Thru Hiking Entire Appalachian Trail in 120 Days (Full documentary)

[Music] [Music] [Music] the appalachian trail it's a roughly 2200 mile trail that goes from springer mountain in georgia to mount katahdin and maine this trail goes through 14 different states up the east coast of the u.s we made it on this trail you'll experience all types of weather from rain to snow to heat waves you'll experience wildlife hiker hunger trail magic exhaustion and if you're lucky friendships that will last a lifetime there are moments of pure happiness and there are moments you have to embrace the suck as people on the trail will say no rain no pain no mane each year thousands of hopeful hikers start their journeys in an attempt to through-hike the entire trail and this is my story on the appalachian trail hey guys it's taylor i made this account to just kind of document my journey because right now my plan is to hike the appalachian trail in 2020. i heard about the appalachian trail through youtube videos i watched homemade wanderlust this is my time to go on the adventure and i love challenges i hike all the time and this just seems like the perfect fit i'm pretty content with 15 pounds being the base weight for my first ever backpacking trip yes you heard that right i was about to attempt the appalachian trail without ever backpacking before so i said bye to my family and friends and headed down to georgia to start my through hike i just knew deep in my heart that hiking this trail was something i was meant to do i have never been so fascinated and passionate about something so foreign to me but after hundreds of hours of watching other people vlog their experiences on the trail i had a very good feeling i would find myself right at home on the appalachian trail all right this is the official start of my first full day on the appalachian trail i had such a good night's sleep it was cold but i slept my fitbit said almost 10 hours so that's awesome i woke up so many times throughout the night just like tossing and turning and trying to get comfortable is mile 11. one mile away from gooch mountain shelter and i'm really excited to stay there tonight this was a pretty perfect day my first day on the appalachian trail went really well all my gear worked well i was feeling good i was feeling strong i got the hang of this backpacking thing pretty quickly all of these sites that i've seen passed through hikers post online i was finally experiencing for myself which was such a cool feeling oh that's meal gap i stayed there last night i'm in north carolina oh yeah so that was albert mountain and that marked 100 miles on the a.t all right so this is chica and sunsets they own the hostel that i stayed at last night i'm probably two miles away from the noc and i'm just gonna check it out good morning it's day 12 i think i am going to fontana dam to stay there tonight i took a zero day at fontana dam i showered i resupplied i went through all my gear and i went to the hotel restaurant a lot march 12 2020 at the fontana village resort bar was when i first realized the pandemic was hitting the u.s and things were changing i kept this information in the back of my mind and the next day i started the smoky mountains [Music] the smoky mountain section of the at lasts about 70 miles and i finished in about four days i'm gonna reach the 200 mile mark on the at and then also the highest point on the at nothing seemed different people were visiting the national park newfound gap was packed and we still slept in shelters everything seemed very normal so long bye smokies was our trip at this point i got service and read an email i had gotten earlier that day it was from the appalachian trail conservancy urging all hikers to postpone their through hikes hey youtube i have to be honest with you i booked a flight home and i think that's the best decision at the moment i'm getting off trail for now going home to be with my family and i'm just going through all my gear i want a true novo 2193 mile experience so i am going to try this again next year at class of 2021 i learned a lot while i was out there i'm gonna take everything i learned and apply it to next year's through hike and hopefully make an even more successful hike and make it all the way i used this time until my next thru hike attempt to get some new backpacking gear with hopes of staying warmer on the trail lightening my backpack and finding gear that worked better for me it's 16 pounds and then that february i said bye to everyone for a second time and headed down to georgia to start the appalachian trail again take me home to the place i belong west virginia all right we're all safely at amicalola in our hotel room with the loft which is pretty cool got a good breakfast at the lobby restaurant and now i'm putting on my reindeer and getting my backpack together to go down to the visitor center check in and start the approach trail i think it's 26 pounds which if i'm reading that correctly is one pound lighter than last year bye guys thanks for driving me here and just like that i was off taking my first steps on my 2021 appalachian trail through hike went through the arch which is the beginning of the approach trail and we're going to pass the giant waterfall which is the biggest waterfall in georgia and mccolola falls so it's just a big staircase that goes next to this waterfall a lot of people say it's really hard i didn't have too many issues with it last year but there's a lot of steps so the approach trail is about eight and a half miles long and once i hike the eight and a half miles i'll be on top of springer mountain which is where the appalachian trail officially starts this is the beginning the beginning of the appalachian trail this is the first white blaze so i'll be following these the whole way i'm gonna filter some water this right here is my water filter there's a shelter in point six miles and i think i'm gonna stay there so it's stover creek shelter and i'm kind of excited to end the day a little bit earlier than i usually would it gives me some time to make dinner set up the tent and just kind of take it all in and enjoy my first day out here i want to talk about my sleep for a second because i went to bed a little after seven and woke up around seven so you think i'd get some decent sleep but i swear i was awake every 30 minutes changing my sleeping position so i'd be like on my right side on my left side sleeping on my stomach sleeping on my back so i really need to figure out what way i sleep best so i don't have to adjust it 50 times throughout the night so trail magic is a big part of the appalachian trail it's when people come out and provide unexpected support to hikers it could be in the form of a ride to town a can of soda or in this case a feast all right i got my taco because fresh ground is here on day two fresh ground is an iconic trail angel i ran into his trail magic a few times during my hike and each time was just as amazing and appreciated out there i can't believe i ran into fresh grounds i've been waiting for that for like two years for the chance to meet him so if you don't know fresh grounds goes up and down the et and other trails with his van and cooks amazing meals for through hikers he had a taco ready for me before i even got to the van he had so many stories and so much insight about the trail he's so helpful but that was incredible so hopefully i can run into him at other points on the trail but that was