Father, son complete hiking Appalachian Trail

By MICAH HENRY

After six months and 12 days, Taylorsville father and son, Rob and Gavin Duncan, summited Mt. Katahdin, Maine, at 9:02 a.m. on the morning of Friday, August 16, 2024. That marked the culmination of their 2,197.4 mile through-hike of the Appalachian Trail, having begun on February 4 at the trail’s southern terminus at Springer Mountain, Georgia.

You could actually say the journey was more than five years in the making.

Rob and Gavin made a gallant attempt to through-hike the trail in 2019, begun when Gavin was just 13 years old, hiking more than 1,000 miles of the trail. (A through-hike is to hike the entire trail in one year.) However, due to various circumstances, they had to pull off the trail late that summer and hope to try again another year. That year turned out to be 2024.

Rob, now age 57 (trailname “Waffle”), noted that he and Gavin, 19 (trailname “Hawkeye”), planned for the trail with several different items this time around. Sleeping bags were traded out for down-filled snap-closure quilts. Rob used a tent weighing only 1.5 pounds, versus the 3 pound tent he carried in 2019. Gavin changed tents, too.

Their food was also different. Both ate a lot of instant mashed potatoes and Knorr pasta in 2019, but opted instead this year for Ramen noodles with some form of protein (Spam or beef jerky). Ramen has more calories than potatoes or rice.

Both Rob and Gavin lost about 40 pounds each while walking 10 to 20 miles a day as they carried heavy backpacks most of the time.

“Calorie intake is king,” Rob said. Gatorade protein bars and snack foods helped the men replenish the calories they were steadily burning between meals.

Before their 2024 journey, the father and son were able to speak with two local seasoned AT through-hikers, Terry Little (2014) and Adam Chapman (2023). Both provided helpful tips and support.

To document the trip, Rob took a smartphone, iPad, and a battery pack, amounting to two extra pounds in his backpack. He took videos and photos along the way and uploaded videos to his YouTube channel, WaffleHikes. Video editing was done at stops along the trail in towns, where he could access Wi-Fi internet. Some 1,800 subscribers followed Rob and Gavin on YouTube.

There are a couple AT-focused YouTube channels who invite through-hikers to publish a “meet the hiker” type of video at the first of the season. Rob and Gavin participated and sent in an introductory video.

“It was really neat to watch the comments. I wasn’t able to reply to them all, but I tried to read all of them,” Rob said. He added that it helped to receive encouragement from viewers.

Several YouTube subscribers familiar with the trail area told Rob and Gavin about things they should go see, or perhaps be aware of, on their journey.

Three or four people reached out to the pair and offered to host them in their homes, if they needed a place to rest and resupply, or give them a ride off and on the trail along the way.

This allowed “slack packing,” or carrying a limited amount of gear (such as raincoat, water, and snacks) without lugging the full, heavy packs along the trail.

Other people helped out along the journey with drinks, food, or snacks along the AT. These are called “trail angels” and the items they provide is “trail magic.”

A friend of Rob’s brother-in-law, known by trailname “Sir Stops-a-lot,” helped the Duncans with rides and food several times in the middle segment of the trail.

Gavin noted that this year, he trimmed down his hiking gear and though they did less practice hikes, both went to the Philmont Scout Camp for a week-long trek at higher elevations as a practice run.

To get accustomed to the long days of hiking, Rob and Gavin hiked shorter distances their first several days on the AT, but soon grew accustomed to the routine and hiked longer distances. Their hiking days were planned according to weather, health, trail difficulty, ability to reach a trail shelter, hiker hostel, or hotel. At towns along the way, they purchased food and other supplies, such as camp stove fuel, shoes, clothing, toiletry items, etc. Sometimes, they needed supplies which were ordered and shipping to a town ahead on the trail.

Injuries did crop up. Near Damascus, VA, Rob experienced shin splints in one leg and had to seek medical help from a physician friend. The doctor, from Hudson, made the drive to meet Rob and examine him, writing a prescription. Some medicine and rest allowed him to soon return to the trail. Gavin had a series of ankle sprains from rolling his ankle over on rough terrain. He eventually switched from sneakers to boots to help better support his ankles on the rocky, uneven ground.

The last half of the trail seemed to be not only physically strenuous but mentally challenging, the rugged terrain coupled with weeks away from home and family. However, occasional visits from Rob’s wife, Beth, and their younger son, Griffin, and other family members and friends helped lift their spirits.

Making friends with other hikers, either through-hikers or section hikers who happen to be going along at about the same pace as Rob and Gavin, provided companionship and support over the long, weary miles.

Trail etiquette was followed by most hikers, but not all. Hikers who are trekking uphill should have the right-of-way and downhill travelers should step aside. However, some trail runners, out for the day, breezed down the hills with little regard for the through-hikers who were slogging up the grades.

Amazing scenery, flora, and fauna were often captured by Rob’s camera as they walked along.

Rob noted that the most memorable part of the landscape was the area around Franconia Ridge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. Gavin agreed that the peaks of more than 4,000 feet were quite impressive.

“Once you get above the tree line, you can see the 4,000 footers out in front of you, you can see the trail, going up one and down one and around the other. Then you’ve got the panoramic view, all around, of the rest of the White Mountains. It was phenomenal and we could not have mail-ordered better weather that day,” Rob recalled.

Closer to home, Rob also likes the Roan Mountain area near the NC/TN border and the Grayson Highlands part of southwest Virginia.

