Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike; Take 2 Announcement

Take 2! It’s official, I have locked down a date to start my second attempt at an Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike.

Drum roll please………

February 23, 2025!!!!

Yes, it’s almost two years away, but there is a significance behind waiting until 2025 to try again!

Why the wait?

My original plan to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail was initially set for 2025, which would be when our house would be paid off and my husband planned to fully retire. I decided to jump the gun in 2018 and plan for a 2020 thru-hike when I knew my husband would be retired from the Army as he planned to go with me and at the time he could afford to take a year off before heading into civilian life.

Well, a job landed in his lap right before his Army retirement in 2020, and instead of pushing the date back to 2025, I continued on with my plans without him (which turned out to be a mistake apparently lol).

So, we are once again set for our original date of 2025. I can only assume that is a good sign. We were always supposed to do it together in 2025 and any attempts for me to do it without him, fate has always stepped in and said NO.

Starting Over

As part of my “Take 2” attempt, I will be starting over from Springer Mountain and I’m happy to also announce that one of my original tramily members will also be along for the journey…Ripley will be joining us as she makes her 2nd attempt as well (she got off shortly after I did back in 2020).

Our Plans

The plan is for Jerry to fully retire on December 31, 2024, or Jan 2025. We have also decided to sell our home as we plan to find land far away from a city to settle down on and have our own Ranch. However, before we do that, we must get the Nomad bug out of the way.

So, we plan to hike the AT for the first part of 2025, then do Rt 66 on the motorcycle, followed by traveling the US in the RV for the remainder of the year. For 2026, we will do the PCT followed by traveling in the RV, and in 2027 the CDT followed by traveling in the RV. So the Nomad bug may be with us early into our 50s. We know things can change (2020 taught us that), but for now, the plan is to sell the house and start our Nomad lifestyle beginning in 2025 and in 2030 settle down for good.

Documenting the Journey

I will be both blogging and vlogging the journey both here on the blog as well as on my personal Facebook (feel free to follow me), my Facebook Page (assuming that is still a thing in two years) as well as my YouTube. So, make sure you are following along!

Ask Us!

We plan to do several Q&As before we hit the trail, so feel free to leave any questions you have for us as a comment below, or you can also email them to me using this form.