Hello Trail!

From AT Pictures

Trail Date: May 7, 2010 5:30pm
Weather: 80's and clear
Location: Old Keffer Trail north along the AT from route 42 in SW VA.
Distance: about 1 mile of the AT, 2 round trip
The crew included DW (not shown in the picture above), myself (Mule) and our six little ones.  The little guy in the yellow hat has chosen "Hunt" as his trail name.  I'm "Mule" because I get to carry our littlest one.  The others haven't yet picked a trail name.  We might dub the littlest "bag of rocks". 

This was to be our first steps on the Appalachian Trail - a 2175 mile trail extending from Maine to Georgia.  Our intention is to hike all of it in bits and pieces.  We'll start out small and as our crew gets older and more capable start taking longer chunks.  Our objective today was to leave route 42 and see if we could hike to the Old Keffer Oak tree.  The trail is mapped out here.



We started out with a map check.  One of the many skills we're hoping to teach the kids as we hike the trail is that of land navigation.  GPS's are nice and all but I want my kids to be able to read and understand a map and compass.  Not for any reason in particular.  I think it just gives you more confidence if you aren't dependent upon a GPS.  I wish I had a map with grid coordinates, but the standard AT maps will do for now.

From AT Pictures

We started out with a walk up a grassy hill.  About five minutes into the trek we discovered that it was tick season.  We were flicking them off every fifty feet.  I was surprised that the kids weren't squeamish at all.  They just knocked them off and kept walking.  Yay kids!

This picture shows one of the views that everyone is looking at in the previous pic.


The trail was an easy walk through light forest and grassy hills.  The kids were great!  I didn't hear "I'm bored!" once.  However after about a mile in we could tell they were getting tired so we stopped for dinner and headed back to the Hokie Pokie (our van) to get some ice cream.  We didn't make it to Old Keffer Oak, but at our kid's ages it's important to be responsive to their needs.  I would rather turn around early than ruin the whole trip whipping them up the hill to the next landmark.  It had taken us about two hours to hike a mile along the trail and back.  Not exactly a record setting pace, but we're in no hurry. Check back later to see which section of the AT we tackle next.