oh my god all right i'm just sitting down on the side of the trail real quick because i took a step and had kind of like a shooting pain in the bottom of my foot i think my shoes are uncomfortable so i might see if mountain crossings has any options either for shoes or for different insoles because yeah i don't know if these lone peaks are working i'm just point maybe four miles away from neal's gap and i'm getting really excited neil's gap has a resupply warm food and a gear shop everything you need bill at the outfitter hooked me up with some new shoes they feel really good i'm excited for them i'm excited for the change i think they're going to feel a lot better i was in so much pain coming down off of cal rock mountain my right foot just from the side of it kind of like the side where my pinky toe is is in so much pain so i'm gonna get a place get a hotel room tonight just do everything just rest as much as i can i set take care of myself and hopefully i'll be stronger tomorrow order to calzone from the place across the street that looks good and with just a day's worth of rest my foot was feeling better enough to head back to the trail the next day this isn't just any water source this is the water source where i met cody it was a quick conversation and we went our separate ways afterwards but eventually we'd meet back up in the smoky mountains and end up hiking the whole rest of the trail together my mom is meeting me so she's going to pick me up and spend the night with me before she drives back to new hampshire i got my burger [Music] mom just drove me back to dick's creek gap where i'm gonna start hiking today oh i'm so happy i'm in north carolina right now this is really cool this is a cool feeling by georgia when you pass a water source right before a shelter it's always good to grab it and then that's one less thing to worry about while you're at camp good morning it down poured for most of the night which was fun um but i am actually really impressed that no water got in my tent no condensation or anything but my tent is covered in mud on the outside so i was reminiscing a lot at that shelter because when i stayed there last year it was the coldest day on trail probably one degree with the wind chill i woke up with frost on my sleeping bag i was too cold to set up my tent in one shot i had to take breaks setting up my tent because my fingers were so cold i couldn't cook couldn't do anything my water bottle froze so all that stuff happened last year so tomorrow i will hit the 100 mile mark and probably be in franklin tomorrow and this right here is like the unofficial 100 mile marker of the 80. we need to fix it a little bit there will probably be something like this made up of like rocks and sticks for every hundred miles on the holy tea so that's something exciting to look forward to so i took my first zero day in franklin north carolina a zero day is a day that you take off from hiking you stay in town and you hike zero miles i enjoy staying at chica and sunsets in franklin because it's a very small hostel it only sleeps four hikers so you really get to know the other people staying at the hostel with you and you end up having a really good time hanging out together all right just did a ton of elevation ran into my friend nico which was pretty cool and now it's about two miles until wyatbald today ended up being 18 miles which is my biggest day on trail so far so that's pretty cool and we ended at mile 127 on the 18th the westerbald fire tower was just amazing 360 degree views there were about six of us hanging out up there took a nice extended snack break and now i think all of us are pretty excited to head down to the noc the noc is one of my favorite places on the trail the trail goes right through this adventure resort with a great gear shop restaurant places to shower and to sleep it's a great place to refresh right on the a.t good morning it's saturday march 6th my plan today is to hike 16 miles to the brown fork shelter but in those 16 miles it's about 6 800 feet of elevation gain which is a lot i'm really proud of my body for being able to do this today not many issues physically which i'm really excited about so i have about 2.2 miles left until the brown fork gap shelter which is where i'm going to tent tonight really excited about my spaghetti for dinner [Music] it's been getting so cold at night and in the mornings but as soon as you start hiking and the sun comes out it gets warm so fast so i need to always stop just really quickly into my hike and shed my layers hi i'm dave i work at the fontana marina we're hiker friendly here we've got a lot of resupplies it's a great place to have a couple of full beers sit out on the patio and relax but good luck to all you hikers oh thank you the food i have between the resupply that i had sent here and the food left in my pack already and then a couple things i just picked up at the marina but i'm at the fontana village now and it's the perfect day to go to the hotel pool so that's where i'm gonna head now all right good morning this is the day that i am leaving fontana and entering the smoky mountains i got a couple miles of walking through fontana i'm gonna pass the fontana hilton which is the most luxurious shelter on the trail gonna walk over the fontana dam and then i enter the smokies and start climbing up so it is a really exciting day everyone keeps talking about how perfect the weather is going to be this week all right officially entering the great smoky mountains national park i pictured myself walking through the smokies a lot this year but never once did i picture myself doing it in shorts i've been climbing a lot so going right into the smokies you start off with some good elevation and i'm actually looking at a fire tower on a peak over there which i am probably going to climb today all right this is the top of shuck stack fire tower it was so sketchy coming to the top of this that you can see everything that is really cool you can see the dam and wizards up here hello good morning this is day two in the smokies i slept in the shelter last night didn't have any issues with critters or anything but there was some loud howling uh right as i was falling asleep so that was a little startling for a second this is i think mile 183 on the appalachian trail so i've come a long way to get here and i think the fact that i'll pass 200 probably tomorrow is insane i'm really excited today because klingman's dome is in 2.2 miles [Music] i have never craved a pop-tart so bad in my life and i'm so happy i had one and this is just such a perfect place for a break except it's really windy and i'm getting cold so i took a lot of cool pictures and videos but i'm gonna head back down on the trail and this is mile 200.0 so exactly 200 miles in to the trail and so cool newfound gap is in one mile so i'm looking forward to that and i'm expecting that gap to be pretty busy i have hiked 16 and a half miles and i have a four and a half miles to go until the peck shelter whatever the name of that is i have some friends that are there that i've been trying to catch up with for days i think that's the end of the smokies all right well i'm officially done with the smokies i am just doing the couple miles to standing bear hostel right now just taking it easy my face dropped a lot once i got out of the smokies today i should see max patch but it might start raining later so i don't think i will tent on top like i did last