Our 2010 AT Hike (background)

In 2007, my wife Wendy and I spent 3 weeks on the AT, hiking from Rockfish Gap (near Waynesboro / Charlottesville VA) to Harpers Ferry WV. It was our first hike and we liked it enough to set a goal of completing the AT in Virginia (550 miles). We completed two more hikes that took us south to Troutville VA (near Roanoke).

Our goal was interrupted by an opportunity to go to Hong Kong for 2 years. I spent most of 2009 in Hong Kong and loved it. However that trip was interrupted by a cost cutting program in my company that gave me an early retirement package that I "could not refuse". That, in turn, gave us an opportunity to hike the entire Appalachian Trail.

Before returning to the US, we made some wonderful trips including Tibet (see picture from Mt. Everest), Thailand, Beijing, and hiking the Great Wall of China. (I will add links later.) We returned to the US in the second week of January. I put together a plan for the three months before we start our hike (our limbo/homeless period).

We will spend about 5 weeks in a hotel in Charlottesville. The hotel is OK but it is nice to be in a city. After living in Hong Kong, it would have been quite a culture shock to return home to our isolated mountain top.

We will then go "house-sit" in our own house for about two weeks. As it happens, the caretakers in our house (Ralph and Mary) are exploring an opportunity for another caretaker job in Puerto Rico during the last half of February. Probably the only people in the world who would want to live up on the mountain in a snow storm to take care of their animals would be us. The road is currently impassable due to 3-4 foot show drifts. Hopefully it will get plowed so that we can get in and Ralph and Mary can leave for Puerto Rico. We planned to hike the road each day so this would also impact our training.

Next we will go to the Outer Banks for most of March and stay at our friend Beth's house. We will hike on the beach and in Nagshead Woods, as well as, climb/hike on Jocky's Ridge to build leg strength.

We expect to start our hike the end of March.