Gavin echoed a love for the White Mountains, too. However, Mt. Webster was tricky, as were Kinsman’s Peaks A & B, Wildcat Peak D, and Mt. Madison. “I didn’t see a single view that matched the Whites, except in the Whites and possibly at Mt. Katahdin.”

The wonderful scenery helped bolster Rob and Gavin’s faith in the Lord.

“Going up Mt. Washington, I said a prayer for three things: for the weather to clear up, for neither of us to get injured going up, and for there to be no line when we got up there. Sure enough, when we got up there, it had cleared up, neither one of us had injuries — which was really a surprise to me because I thought I would roll my ankle — and there was one person in line,” Gavin said.
“It was something — I don’t really know how to put it into words.”

Rob appreciates beauty in God’s creation. “We actually sent a video back home. Joel [Simpson, pastor at First United Methodist Church in Taylorsville] was preaching on the Creation story, and asked us if we could do a short video on how we found the beauty of God’s creation in the terrain and the people. Several times, we looked up and I think, ‘God made this.’ That’s where I find my faith, in nature. There were lots of beautiful plants, and views, and mushrooms, and all kinds of different things that we don’t see normally around here. They were new experiences. It was a great thing for me.”

“We were blessed by the people we met, trail angels and the people that hosted us,” Rob said. “I have always been a believer that giving back is important. When you’re able to give, you’ll be blessed. Those blessings will be returned. At Mt. Pisgah [Lutheran Church, in Bethlehem], one of the things they have engraved over a beam in their sanctuary is ‘Blessed To Be A Blessing.’ I like to do things for other people but many times I have experienced those blessings coming back around to us.”

Past the halfway point, it was a long, grueling trek as the weeks went by.

“Several times, in the latter part of the hike, I was mentally drained,” Rob related. “I was ready to be done. But we also knew we had such an investment of time and money that we needed to finish. There was never, for either one of us, any question of coming home. By the end, I was still enjoying what I was doing, most days, but I was very ready to come home. There were some days that were tough.”

“You don’t really know what hiking looks like until you get up into the New England area,” he explained. “The trails down here in the South are pretty well groomed. There’s not a ton of rock scrambles. Pennsylvania is rocky but it’s not straight-up rocky; it’s ankle-twisting rocks. Starting in New York, really, it had short vertical or near-vertical rock scrambles. It kind of crossed the line between backpacking and rock climbing.”

“And the Whites,” Gavin added.

“When you get to the White Mountains and into Southern Maine, there were several places that were really rugged. Maybe treacherous is not the right word, but concerning,” Rob stated.

In many of those places, Rob and Gavin had to take off their packs and climb up rocks, sometimes with the “luxury” of steel rebar ladders driven into the rock (often without ladders), hauling their packs up later.

Rob contrasted parts of the AT with Alexander County’s Rocky Face Mountain. “If you think about Rocky Face, when you hang a right to go up the face of it, you’re walking up a granite slab. It’s got divots in it, so you can get a handhold or foothold. There’s always water running down by those cables. It can be slick if it’s wet. Ramp that up another 10 or 15 degrees. We were on a rock base like that, thinking, ‘Where am I going to get a hand or foothold?’ because there’s just not a place.”

“And you’re looking behind you and instead of looking down 100 feet or 150 feet, you’re looking down 1,500 feet. If you’re kind of nervous about heights anyway, it’s hard to convince your mind that I’ll only fall 15 feet into those trees, and that will hurt, but I might not die,” Rob said.

He commented that the trail system is enormous in the Northeast. In addition to the AT, there are numerous regional trails that criss-cross the landscape. The AT goes directly over Mt. Washington and Mt. Madison but other peaks in the Presidential Range are actually side-trails off the AT.

“There’s tons and tons of trails up there, that would be a lot of fun to hike, except they’re so rugged,” Rob said.

The trail down Mt. Washington and over Mt. Madison proved to be very difficult.

“You’re looking at every step. It wasn’t like you could hike out. You have to look at where your feet are doing to go, so you don’t have a tib-fib fracture in the middle of all this,” Rob explained.

“I would say that was the hardest mental day,” Gavin said. “We had hit the big peak for the day. We thought it was all going to be downhill from there. It took us probably an hour to do a mile. Usually, we’re going three miles an hour.”

Even the final day was difficult.

“Going up Katahdin, once we got above the trees, I was scared to death,” said Gavin. Narrow paths with rock obstacles, having no good handholds or footholds, contributed to an uneasy finish to the trail.

“I’m terrified of heights and so is he, so I don’t know who had the worst time on that,” Gavin added.

“There’s not an easy way to get up or down Katahdin. We went up one way and came down the other. They were both really tough, rock scrambles,” Rob stated. The pair ascended the final mountain on the Hunt Trail and came down on the Abol Trail.

However, the men kept carefully and methodically walking down Mt. Katahdin, looking forward to reuniting with their family members who had made the journey to Maine to meet them at the trail’s end.

Now that Rob and Gavin are back in Taylorsville, Gavin is attending CVCC and working on his Associate Degree. He hopes to pursue a degree in History at a four-year university.

In 2022, Rob went out to the AT with trail magic to help hikers. A few weeks later, he and a former student also assisted hikers with trail magic. And when school was out that summer, Gavin and Rob went up to Virginia, providing trail magic. Now that his through-hike is complete, Rob hopes to again be a blessing to hikers along the AT in the future.

Rob has returned to Boy Scout activities as Scoutmaster of Troop 275 in Bethlehem. He is looking forward to working as Camp Bud Schiele Camp Director next year in Rutherford County.