Sam Cooper (above) had just trekked 7 miles through a rain-sodden stretch of the Appalachian Trail when he sat down outside a little country store in Pennsylvania to take on its ice cream challenge. Nearly 40 minutes and 2,500 calories later, the dairy farmer from Chapel Hill, Tenn., was polishing off the last spoonful of chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream, adding his name to the list of “thru-hikers” who have celebrated the trail’s halfway point by downing a half-gallon of ice cream. By the end, the 32-year-old was calling the experience “pure misery.” The ice cream challenge is thought to have begun more than four decades ago at the Pine Grove Furnace Store in Gardners, Penn., a few miles north of the current true halfway point on the 2,197-mile trail. So far this year, about 50 thru-hikers have finished the challenge, earning the honor of having their photos posted on a store bulletin board. Those who do finish in a single sitting are awarded a commemorative wooden spoon and bragging rights for the rest of their hike. Trail experts say the typical thru-hiker needs about 6,000 calories a day for the grueling trek. About 1 in 3 people who launch a thru-hike take the roughly 5 million steps required to go the distance. The trek takes an average of 6 months, with the current speed record being about 40 days.
