My AT hike turns 25!

Happy New Year!

The dawn of 2015 over Lake Saint Clair
in my home town of Grosse Pointe, Michigan.
More about this fantastic image and its creator, Mark Graf at grafphoto.com,
here at SuzanneStroh.com. (c) Mark Graf. Used by permission.

2015 will mark the 25th anniversary of my year on the Appalachian Trail.

On my birthday in late April of 1991, my dog Ben and I ate our last home-cooked breakfast, packed our gear at Locust Hill Farm in Leesburg, hitched a ride to Harper's Ferry from Burdette and Suzie Wright, checked in at the Appalachian Trail Conference HQ and set out heading south from the midpoint of the AT. The goal: to walk all 2,184 miles of the white blazed footpath in one season.

It had been a cold winter with big storms, and the ATC volunteers told me that the word from the near-starved northbound hikers was that lots of people had dropped out since taking their first steps on the AT at Springer Mountain, Georgia.

My first hump up the hill was hell in an overweighted pack, and all I remember about those first few days was a hundred blowdowns that it took hours to get under, over and around. The going was slow from the start. Fifteen miles and 6,000 feet of climbing was a big day for me back then under those 50 lb. pack weights. I don't think I met anyone in my first two weeks on the trail, similar to the tale told by The Kitchen Sink Couple. It rained 25 days in a row for the next 500 miles. Virginia was a slog. Even with Ben for company--always hilarious--I had trouble getting up and getting motivated in the morning. But I stuck to it.

Along the way, I met and read logbook entries of northbounders whom I keep track of and caught up with, later, at the base of their journey's end atop Mt. Katahdin in Baxter State Park, Maine.

I interviewed them for the film I was making, climbed Katahdin with them, then kept walking south.

Suzanne and trail dog Ben at Trail Days 1991.
Your hair grows two shades darker
under the big green canopy for months at a time.

By Thanksgiving, Ben and I had accomplished all but a few hundred miles of the AT. I got off the trail in Vermont, took a break, and completed the journey (re-covering much of the territory) in 1992.

Imagine my surprise on Christmas day when one of my thru-hiking pals, trail name weathercarrot, posted the 1992 documentary I made of that trek here on YouTube.

Most of the articulate, insightful people you meet and see in this video--like photographer Dave Fleischman and weathercarrot, whose stunning AT and PCT photography projects include this history of ALDHA, the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association and "yearbook" videos for thru-hikers that span every section of the Pacific Crest Trail--have since gone on to bigger and better long-distance hikes; long term commitments to selfless service as trail maintainers; and satisfying artistic careers as nature photographers. It is with real humility that I share their work and their stories with you now, because the amateurish quality of my own work (all still images!) will definitely strike you as low-tech.

Back in 1991, our heavy analog camera equipment probably took up two or three liters of space in our packs! And it weighted a ton. Our music players played cassette tapes. Short of a National Geographic production, there was no way to bring a film crew along on your thru hike. Still photography, sketches, words on paper, and the occasional voice recordings made when a sound recordist could meet us in a shelter near a trailhead...these things were all we had to make artistic sense of our adventures.

Thanks, weathercarrot, for the most thoughtful Christmas present ever. Without your patience and persistence, people would not be able to share our story.

Trail Days 1992 with Suzanne selling copies of Bill Irwin's "Blind Courage"
and STI tapes from her car in Damascus, VA. Photo: weathercarrot.

Sometime after Trail Days in 1992, my distributor's barn caught fire in Vermont, destroying every VHS copy I didn't have on hand. I never bothered to transfer the 3/4 inch master tape to DVD, because by then, the music rights had long run out under the terms of the very generous permissions I had been granted to produce the project as a not-for-profit work of art.

Trail Days 1992. Photo: weathercarrot.

A few years ago, I was contacted by some folks who wanted a copy for a hikers hostel in Pennsylvania. It was a flattering request, and today I am even more flattered to see that STICKING TO IT still seems to warm a few wild hearts.

I hope to have more for you from the AT class of '91 in the months to come. What did I read? you wonder. Possession by A.S. Byatt, word by gorgeous addictive word, using yesterday's devoured pages for today's loo paper as I went along. What did Ben eat? Mostly my supper, supplemented by the doggy GU of the day, liver powder in his water bowl, courtesy of an eccentric Virginia dogsledder (???) who ran a place called The Sled Dog Store, as I recall, which supplied us out of Roanoke. On the seven months that Ben and I slept together that year, he clearly became much more like a person (very courteously waiting before he ate the remains of my supper) and I think I became a bit more like a dog. Which I've never regretted for a moment. Amore!

I wish you a happy new year, with white blazes as far as you can see. Follow your bliss.

Trail Days 1991. Photo: weathercarrrot.