year i don't know how great the view is going to be and also today is kind of buggy so i didn't really experience bugs on the at last year but there's a lot so yesterday i got a bug stuck in my eye and this morning i swallowed a bug so they're out there all right just got my tent set up and then within seconds it started raining so i'd say that's good timing now i'm just gonna get inside and chill you know it's not the flattest tent site um i think i'm gonna be a little slanted when i sleep tonight but i'm i'm gonna make it work so it's really cool thinking about this but this stretch of trail when i did it last year was my last stay on trail and i had no idea so it's really cool doing this and just like reliving all the memories because after i leave hot springs whenever that is i might take a zero there it's going to be all new territory so i kind of feel like i was experienced at the first part of the at because i've done it before i knew exactly where every hostel was every place i could sleep and how many miles i needed to do every day but going forward i'm like nervous i don't know what's ahead like i don't know what's past hot springs and that's gonna be a cool feeling just like being a beginner again this is the cottage we're staying in tonight got about like 14 more minutes until check-in so we're just sitting in the front yard counting down the minutes so i just left hot springs and i feel like i'm like going to my first day of school because this is all new territory hot springs is where i ended my 2020 through hike attempt so this is the first time hiking on the at this year and not knowing where i am or what's ahead of me and it's really cool it's eight o'clock right now and it's really hard to get out of my tent because it's raining i don't have a set plan on where i want to end up today but the only thing i do know is that i am passing the 300 mile marker which is going to be really exciting i think this is a big deal to me because mile 100 and mile 200 i both passed those milestones last year in 2020 but mile 300 i'm seeing for the first time right now and it's just an amazing feeling that i'm further than what i did in 2020 i'm going into new territory and it's just i'm it's really cool feeling i'm really happy good morning today is actually really warm really sunny and there's really good visibility so you can see all the mountains around which is really cool however there is tornado warnings in the south today [Music] took me a while to get it up there but looks pretty safe to me i slept in the shelter last night the big bulb shelter and it just stormed it rained and there was so much wind all through the night it never stopped so i am so thankful i decided to sleep in the shelter and not my tent last night so that worked out pretty well yeah and i had no idea that my face was covered in mud all right so i am at uncle johnny's right now i did get here in time to take the shuttle into town dropped off at a mexican restaurant where i ate so much food i'm so happy about that and then walked over to walmart where i was able to get a resupply for the next couple days tonight is gonna get so cold so tonight might be the coldest night on trail for me so far so yeah we'll see how that goes all right good morning um this morning was absolutely freezing cold the toughest part of the morning was one like eating food i had no appetite but two putting my shoes on i've never experienced my shoes freezing like that like i wasn't even able to untie the knots um or re-tie them for that matter and getting my foot into the shoe was a whole process so what i did was turn my stove on and i kind of like melted my shoelaces a little bit so that i can loosen them up and get my foot in so a local just pointed out that that is rhone mountain in the distance but to get there we have to go like all the way over here and then through all those mountains to get there so it's gonna be a while all right welcome to the rhone highlands i did not expect to hike this today but here we are it's probably getting close to sunset but i'm just going to keep hiking and hopefully catch some cool views um i think the bald behind me is next probably going to go up and over a couple bulbs tonight and i'm really excited it's been a long day but got this like second burst of energy all right it's eight o'clock and it's time to do a little solo night hiking for the first time i hiked over 26 miles i am camping on a bald and i'm gonna see an amazing sunrise so this was a great day very proud of myself for night hiking alone and not dying so i'll see you guys tomorrow when someone asks me about my worst night on the at this moment comes to mind immediately it was calm and beautiful when we set up our tents the night before on this grassy bald but overnight it turned into a cold windy storm we didn't get any sleep and in the morning we found our tents completely covered with frost we managed to hike 11 miles in the morning into town and spent the day at the station at 19e we were completely over tired but still managed to make the most of the day at this super fun hostel [Music] what's that i see in the distance is that something on the tree is that is that mild 400 [Music] i'm feeling so good right now i think i finally have my trail legs i have a tent site by the laurel fork falls which is a beautiful waterfall so tomorrow morning i'm gonna backtrack 0.2 miles to see the waterfall and probably have breakfast there and it's going to be so beautiful i've seen this thing photographed so many times and i had no idea it was coming up i'm gonna have my own little photo shoot here now there's less than 10 miles to go until the virginia border i'm really looking forward to that all right it's been over 22 miles today but finally made it to the virginia border this is such a cool feeling i think mostly because last year in 2020 i hiked in georgia north carolina and tennessee but this is my first completely new state and i know i'm going to be in virginia a lot so we'll see how that goes but i'm really excited to be here and just a few more miles until i get to damascus where i will check in to the broken fiddle hostel i called them yesterday and reserved a room and then go to the diner did a quick outfit change into some loaner clothes and now going down the street to the diner get some food [Music] i knew this was gonna happen it's starting to rain right now and i'm just gonna totally embrace it it's warm it's in the 60s [Music] so the grayson highlands are famous for having wild ponies and i just see my first little bunch of wild ponies over there you're so cool [Music] right here's a sign 500 miles this place is so beautiful all right about to do the fat man squeeze which the trail goes right in between these two boulders so we'll see if i can fit [Music] not too bad this pony right here is on the trail he's coming towards me [Music] buddy you coming towards me i hope you're a nice one [Music] carry on [Music] taking the first snack break of the day at the old orchard shelter six miles into today's hike i think we left the grayson highlands we saw a lot of ponies in the morning um and then we're here and now all we see is bugs so a little bit of a change i'm gonna have some snacks i think the plan today is to hike maybe like 25 miles marion virginia is was 30 miles from our campsite so teetered with the idea of pushing a 30. but after hearing from some section hikers on trail that it was going to thunder and