As the Lawrence Journal-World reported in January, Dan Yunghans, a 51-year-old Army veteran, was at the time gearing up to set out along one of America’s longest hiking trails, which starts north of Georgia’s Springer Mountain and ends in the middle of Maine at Mount Katahdin.

Since then, Yunghans has taken his first steps along the trail and then some. He set out from Georgia on March 3 and, in the four months since, has crossed through many of the 14 states the trail runs through.

In late June, Yunghans spoke with the Journal-World while stopping for the night with friends from the trail at their home in Connecticut, though he’s since crossed over into Massachusetts and made his way to Vermont. He said at that time, he wasn’t far from crossing the 1,500-mile mark — about two-thirds of the way through the trail’s total of 2,198.4 miles.

“It’s raining up here right now, and one of my hiking buddy’s friends — a fellow hiker who had to come off (the trail) due to injury — picked us up and brought us to his house…” Yunghans said. “We’re sitting at his house and we’ve got our laundry, taken showers, gotten business taken care of and other stuff we needed to do. It’s really great, man. This is one of the best things I’ve ever done.”

Yunghans called it a “life-changing experience” so far, something he wishes everyone could do. And if he does see it through to the end, he’ll be among impressive company — only about one in four hikers who attempt to hike the entire trail make it the whole way through each year, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

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Dan Yunghans stands at the edge of McAfee Knob, an iconic stop along the Appalachian Trail located in Virginia’s Jefferson National Forest. Yunghans, an Army veteran from Tonganoxie, is two-thirds of the way through the more than 2,200-mile trail.

Early on, the trail’s path took Yunghans through the Great Smoky Mountains, which straddle the border between North Carolina and Tennessee, and a portion of the massive, more than 650,000-acre Cherokee National Forest soon after.

It’s also included stops at iconic Appalachian Trail landmarks like McAfee Knob, a vista in Virginia’s Jefferson National Forest, and Clingmans Dome, the highest point along the trail located in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

Stops off the trail have also been plentiful, many of which have been a time to seek fellowship and shelter with fellow trail hikers and “trail angels” — good samaritans who, out of admiration, willingly give to hikers who tackle the trail. With those new friends he’s met along the way, Yunghans has paid visits to New York City’s Times Square and General Grant National Memorial and to Gettysburg Battlefield as he passed through Pennsylvania.

Yunghans said the people he’s met along the way so far, from hikers and trail angels to folks who run hostels, have especially been a highlight of his experience. He’s met folks who hail from as far away as England, South Africa, Australia, Sweden and Germany, and even some fellow Kansans.

“It doesn’t matter where you’re from, what your political affiliation is, what your gender affiliation is — none of that matters,” Yunghans said. “None of those things that divide the country now factor into anything. It’s just you’re hiking the (Appalachian Trail), and you’re there and you’re tough enough to have gotten this far.”

Some of those connections have already come full circle. Yunghans ran into one fellow hiker — who goes by the trail name “Gone-zo,” a type of nickname Yunghans said hikers give to one another while hiking together — while visiting Times Square, but the last time their paths had crossed was around the 100-mile mark near the start of the trail. Yunghans ran into that same friend along the trail just a few days before speaking with the Journal-World, but this time “Gone-zo” had twisted an ankle.

After making sure everything was okay, Yunghans continued down the trail and ran into another friend who he’d encountered early on who carries fruit to give to hikers tackling the entire trail like Yunghans. He ended up sending that connection further on to find “Gone-zo” and offer him a ride to somewhere he could rest his leg.

“It is so cool, man,” Yunghans said. “I love it … I didn’t expect it to be this impactful. I knew already that hikers were very good to each other; you just don’t know it until you see it. It’s a wonderful thing to see people help each other and just be grateful for where they are in the present moment.”

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Yunghans hit 1,099.2 miles — the trail’s official halfway point — in early June. He said he was expecting the full journey to take about six months back in January, and he thinks he’s on track to hit that goal.

It helps, he said, that he found a second wind in the first half of the trek that’s carried him this far.

“Right before halfway through the trail, I was thinking I’m not going to make it until September,” Yunghans said. “And then all of a sudden, my legs kicked in, you know? I had my ‘trail legs’ around mile 400, and I don’t know what it was or why, but all of a sudden I started walking faster.”

photo by: Dan Yunghans

Dan Yunghans, of Tonganoxie, arrived at the midway point of the Appalachian Trail in early June. Yunghans is aiming to complete the entire more than 2,200-mile journey by August.

And from there, Yunghans said he made quick work of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York and Maryland. In fact, he said it’s taken some focus to slow down and enjoy the experience more instead of continuing to push through quickly.

He added that if he were to wake up early enough, 25 to 30 miles of distance would be an easy target to hit from day to day, but it’s not worth sacrificing the journey.

“The experience is worth it, and if I continue to go about 18 to 20 miles a day, I’ll get there in plenty of time — mid-August, I think,” Yunghans said.

That isn’t to say that Yunghans hasn’t been getting the experience he wants out of the trail earlier on — it’s just that he doesn’t want to move so fast that he misses the opportunity to do something special. Plus, he said taking it slower gives more time for his body to heal.

That may end up being an important strategy. Yunghans said he’s now embarking on the most challenging leg of the journey: the walk through New Hampshire and Maine. He said New Hampshire’s White Mountains are famously difficult to traverse and filled with sheer cliffs and “boulder scrambles,” sections of trail that require climbing up boulders and rocks using both hands and feet.

And in Maine, there’s the “100 Mile Wilderness,” a section that’s generally considered the wildest along the entire Appalachian Trail.

“You’re out in the middle of nowhere, and resupply can be an issue,” Yunghans said. “You really have to plan that.”

From here, that means the mission is simple: finish out the trail.

“Every day, I manifest myself walking up Katahdin,” Yunghans said. “I see my buddies that started me greeting me and all of us walking up the Katahdin, and I hope that I can see a lot of my friends out here finish, too.”

Yunghans has been chronicling his trek on his Instagram profile, @havedan_willtravel.