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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 9m

Me too. Lived more than a half century of my life in Hamden.

George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1h

Worth the visit. I consider this the 4th best view on the mountain. There is a lot packed into a few square miles.

George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1h

Still on Mastodon too.

George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 3h

Late afternoon rays of sunlight. Indian summer hike at Sleeping Giant State Park, Hamden, CT. November 4, 2022, 4:50 PM

#hiking #autumn #forest #mountains

The sky is clear, almost cloudless and blue. Top right, the sun is low in the sky, casting long shadows to our left. The afternoon sunlight is tinted gold. Two of its rays are visible, slanting down towards our left. We are walking a trail through a shallow ravine. The trail and the forest floor surrounding it are carpeted with freshly fallen brightly colored leaves. Many rocks and boulders are poking through the leaves, many fallen branches are laying on top. Much of the underbrush has lost its leaves, most of what's left is rusty golden brown and burnt orange. The trees are past peak autumn color. Most of the leaves are down. A few trees still have bright gold and orange leaves. The sun shining through those leave accentuates the still bright colors, and enhances even the past peak colors.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 5h

I'm disappointed, but I learned a lot for the next hike. I have lots of great pics and some stories to share. This will put off my sequel AT hike until 2027, but there will be new hikes next year.

George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 5h

Note: I'm finally starting to work on my hiking blog for my aborted August hike. I'll have a link soon. A hard fall on the steep descent from Jug End did some damage to my right shoulder. I'll be fine eventually, but it did cut short my plans for a 6-week hike after 1 great week.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 5h

🧵6/6
They always watched carefully and seemed ready to bolt at the first sign of trouble, but it was still a valorous display for deer.

More of My 1983 Appalachian Trail Hike in Photos at www.georgesteffanos.com/places-i-ve-...

Places I've Been | Then The Hail Came George Steffanos

My 1983 Appalachian Trail Hike in Photos. There are around 750-800 photos here scanned from my 1983 slides. I believe this to be one of the oldest thru-hikes on the Internet to be documented in photo...

www.georgesteffanos.com

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 5h

🧵5/6
They would come strolling down the trail, allowing me to approach within thirty feet of them before taking a few steps off the path into the woods, where they would stand patiently waiting for me to pass by.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 5h

🧵4/6
I saw 5 or 6 white-tailed deer along the trail today, from extremely close range. Like their cousins in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, they seemed to harbor no fear of man.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 5h

🧵3/6
Excepting in the gaps, where the footpath and the road made their occasional crossings, the drive skirted the crest. The AT passed over the summits.

A hazy soft blue summertime sky. Standing high atop the crest of the Blue Ridge looking out over the treetops. Beyond the foothills, two long, relatively flat-topped wooded mountain ranges separate long, narrow farming valleys. Farm fields, villages and forests can be seen in the nearest valley. A distant mountain range is barely visible stretching across the misty horizon.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 5h

🧵2/6
The trail followed the ridgeline for most of the distance. There were a number of good viewpoints. The Appalachian Trail crossed Skyline Drive several times and brushed past it a few more, but the road remained out of sight from the trail most of the day.

Crossing the two-lane park road, Skyline Drive. Its narrow grassy shoulders are surrounded by forest. A car is heading towards us, just coming around a bend up ahead. To our right is a rustic wooden sign reading in all caps, "Mathews Arm 1200 feet right".

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 5h

🧵1/6
July 3, 1983: My final twelve miles today were in Shenandoah. The trail inside the park was well-graded and almost completely cleared of overgrowth. I hiked through dignified old forests of stately trees.

#backpacking #hiking #AppalachianTrail

A trail through a forest. The ground is covered with grass and dense leafy undergrowth. A small reddish-brown male deer with budding horns a few inches long is standing in the trail a few feet away facing us. His head is turned to his left so he can watch us with his right eye.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

Autumn evening on the mountain, Right Leg, Sleeping Giant State Park, Hamden, Connecticut. October 25, 2023, 3:58 PM.

#hiking #autumn #forest #mountains

Atop cracked gray stone cliffs under a mostly cloudy sky with thin hazy clouds and patches of deep blue. To the left is a pine tree, To the right and below is a forest of mostly hardwoods and a sprinkling of cedars. A mostly wooded valley hundreds of feet below with glimpses of many houses and other buildings rolls downward towards the city of New Haven on the horizon with Long Island Sound and Long Island just visible as streaks of gray beyond. The forests along our cliff and the peak across the valley sport foliage of oranges and golds, with a scattering of deep green evergreens for contrast.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

You can read or listen to my book for free if you are a Kindle Unlimited eBook or an Audible Plus audiobook subscriber. Both options are available from Amazon, where the paperback, eBook or audiobook can also be purchased.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

🧵7/7
I was left with no choice but to push on.