downpour the entire day we decided to push it hike 30 miles in the rain and make it to marion virginia that night to just pig out on all the food and then the next day we would take a zero so my parents came to visit me and my only request was that they booked a hotel with a hot tub so here we are after we got a very good italian dinner takeout here in the hot tub and probably we're going to hit the sauna later too luckily our next hiking day was absolutely beautiful my parents wanted to support me on the trail while they were visiting so they offered to slackpack us slackpacking is a term when you don't have to carry all your gear during the day and it's literally a huge weight off your shoulders we would plan different spots throughout the day to meet up with them and it worked out perfectly all right 11 miles into the hike and the trail went right past this gas station got good gas station pizza got gas station chicken fingers lots of snacks of course a nice coffee and mom and dad came out for the little lunch break too not having to carry all the weight of my gear would instantly put me in a much better mood i could enjoy the day more i could hike faster and most importantly i could give my feet and my legs a much needed break on trail i'm just so thankful that my parents came down to support not only me but the friends that i'm hiking with it really means a lot so i know they're watching this so i just want to shout it out again and say thank you mom and dad for doing everything you did for me today and yesterday and probably tomorrow as well all right we made it a quarter of the way quarter of the way done with the trail right here that's insane oh my god just stumbled upon this little old school house which is really cool honestly today is a little tough because my dog went in for surgery to get some lumps removed and tested uh the surgery has been planned for a while i didn't want it to happen while i was on trail but that's just the earliest i could do it but i got a text from chet my fiance who brought her and said that the surgery is going well um or she's out of surgery and it went well now they're just waiting for the results it is pretty tough being away from her because i know she's been sad she doesn't know where i am i know she's confused and sad and now she's probably in pain so it just just hurts today a little bit but i know she's in good hands and thank you chet for taking good care of her i just had a pretty bad fall i'm not hurt or anything but like i'm covered in mud i tripped and then like fell forward and my backpack like came up over my head things fell out of the pockets the chest strap like even like went up to my neck which was a bit uncomfortable but it could have been a lot worse so i'm just gonna sit collect my thoughts for a little bit there's a water source behind me so i'm gonna go filter some water and wipe off some of this dirt good morning my feet and like ankles were so stiff that it took almost a mile of me hiking for them to like loosen up and like start being able to bend so i needed a little bit of a warm up downpoured for a while but it's not that bad right now all right this is mile 599.9 so now it's time to look for that mile marker i actually missed the snow i'm a northeast girl i like the snow and this kind of feels nice just got to the top of this climb and it looks like the snow stuck here today the woods whole hostel is just down that street i think like half a mile and i'm excited to check out this hostel because it has such good reviews i was really hoping to stop at the hostel and warm up after hiking in the snow all day but unfortunately the water pipes froze and the electricity was out it was in the low 20s so all i did was sit by the fire to warm up i did get a lot of rest that night and then the next morning headed back out to the trails to keep on hiking so we had to skip about 16 miles due to power lines that fell in an ice storm which i didn't really know about until like the day before so it was really nice that angels rest was able to shuttle us and bring us where we needed to go i got some trail magic from jenna and brian did i get that right thank you i feel like this is um very tailor friendly because we got the donuts and coke and iced coffee so i appreciate it thank you [Music] all right this behind me is the kefir oak it's the largest oak tree on the appalachian trail and it's about 300 years old [Music] all right you already know what i'm having for dinner lasagna but this time i packed out parmesan cheese so i'm gonna add that on top woke up at 6 30 to catch the sun rise on this cliff and it was so worth it i haven't done that on trail yet just past the last shelter of the day so we're not staying there instead we're gonna hike up this mountain towards dragon tooth and hopefully be able to find like a stealth spot there that is where the virginia triple crown begins so dragon's tooth and then mcafee knob will be tomorrow so this is an exciting part of trail and also in about a mile we are passing mile 700 so it's gonna be a fun evening there it is 700 miles i'm about half a mile away from dragon's tooth this climb for the past i don't know four miles has been no joke i am so tired so just drained and ready to be at camp right now time to take the side trail of the dragon's tooth yeah you say so i just climbed to the top of that it was really scary i didn't take my phone out of my pockets because i couldn't ungrip the stone but i did it i climbed dragon's tooth watched the sun set from up here now we're gonna climb down this morning just chilling on this rock safe i was actually on that rock earlier this morning which is pretty cool too it's fun climbing up here you can see how far down it goes today is a short day i'm only hiking from dragons tooth to mcafee knob which is about 12 miles but this sun is taking a lot out of me mcafee knob is definitely a highlight on the at it's one of the most photographed spots on the whole trail and for good reasons instead of craving doing more miles this day we really took it easy and spent so much time up there chilling on mcafee knob that's the section we're gonna do tomorrow it's tinkercliffs over there i've been here for a couple hours um now we're gonna go make some dinner having a little post-dinner hot chocolate now this is perfect though good morning i had such a good time on mcafee knobs it was both an amazing sunset and sunrise now i'm just walking towards tinkercliffs which is the third of the virginia triple crown all right so that's where i came from today mcafee knob in the distance having a snickers but probably gonna start walking soon because oh my god there's so many bugs when i did my road trip from new hampshire to georgia i stopped in daleville for a coffee in the morning and i did this little tiny section of trail just to stretch my legs during that road trip so i remember thinking to myself while i was right here i can't wait to come back can't wait to walk to this spot and i did it so now daleville is only like a quarter of a mile up there i feel like officially hiker trash outside of a kroger taking everything out of the packages so we can walk the half mile back to the motel all right just wrapped up breakfast at the leap the fresh ground leap frog cafe yes thanks for breakfast yeah here we have we had sausage blueberry pancakes because you wanted blueberries yeah and uh real maple syrup then we had scrambled eggs good old bread right yeah feeling