Family hikes Rocksylvania.

July 15, 2026

The kids had finally arrived. It has been months since I have seen them. My son is much taller than Jane now, with a deepening voice, and barely visible fine hair growing on his upper lip. My daughter carries herself with confidence of a young woman who has competed for the second time at the state championship level for Karate and placed.

My wife Jane has been single parenting for 2 months while holding down the full household and work and and and, yeah she is awesome.

We have done a fair amount of camping and hiking as a family and with scouts, but this will be the first backpacking experience for both kids and Jane.

I have allocate 7 days to hike approximately 60 miles. That is doable, but pretty challenging for a first time backpacking. There is some elevation change, but a fair amount of ridge running. The weather is predicted to be hot but not oppressive and there rain in the forecast.

Pennsylvania is notoriously rocky and difficult footing. So I am little worried that my family will be miserable and hate backpacking. I really want them to like it. The trip culminates at the Pinnacle which where I first fell in love with the Appalachian trail.

To start we had huge breakfast with Oma (my mom)

Then we hit the trail:

Below is Jane’s account of the week:

A week in Rocksyvania on the AT SOBOing with Matt on his through hike. My first multi day backpacking trip, and we got to taste a bit of the AT magic! We camped in a tent, stayed at a couple of shelters, and even a hostel where a travel angel loaded us up with trail magic at the end of a wet, slippery, rocky hike! The rocks and boulders of PA are no joke! We hiked through misty mornings, the green tunnel (still somehow got sunburned on my shoulders), scrambled up and down mountains and along ridges, climbed the chimney at the Pinnacle. We got to meet up with a bunch of Matt’s thru hiker friends since we were SOBO and they were NOBO.

Sweetest moments were just hiking the trail, the stop and go casual conversations as well as the silences in between. Watching Robbie help Anna across the slippery boulders of Knife’s Edge. Waking everyone up to check out the porcupine gnawing on the Bake Oven Knob Shelter at night, playing Oh Hell at The Lookout Hostel all afternoon…

The toughest miles were always the last ones of each day when the knees, ankles and toes screamed at me, and I’m still recovering, but the AT is truly magical!

End of Jane’s report …

Success! They had fun. It was great joy for me to hike with my family. Including spelunking in the cave at the Pinnacle and climbing the chimney shaft.

We ended the week trek a day early. (Did all the miles). In Port Clinton we went the Peanut shop, which is a wonderful old candy store, then have the new stuff but also old stuff like various kinds of black licorice my favorite.