From my book Then the Hail Came (A Humorous and Truthful Account of a 1983 Appalachian Trail Thru-hike). Available in paperback, audiobook and eBook: www.amazon.com/dp/B09QFG4ZR6

Then the Hail Came: A Humorous and Truthful Account of a 1983 Appalachian Trail Thru-hike

Then the Hail Came: A Humorous and Truthful Account of a 1983 Appalachian Trail Thru-hike [Steffanos, George] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Then the Hail Came: A Humorous and Truthful Account of a 1983 Appalachian Trail Thru-hike

www.amazon.com

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

🧵6/7
I wanted to stop for the night at the stone shelter on top of Blood Mountain, but I was dying of thirst and there was no water.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

🧵5/7
Looking west, chains of slightly lower wooded mountains snaked out in all directions, filling the country between me and the western fork. Their ridge crests were cloaked in pastels from budding trees. These heights were cut by narrow rural valleys draped in the deeper greens of late Spring.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

🧵4/7
Blood Mountain is the highest peak on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia, making it of course the highest peak thus far of my hike. Blood Mountain is part of the east fork of the Blue Ridge, which divides into two forks at Springer Mountain where this hike officially began.

Beneath a soft blue sky with a few small puffy clouds we are looking out from an outcrop of gray rock high on a mountain. Bright green spring grass is beginning to grow around the outcrop. The view is framed on the left and right by the green of laurel and rhododendron and the leafless branches of trees just beginning to bud. Below us are the rugged foothills and the valleys carving them. They are cloaked in the intense greens of a far more advanced spring season, although even down there we see few areas where the trees are still budding and leafless, especially near the tops of the hills. There are large farm fields visible in several places throughout the largest valley.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

🧵3/7
had taken their toll on the soles of my feet, which felt torn and bleeding by the time I reached the end of that climb on the rocky, somewhat scrubby open summit of Blood Mountain.

The best views thus far on the trail in Georgia picked up my spirits a bit. At 4,458 feet in elevation,

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

🧵2/7
It was a comparatively gentle climb for the most part, but I have a long way to go before my body is truly ready for this adventure. The day was sunny and hot, and I ran out of water about halfway through the climb. The heavy backpack I was carrying, and the extra pounds of my overweight body

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 1d

🧵1/7
May 5, 1983: After seven miles of ups and downs, we hit a stretch of continuous climbing for the next six. That was where I lost Dave and Russ for the remainder of the day. Or, rather, where they lost me.

#backpacking #hiking #AppalachianTrail

Beneath a hazy very soft blue sky with puffy clouds we are looking out from high on a mountain. We are standing on a large, almost flat outcrop of gray rock. There are patches of very green spring grass and shrubs growing in places where some soil has been deposited atop the rock. Many of the shrubs are still leafless, the rest have small bright green leaves beginning to sprout. Below the rock are the tops of small leafless trees. The wooded foothills and valleys below us are the intense green of a far more advanced spring season, as is the flatter hill country beyond, stretching towards the horizon.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 2d

Marshy inlet stream, Herron Pond, White Memorial Foundation, Morris, Connecticut. October 26, 2023, 2:09 PM.

#hiking #autumn #forest #lake

A deep blue October sky with a few small clouds. Standing beside the marshy inlet stream of a small pond covered with dozens of lily pads. The pond is encircled by a forest of stately hemlocks and pines mixed with tall hardwoods with orange and gold foliage. The lily pads are turning yellow and gold, the water grasses of the little marsh are turning golden brown. The sun-dappled forest floor around us is covered with freshly fallen autumn leaves.

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George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 2d

I'm disappointed, but I learned a lot for the next hike. I have lots of great pics and some stories to share. This will put off my sequel AT hike until 2027, but there will be new hikes next year.

George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 2d

Note: I'm finally starting to work on my hiking blog for my aborted August hike. I'll have a link soon. A hard fall on the steep descent from Jug End did some damage to my right shoulder. I'll be fine eventually, but it did cut short my plans for a 6-week hike after 1 great week.

1

George Steffanos @gsteffanos.bsky.social · 2d

🧵9/9
The Appalachian Trail will do tricks like that frequently in the days just ahead — more contortions to avoid the parkway. It should be interesting.

More of My 1983 Appalachian Trail Hike in Photos at www.georgesteffanos.com/places-i-ve-...

Places I've Been | Then The Hail Came George Steffanos

My 1983 Appalachian Trail Hike in Photos. There are around 750-800 photos here scanned from my 1983 slides. I believe this to be one of the oldest thru-hikes on the Internet to be documented in photo...

www.georgesteffanos.com

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