at the home of the very generous and fun Scott, aka Gunny Goose, grilling hot dogs and hanging out with some other hikers.  We’ll get back on the trail tomorrow morning and slug and slosh our way up some more tough Maine mountains!

Hope all’s going well with back to school for you kids and the beginning of the end of summer for the rest of y’all!

Best,

susan, andy (and corley)