GENTRY -- What started several years ago as a wish turned into a 2,189.2-mile walk this summer for the Coder twins, Samuel and Daniel, 19, as the duo hiked from Georgia to Maine, completing the full length of the Appalachian Trail.

The Appalachian Trail runs the length of the Appalachian mountain range, is maintained by numerous local trail clubs and is managed by the National Park Service, the United States Forest Service and the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

"It's something I really wanted to do," Samuel said, and the trip finally became a reality a few years later when his brother, Daniel, agreed to go along for the hike which passes through 14 states -- Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.

The twins started their trek on March 9 at Springer Mountain in northern Georgia and finished July 29 at Mt. Katahdin in northern Maine, where they had arranged for their mother to pick them up. Both Samuel and Daniel said they could have finished their hike sooner but slowed down their pace so as not to arrive at the end of the trail days ahead of their arranged pickup time.

Along the trail, the Coders were known by their trail names, names assigned to them by other hikers. Samuel was called Link and Daniel, Ocarina, both from the Legend of Zelda video-game series. Link was a character and an ocarina is an old-world instrument also called a sweet potato flute. But the Coders were probably better known along the trail as the Arkansas Twins.

The hiking trek was not a first for the Coders. They had previously taken week-long outings, hiking in places like Devil's Den and in the Pecos Wilderness of New Mexico. But the Appalachian Trail is their longest hike, being on the trail 142 days.

The Coders said the favorite part of their time on the trail was all the people they met along the way -- hikers from across the U.S. and many from Europe. The Coders found the European visitors especially interesting and lamented the fact that so little European history is taught in the U.S.

"We met a lot of nice people on the trail," Samuel said, adding that other hikers and people along the way would welcome them, visit with them and often give them food.

The duo mentioned in particular a family living along the trail that picked them up, took them to their home, fed them and allowed them to take showers. Other local residents would often stop and give them water or fresh fruits and vegetables -- a favorite of the Coders and other hikers on the trail.

The Coders said they never encountered anyone who made them feel endangered along the way and didn't see a need to be armed to protect themselves along the trail, though they did mention meeting a man on the trail who was later arrested by the FBI as a fugitive for embezzling more than $8 million from his employer. The man had apparently been living on the trail as a through hiker for several years to evade capture.

"If you ran into someone you didn't like, all you had to do was get a couple hours ahead of them or behind them on the trail and you wouldn't see them for days," the Coders explained.

The Coders said their trail experience also caused them to do things they otherwise would not have done.

"We did a lot of things that parents teach their children never to do," the Coders said, echoing parental warnings like "don't talk to strangers, don't hitch-hike, and don't take candy or food from strangers."

Samuel said they were hiking at night and went by a tent and a person inside held out a bag of fried chicken, saying he had gotten it in town and couldn't eat it all. They took the bag without even seeing who it was who gave it to them and ate chicken along the trail.

"We were on a 'death-by-40 diet,'" the Coders said, explaining that they often feasted on high calorie foods and drinks and ate lots of candy bars and peanut butter -- so much so that the thought of eating peanut butter doesn't sound too appealing to them now. They tried to keep their daily calorie intake at about 5,000 but said they burned off the calories as fast as they could take them in.

The Coders said they averaged just under 16 miles a day along the trail, though on some of the mountain grades they would slow down as much as to 1 mile per hour. One day, they hiked 36 miles in 16 to 18 hours, covering a good part of that in the dark with a lamp.

"Once we got our hikers' legs," Samuel said, "we averaged 18.23 miles per day." He explained that it takes several weeks of hiking to strengthen the leg muscles and ligaments for long-distance hiking.

Especially beautiful, the Coders said, were the Grayson Highlands area in Virginia and the White Mountain Range in New Hampshire, both known for their beautiful mountains and vistas.

The Coders described their hike across Pennsylvania as some of the most difficult because of all the sharp rocks on the trail. And the duo wore out two pairs of hiking shoes and were wearing their third when they finished their trip. A local outfitter helped them out with some of the needed equipment, they said.

Another clothing item worn by the Coders over about two-thirds of their trek was a hiker's kilt. Wearing kilts on the trail rather than pants was cooler and enabled them to move more freely, Samuel explained. "And we could even change our underwear along the trail without exposing anything to anyone," Samuel said.

Daniel explained that long distance hikers often wear kilts to prevent the chafing which occurs when wearing perspiration-soaked pants. And the hiking can be strenuous, with the trail ranging in elevation from 124 feet above sea level at Bear Mountain State Park to 6,643 feet above sea level at Clingman's Dome.

To carry their gear, the Coders wore packs, averaging about 40 pounds each. One carried a light-weight three-man tent -- just big enough for the twins and their gear. The other carried their food. Though the tent served them well during their trip, they said when they set it up again at home after the trip, a pole just snapped with no one around it.

They tried to carry enough food for six days and filtered their water along the way. When they passed close enough to a town, they would often go out of their way to enjoy a good meal or restock their food supply. Their mother, too, sent them supplies by mailing them packages to pick up at post offices along the way.

At first, the Coders were keeping track of the number of animals they saw along the trail but gave up trying to count after a time. They mentioned seeing only one black bear, adding that it was pretty unusual to see only one. They saw three moose in Maine and also saw three or four rattlesnakes along the trail, none of them too close for comfort.

The biggest problem with wildlife, they said, was the smaller variety. Mosquitoes were bad in some places and they were watching out for ticks because of the diseases they frequently spread. Mice would chew through things just to get to an empty food wrapper, they said.

The twins celebrated their 19th birthday on the trail, but it was most memorable because they spent the day sick from norovirus, which they suspect they caught from some ill hikers along the trail.

Now that they are back in Arkansas, both have been busy working. Daniel works for an electrical contractor and Samuel is doing odd jobs until he can move to San Angelo, Texas, and pursue his goal of becoming a fireman and a paramedic where an older brother already serves.

Is there more hiking in the future? Samuel says he'd like to hike the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs from Mexico to Canada through California, Oregon and Washington and passes through numerous mountain ranges, including the Sierras and the Cascades. The trail is a little longer than the Appalachian Trail, being 2,650 miles in length. He said he is debating about hiking the trail or working and saving his money for a car which he'll need when he moves to San Angelo.

"If I don't do it now, I may not ever get to do it," Samuel said.

General News on 09/02/2015