good feeling full thank you and coffee coffee that's important what a freaking day to meet up with fresh grounds this is probably the hottest day on trail so far i think it's supposed to be in the 80s so the fact that he wanted to bring our packs to where we're gonna meet up at the end of the day or even possibly for lunch is such a huge help really hot and i'm just i'm just really thankful for fresh grounds a nice little water creek for a hydration stop had a great lunch provided by fresh grounds he was at a parking lot on the blue ridge parkway and the parking lot also had an overlook to taylor mountain so it was really special [Music] i have hiked a total of 27 miles and i have one mile left to go so it's a 28 mile day it went very well thanks to fresh ground and the slack pack and the terrain wasn't bad at all either it's actually a very nice walk ooh a fancy rock stuck in between two other rocks that we're gonna hike under all right having dinner well kind of just finished up dinner under fresh grounds tarp because it might rain and thunder later but definitely eat a lot of food that was a salad all right finally made it to 800 miles today i kind of forgot this was coming up but yeah 800 it's a big number and these mile markers are coming up really fast so i'm pretty pumped and i'm excited to see 900 and then a thousand that's gonna be really cool that was actually really good timing because it just started to rain i'm going to have lasagna i feel like it's been a running a joke that all i have for dinner is lasagna and that's true um all nice and dry for now i'm gonna call it a night today ended up being exactly 20 miles and it was a very good day so i will see you tomorrow and good night i'm on my way up bald knob which is a 4 000 footer so it's a little bit of a climb today will probably end up being 22 miles and i will most likely stay at the priest shelter which is kind of cool because i guess people like to confess their sins in the log book and i heard some of them are really funny to read so i'm looking forward to that so this is the priest shelter log book and it's kind of special because people like to confess their sins like their trail sins in it forgive me priest for i have sinned i blame all my tent farts on my five-year-old i poop in the wrong places my bear hangs are a joke i have the mouth of a sailor someone just like i stare my trammily directly in the eyes while i piss i really tried to dig a hole i promised father but the ground is frozen all right that's enough stretch took a time lapse of our 10 minute yoga stretch this morning that felt so good we met nightingale at the shelter last night he gave us cherry cokes now that the weather has been pretty warm i started to take every opportunity to just hop in a river or a lake or anything to just cool off and get a little bit more clean so i ran into the sutton family which is really cool if you don't know who they are it's a husband and wife and their kid harvey who just turned five and they're doing such a great job that was fun standing on the trail and chatting with them for a bit this right here is also where the shenandoah national park begins and the blue ridge parkway it's a cool spot 26 miles today in the shenandoah national park so the shenandoahs are kind of known for having a lot of bears and we just ran into our friend wiley who said we missed a bear by about 10 seconds so we're keeping our eyes out i'm a little nervous if i see a bear i'll let you guys know and i'll tell you how it goes making a little creation for snack break so that's the honey stinger waffle with peanut butter and i also got some mini reese's cups i'm gonna sprinkle some trail mix on top of it we got the final product good so i was feeling kind of speedy the last couple miles and i've been zooming completely forgot that i was gonna pass 900 miles so right now on the side of the road it's mile 900.3 but we're making our own so we can take a picture of it the next mile marker is going to be the 1000 one which is so crazy good morning i am cooking breakfast for the first time on trail i have oatmeal with chocolate chips in it so we're gonna see how that goes this is the little camp store at the campground i stayed at last night with a lot of good hiker amenities so i just took a shower and used loaner towels shampoo conditioner and all that good stuff got a couple stuff from their store there's laundry in there there's backpacking meals fuel and all the good stuff and i even got to charge my phone behind that vending machine so that's always a plus four miles into today's hike and time to stop for a little break and have this beer that i packed out this was one of the biggest treat myself moments of the whole 80 when i stumbled into the skyland resort this is what um 200 dollars get you in the shenandoah is there's a snake on trail hey best day ever at the holiday inn in front royal and got chipotle on the way here i'm so happy all right i think i am coming up to the end of the shenandoahs so i officially hiked to the whole shenandoah national park appalachian trail without seeing a bear so to all the people who said i couldn't do it it's possible mom's on the appalachian trail that's quite the trekking pole you found yeah in my new shoes nice yeah these were a fun couple days on trail because cody and i both had our families visiting his brother came out and hiked with us and so did my aunt it was a fun change of pace having some new company around we got lasagna on the menu for tonight mexican style veggie bowl with rice and beans [Music] all right this is the official start of the roller coaster in virginia so can't wait to see how it is 999.9 miles we're gonna do it all together i see number one thousand there it is i walked a thousand miles alright just finished a 20 minute flexibility yoga stretch youtube video have about four miles to hike later from where we left off to harper's ferry so gonna go and get ready for that all right it's the sign that says that i'm officially leaving virginia the longest state on the a.t and i am done with it and now i am entering the harpers ferry national historic park we just got to the appalachian trail conservancy visitor center just took a bunch of pictures in front of that that's such a great spot that i've seen photographed so many times so it's so cool to be here the building itself is closed but i still really want to come this is an important part of the appalachian trail i decided to attempt one of the biggest challenges on the appalachian trail the four state challenge this consists of hiking about 45 miles starting in virginia then hiking through all of west virginia and maryland and ending at the pennsylvania border i decided to attempt this with my mom and aunt as a support vehicle meeting up with us at different parking lots with anything we needed one of the reasons why i decided to do the at in the first place was because i like to challenge myself so i was super excited to attempt this hey taylor welcome to washington monument state park you are 21 miles into your four state challenge of 47 miles how you feeling i'm feeling good it's nice and cold but i think the cold is helping because it keeps me moving fast and my body's feeling really good because it's like little tiny tiny like aches and pains but that's normal after 20 miles so i'm really impressed with myself i was doing great i was feeling better than i thought i would up until mile 35 where i had a little