This Week’s Top Instagram Posts from the #AppalachianTrail

Welcome to the weekly roundup of the best Instagram photos of hiker trash and treasures on the Appalachian Trail.

Summer is in full swing. That means AT hikers are getting the best of the best that hiking has to offer: beautiful cool mornings with a side of endless mud, and magnificent vistas thoroughly plagued by little flying, biting devils.

This week’s photos were taken from July 2nd to July 16th after careful selection from the #TrektheAT hashtag.

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AT acrobatics.

A post shared by Kristen Fiedler (@kris10fiedler) on

 

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DAY 71- July 8th Miles-12.3 Total miles- 892.3 Moved slow today. It’s discouraging when you used to do 2+ MPH average and now it’s really hard to do even 2 MPH. A lot of technical climbs, rocks, roots, and mud today but at least it was not raining! We made it to Maine! We’re super excited for the NOBOs we have been hiking with- this is their last state. We also keep running into SOBOs- they are almost done with their first state- which is a huge accomplishment and if they are fast we may see them again in the south which would be cool. Also did the “hardest mile on trail” today- Mahoosuc Notch it was scary and challenging and took us 2.5 hours- because of my terrible fears of heights and claustrophobia. ? . . #atthruhike #atthruhike2019 #flipflopthruhike #backpacking #hikertrash #takeahike #withguthook #adventure #explore #ATflipflop19 #appalachiantrail #tarahandpathiketheAT #trektheAT #atclassof2019 #altrarunning #appalachianhikers #hikerfeed #lighterpackclub ????

A post shared by “Burgers” ? (@devine_hiker) on

 

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See the monument. Be the monument. ? NJ High Point!

A post shared by Kaylin Brown (@kaylinb1231) on

 

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It’s been a beautiful week In New York. Full of good food, culture, and smiling faces..?

A post shared by Jonathan (@seattlej777) on

 

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It’s a good thing I’m not afraid of heights . . . #trektheAT #ATclassof2019 #appalachiantrail #rocksylvania

A post shared by Sawyer (@sawyerrotolo) on

 

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The trail can be an emotional place if you let it be. If you hike a long trail to grow, seek and learn you cannot but be altered by it. It will slowly but surely draw up your feelings about life and yourself like a bucket from a deep well, and spill you onto the mud at your feet. You cry because you are tired: exhausted. You’re going to places in your body you didn’t know you could go and using all the reserves you usually keep in place, and then using the ones you didn’t know you kept to support the ones before. You are spent. I’ve been hiking hard and I don’t regret it. These tears are good. • You feel far away from your life and your old self; facing fears you have long pressed hard into your chest and protected yourself from with the busy-busy life we build. There is no busy-busy on trail. There is work, honesty, determination, and open-hearted bare effort. Here you grind from can to can’t every day. This prises your best-kept wounds wide open and you spend each day hiking with all of your heart just falling into your hands and it only keeps on coming. It’s terrifying. And beautiful. And extremely challenging. I can be singing and laughing and crying all at once loudly into nothing but pines and rain. I am becoming more me than I have ever been. These tears are good. • You might cry because if you’re like me, you love people and you feel their warmth and struggles and vibrancy and love and courage as you pass them and meet them and hike with them and lose them. Every interaction here seems more honest than a million longer acquaintances in real life, and they are all affecting in some way. I’ve never been good at goodbyes. These tears are good and bad. • Of course, you don’t have to let it affect you in these ways; it’s a lovely exciting long walk that brings a zillion different brilliant experiences. But in addition to this it feels like a very moving place and a very epic journey already. I think I’m currently meeting myself at a crossroads of joy, tiredness, courage, loss and learning and it’s incredible but daunting. This dirt ribbon might just be my greatest teacher yet. ?? • As ever, thanks for reading. I’m honestly having the time of my life xx

A post shared by Appalachian Gail / Gail Muller (@appalachiangail) on

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Comments 1

  • Grizzly : Jul 17th

    Excellent

    Reply

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