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Back when I first started getting into hiking, I wanted to do this local blue blazed off shoot of the AT that I only heard about and never seen on any of the maps. Was told it was a 5ish mile jug handle with lots of rocks but being in PA all of the AT can be described as "lots of rocks". Supposedly has some nice views though. Was in the middle of January and my girlfriend and I both had some time off. It's been a dry year so far and weather man said no snow till next week so me and her go and do the hike. Sure enough it's all rocks but we take our time and move along. Trail cuts along the top of a mountain line, little in the ways of shelter but we had proper clothing to deal with cold. We stop for lunch around 2pm, my best guess we are about half way through the trail. As soon as we started to eat a few snow flakes where starting to fall. By the time we finished it was snowing heavy and the trail was all slippery rocks. Our movement slowed to a crawl. Yeah know it's funny, you could look down the side of the trails (when it wasn't snowing anyways) and see highways and houses but during the snow I felt like we where in the middle of some sort of uncharted mountain. Panic did kinda get a hold of me esp when the sun went down. Had 1 flashlight with us and this was before the day and age of pocket rocket LED lights so a shit maglight is all I had.. Didn't get back to the the AT till like 10PM. Shit was so scary and we almost stopped to try and camp till daylight. By the time we hit the AT 4 inches of snow already fell and by the AM we got 8.
Here's what a lot of the trail looks like, we have since done the hike a few times but in better weather. Never let on to my girlfriend how close I thought we were to death that day. Really learned lots of respect for hiking and being /out/ that day, esp in the winter.