bit of an injury so my mom came to the road crossing like she has all day and i went to jump in the truck and i hit my head on the top of the door and i gashed it open and there was blood but i think i'm okay i was going through so many emotions over this was i concussed did i need to get off trail and get stitches was it going to get infected i couldn't see the gash but all i knew was that there was a lot of blood and i still had 10 miles until my goal of reaching pennsylvania that day i applied to pressure for a while and the bleeding went down a lot um there's still blood coming out of it but i have gauze like under a bandana that is applying some pressure so that's going to help i still want to finish this four state challenge [Music] oh my god we made it we completed the four state challenge officially in pennsylvania that is insane look at that 44.29 miles 16 hours and 42 minutes [Music] all right and this wouldn't have been possible without these two the support team for today thank you for being in the pace car and supporting you guys thanks guys they made a little banner for us that's so nice i love it thank you so i'm currently sitting in front of urgent care i went in there to get seen and get my head checked out um i have insurance but because the urgent care does not accept my insurance they won't see me and i even offered to pay out of pocket um but they won't accept me there either this is stupid i just i just want to get checked out before i go back in the woods and they're making it very hard all right so a little update on the day my head's fine sorry doctor there's nothing wrong with it she told me to keep it clean and just to go back if it turns like any red or yellow or swollen or anything so that's good and now i was ready to hike the 230 miles of pennsylvania which despite all the tough rocky sections only took us nine days our hiker legs were strong and after a triple zero after the four state challenge i was craving the miles i only have point one more miles until the official halfway point i'm so excited [Music] this is a pretty cool sight to see i've seen pictures of that and seen it in vlogs and everything i didn't know exactly where it was so it was something cool to walk up and stumble upon so i've done 34 miles so far and i have about one more mile to go i cannot believe this has been a 35 mile day i just left camp this morning and now we're making our way to a place called the green mountain general store which should have ice cream so that's where the half gallon challenge is going to take place the half gallon challenge is a tradition on the at where hikers will eat a half gallon of ice cream to celebrate being halfway through the trail it's not an easy task and in my opinion it was actually tougher than the four state challenge while my friends took 20 something minutes to complete this challenge i struggled with it for over an hour and a half all right everyone this is my last bite this is so bad on the bright side after completing the half gallon challenge we walked into the town of boiling springs and after that were some of the flattest miles on the holy tea all right so this is the terrain most of the day just walking through fields beautiful this is the greenest trails look right it's so pretty all right finally out of the woods walking into town going to a dun cannon pennsylvania [Music] it is exactly one o'clock right now which is pretty exciting because that means that my fiance is at the closing for the house that we're buying obviously i would love to be there to celebrate and close on the house with him in person but he's able to take care of all of that which i'm so grateful that he's been doing this whole process because it hasn't been easy so he's doing that right now so i am hopefully a fingers crossed a homeowner today and first time home home owner and that's just such a cool feeling so i'm gonna sit down and have lunch and celebrate that by myself all right just passed a really cool mile marker we are at mile 1200 which i was just thinking about that too and that means there's officially less than a thousand miles left of this through hike all right so i've hiked 27.8 miles so far just got off that mountain that descent into port clinton was definitely steep and now i'm walking to a place called the pavilion i'm just really looking forward to cabela's walmart real food real drinks just anything sounds really good right now hi i'm smoke town jane on the hampshire channel and i'd like to give a shout out to my daughter jackie i'm here live with the hikers and with fresh ground and i'll do the trail in six years got to the trail head and that's where fresh ground was cooking breakfast for everyone so there's like a huge bubble of hikers in this area which hasn't really happened in a while i feel like it's just kind of been me and stretch for a while but i think we caught up to a pretty big group so he was there making a very nice breakfast of like eggs and pancakes he ended up taking my pack because he said he was gonna cook lunch for hikers about like 15 miles up the trail so my backpack is in his van now i'm hiking 15 miles hiking over lots of rocks it was fall no i have two words for pennsylvania rocks and rattlesnakes there's lots of like rattlesnakes out we haven't seen a rattlesnake yet um but a bunch of people in front of us saw a rattlesnake today so i just saw my first rattlesnake i walked right next to it saw it in the corner of my eyes scared oh my god i see the rattle you see this thing oh my god it's coming towards me that was absolutely terrifying this was the first of three rattlesnake encounters i had on the a t and this is probably the scariest moment of my whole through hike my first this was scarier than seeing like a bear or anything look at that rattle oh my god i just walked right next to it it was maybe like a couple inches off the trail parallel to the trail um and it didn't make a sound it didn't do anything i just saw like a big long green thing out of the corner of my eye and screamed at the top of my lungs um and stretch was behind me was like dude that's a rattlesnake so now i feel like a little shaken up and really nervous and i'm not even looking at the camera because i can't take my eyes off the trail after that [Music] so it's starting well it is raining um there's a lot of rocks and if you've hiked in the rain then you know rocks get extremely slippery i just crossed over the lehigh river so huge pile of rocks that we're dealing with right now the duncan is actually attached to where we stayed last night had no idea that was the case when we booked it but it's perfect and i'm still waiting for that duncan sponsorship fyi dude are you ready for our last moments in pennsylvania so freaking ready you ready to cross into new jersey [Music] the views we got when we first entered new jersey were like some we haven't seen in a long time so it was a great boost of energy on a picture-perfect day all right happy monday i am back on trail after taking the weekend off if you didn't see the previous vlogs i was at a family wedding this past weekend my fiance was in town now i'm about to take the trail to the high point so the highest spot in new jersey it's a little foggy i'm not sure if it's going to be a view but i want to check it out this is cool i don't think anyone else is up here yeah there's the monument all right that was pretty cool being the highest person in new jersey for a second and i'm back with stretch and we're gonna hike 26 miles today that's the plan hi cody hi tyler all right about to start the famous new jersey boardwalk i've definitely seen this section of trail in a lot of vlogs before so it's pretty cool to have finally found the boardwalk one piece of advice i had gotten from a pass-through hiker was get a hitch into warren new york because there's a hiker-friendly drive-in movie theater where you can pitch your tent camp there and watch a movie all for free now just waiting for the movies to start this was a great dinner the new jersey new york border is just up ahead about half a mile and i'm so excited just another state closer to maine where's the sun new jersey new york right away i realized new york was gonna kick my butt a lot more than i thought it would but at least new york welcomed us with a really good place to get ice cream waterfalls and harriman state park we are coming up to the lemon squeezer and this should be interesting i'll try to vlog it listen to that dyneema she's scraping [Music] almost there [Music] this is what i have for dinner what are you having for dinner i'm having mountain chili it's such a beautiful morning we have another view of the new york city skyline that's much better than the view we saw yesterday how's your sandwich i really don't know i am climbing up bear mountain it's really beautiful it's so green i love these views in new york so far this is the good stuff wow [Music] just climbed up and over bear mountain and now we're walking through a park and about to enter a zoo so that's exciting my first bears on trail now that i was getting closer to my home state of new hampshire it was easy for my mom to take a drive to the trail so i could reunite with my dog after almost three months so hairy i have my dog with me first time bringing the dog on the through hike with me and she's having a lot of fun good morning today is a very exciting day because in 21 miles i am going to enter connecticut which for me is a really big deal because i'll be back in new england i've never been so excited to reach a state or reach a certain mile marker on the a.t than i am today another state gateway to new england i'm a home you're home connecticut was about 52 miles it was hot and sweaty the whole time so we just put our heads down and completed it in two days oh mile 1500 good job all right even though there's no sign exactly right here we are officially in massachusetts it's crazy and it's what 10 o'clock welcome to massachusetts massachusetts was about 91 miles i really enjoyed the company i had in the state from family and friends coming out to visit me however the trail itself wasn't very memorable to me until i got to mount greylock the highest point in the state i went up and over mount greylock which is the highest point in massachusetts so that was pretty cool i have never been this thirsty on the a t before and it doesn't help that this has been like the hottest day on trail so far all right here it is welcome to vermont and also it's the beginning of the vermont long trail right here i only have one more state until i get home to new hampshire and that's the part of the atv i've been looking forward to the most hiking in new hampshire are you hot yeah i wanted to see if i can squeeze water out of my shirt oh i'm so sweaty all right so we made up our mind about what we're doing tonight we're going to town we're going to bennington vermont getting a motel room going to walmart anytime i would have the option to resupply at a walmart i would quickly hop on that it's the best place to resupply plus we also got to help fresh ground resupply because he was in town too vermont has the nickname vermud just because of how muddy it is there but for me that wasn't an issue what i was really annoyed at was the amount of bugs hi however the trail in vermont went up and over a few different ski resorts which i loved and some of the mountains even had fire towers to climb up and get an even better view sometimes there's like no view at all all right found a little stealth spot the sun's going down setting up the tents right now morning [Music] a mountain woman in her natural habitat wow look at that sign 500 miles to go today is the day hopefully that i enter new hampshire which i have been looking forward to for like years like through hiking the e.t getting to new hampshire and experiencing new hampshire as a through hiker so it is about 20 miles until hanover new hampshire and the border the state line is like on the bridge over the connecticut river just before you enter the town are you excited new hampshire [Applause] do you want to go to new hampshire it was such a relief finally walking into new hampshire i felt so at home here i've hiked most of the 8t in this state before so it was all familiar territory to me but to me this was a whole new experience i finally got to experience the whites as a through hiker something i've been watching others do for years and always thinking to myself i will do that one day made it to the summit of mount mussolaki all right it's not gonna be safe to stay up here for very long so we're gonna head back down the whites have pretty gnarly terrain and the rain did not help are you okay down there all right on the agenda for today is the kinsmans so we're gonna go up and over the kinsmen's and that's gonna be it for today right now so now we're hiking off of south kinsman right now that's gonna be north kinsman that's gonna be the next destination all right here we go lonesome lake with franconia ridge in the background good morning back on the appalachian trail we're gonna cross over the bridge then we're gonna head up to mount lincoln and lafayette we're gonna be up on franconia ridge soon i know the weather in the white mountains can change really fast but right now it is like a bluebird day it is sunny it is warm and i'm excited for all the views that we are probably going to get up there i feel like franconia ridge is the most epic view of the whole appalachian trail and i'm lucky enough to live close by and can hike it anytime i want but every time i'm up there it just takes my breath away welcome to mountain garfield [Music] this is the trail this morning every rock is wicked slippery and wet and steep and we have a lot of miles to do today that's garfield so that's where we camped last night that's franconia ridge in the middle there's stretch looking out at the presidentials snow i missed you snow this is a pine marten it's a type of weasel they're in the whites but they're super rare so it was a nice treat being able to spot one while having lunch on mount zeeland took a little side trail to see the view from z cliff it's amazing my fiance is going to pick us up drive us back to my house and we're going to take a zero tomorrow because up next is the presidential range i heard that there's a chance of a thunderstorms there tomorrow and that's just not a good idea are you ready to hike the presidentials today no hopefully the weather is okay enough but yeah the whites especially the presidential range can be super intimidating to a through hiker but i feel lucky to be so familiar with this area it really eased my mind and let me enjoy my days a little bit more the second 4 000 footer of the day i am on the summit of mount pierce stop this area ahead is the worst weather in america betty had died there for exposure even in the summer turn back now if the weather is bad is the weather bad we braced the wind and climbed up the highest point in new hampshire mount washington which is also known as being one of the windiest places on earth welcome to mount washington so i'm nicole i'm a weather observer now we are in the clouds in and out uh and our temperatures around 53 degrees an hour here is the snow patch on jefferson that we have to walk across that's going to be a little scary cody yeah look [Music] it is about like 85 degrees out and we're about to do the steepest section of the at so that's gonna be a little tough but i'll bring you guys along and show you how that looks because we're going up wildcat right now which is a 4 000 footer this is one of my favorite ski mountains you got a view of washington behind it's so awesome and this range right here would be the last range of new hampshire because the next day we're entering maine here we go maine was the toughest section of the at for me both physically and mentally the tough terrain of the whites doesn't magically stop when you cross into maine it was just as hard all right we are on the west end of the mahousik notch the slowest hardest and most fun mile of the a.t i did with your backpack yeah yep see you can see the blaze right there this is the trail [Music] but something i really enjoyed about maine were the amount of ponds you hike by i always felt super happy and at peace when i was at a pond so we texted the shuttle driver today and asked if we could bring us into town to resupply it and then back to trail we didn't really have an idea of where we were going to resupply we were just going to trust him and be like just bring us to the closest place that sells groceries so he brought us to the food lion i think that's the name of it in bethel maine um and as we were driving there i noticed a lot of familiar things i'm like i've been to that restaurant i've been here and i just realized that i got engaged in bethel maine in front of me speaking words let it be let it be let it be [Music] really cold i have all my layers on right now i am making my nor rice side i had to use really really dirty water the only water source here is a puddle and it was just full of crap so i filtered it and i boiled it and now i'm cooking with it so yeah this is not my favorite shelter all right good morning it is 8 40 a.m we had a great stay at the uh bemis mountain lean 2 here in maine we're planning on doing a 17 mile a day so yeah it's gonna be a great day the trail for the next two days kind of looks intimidating i see a few 4 000 footers on the map the first one is saddleback mountain which i'm climbing up right now we got another 4 000 foot peak this is the horn it's beautiful this is bigelow mountain west peak it's a 4 000 footer and now we have point seven miles to the bigelow avery peak which is another four thousand footer but yeah completely sucked in now we got here just in time to see a little bit of a view and then it disappeared i think a storm is coming it is 5 53 packed up and ready to hike the reason we woke up this early is because we have to cross the kennebec in about nine miles there's a ferry canoe thing that will take you across but it's only between nine and 11 am right here at 10 53 over there we see a canoe but no person the kennebec is a wide and powerful river which is very dangerous to forward on your own the canoe actually has a white blaze on the bottom making it an official route of the 80. [Music] all right time to be careful for the next 300 yards let me know if you see a hawk so a couple cool things just happened in the last like two minutes one we kind of have a date set that we want to summit katahdin and second i just booked a night at shaw's hostel and that's the last hostel of the 18 so wow it's like starting to get real like we like we can see the end all right we got to the town of monson a little too late everything is closed we can't get down food um we're gonna set our alarms for early tomorrow morning so we can get the breakfast and resupply and then head into the 100 mile wilderness dude this is like our last race fly that's so crazy here it is this is the beginning of the 100 mile wilderness the 100 mile wilderness is the most remote section of the at no main road crossings no places to resupply or get off trail no swarms of day hikers it's just pure wilderness but yeah i'm just really tired today it's kind of giving me a headache it's like really hot and sweaty and just like i'm drained all right it is 9 15 at night we have done 20 miles so far and there's about three more to go all right our tent sites last night overlooking a little bit of cloud cloud pond i just did the math we've done 95 of the whole appalachian trail so we're only at 5 left which we can do in a couple days right here we have the last 100 mile marker of the appalachian trail this is mile 2100. katahdin is currently in that cloud right there we can like barely make out the bottom of it but all right got the food drop now it's time to organize everything have a snack and head back to the trail today is definitely the worst day we've ever had with mosquitoes it's like really hard to sit still um cody's actually like walking while eating um just to get rid of the mosquitoes we have an amazing view of mount katahdin [Music] i saw two moose in the 100 mile wilderness and both were just amazing experiences i think moves are awesome the 100 mile wilderness definitely has been like mentally challenging for me it feels like all my emotions are like super heightened at this point of the thru hike i stopped three times today to cry and i don't even know why this the northern terminus of the 100 mile wilderness after a rough time in the 100 mile wilderness and after 119 days hiking at the appalachian trail i finally walked into baxter state park and got this view of mount katahdin just picked up the perfect beer at a ball bridge camp store it's from baxter and it's called couple more miles it was really special having my family visit me in baxter state park and be there to witness the finish of my through hike this is where we're gonna start the hike today we got 5.2 miles until baxter peak on june 23rd chet cody and i all hiked up melka todd which was so tough but so fun at the same time now katahdin is like no other climb on the whole at no such an epic place to finish the hike up gets pretty tricky because you have to try to figure out how to get up and over certain spots but once you reach the gateway it's pretty smooth to the summit you can spot people standing near the sign for a while and it was so exciting watching them get closer and closer with every step so hey what did we just do 2 193 miles 0.1 [Music] we touched a sign and then one minute later we're eating sandwiches it's like priorities [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] decided [Music] our bodies the groove and the light the flicker we get lost in the crowded skinny thick [Music]

Channel: Taylor the Nahamsha Hiker

Views: 284,042

Keywords: Thru Hiking Entire Appalachian Trail in 120 Days (Full documentary), Taylor the Nahamsha Hiker, thru hiking appalachian trail, hiking entire appalachian trail, appalachian trail 2022, thru-hike vlogs, appalachian trail 2021, thru-hike the entire Appalachian Trail, 2021 appalachian trail thru hikers, Nahamsha Hiker, first time backpacker appalachian trail, appalachian trail

Id: kGGohVwaxec

Length: 96min 44sec (5804 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 10 2022