(16 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Pine Grove Furnace State Park, Pennsylvania – 10 June 2025
1. Sam Cooper attempts the half-gallon ice cream challenge
2. SOUNDBITE (English) Sam Cooper, Appalachian Trail thru-hiker:
“1760, okay. So that’s, that’s about a third of my calories for the day.”
3. Ice cream on a table
4. SOUNDBITE (English) Sam Cooper, Appalachian Trail thru-hiker:
"What I’m doing is eating a half-gallon of ice cream at the halfway point on the Appalachian Trail. It’s called the half-gallon challenge. Very appropriately named."
5. A pint of ice cream
6. Zeke Meddock attempts the half-gallon ice cream challenge
7. SOUNDBITE (English) Sam Cooper, Appalachian Trail thru-hiker:
“It was a reward up until right about here. When I got below that, it became a challenge.”
8. Various of thru-hiker Noritaka Mizumoto walking the Appalachian Trail
9. Appalachian Trail sign
10. SOUNDBITE (English) Sam Cooper, Appalachian Trail thru-hiker:
“How many miles we’ve done so far… 1,090, isn’t it?”
11. Appalachian Trail map and photos
12. Newspaper article on the half-gallon ice cream challenge
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Sam Cooper, Appalachian Trail thru-hiker:
“That’s the last bite… we did it!”
14. Pine Grove Furnace General Store sign
15. Half-gallon ice cream challenge sign
16. SOUNDBITE (English) Angela Simons, manager at Pine Grove General Store:
“So the Pine Grove General Store is the unofficial halfway point of the Appalachian Trail and it’s a stop for hikers for fresh food, the half-gallon challenge and for resupply.”
17. Photos of previous half-gallon ice cream challenge victors adorn a wall
18. Photo of half-gallon ice cream challenge record holder
19. SOUNDBITE (English) Angela Simons, manager at Pine Grove General Store:
“This is a big, you know, it’s a big accomplishment making it halfway through the trail. It’s the tradition. You know what I mean, just a little something to say ‘hey, i made it halfway, and I did the half-gallon challenge’ so… a little bragging rights.”
20. Various of ice cream delivery
21. SOUNDBITE (English) Angela Simons, manager at Pine Grove General Store:
“It’s very well known with the hikers, the half gallon challenge, the halfway point and all — so i feel like it’s important. It’s a big accomplishment and they want to reward themselves and the hikers just want to you know say ‘hey i did it.’ One more thing that they can say that they accomplished.”
22. Zeke Meddock is photographed after completing the half-gallon ice cream challenge
STORYLINE:
Midway up the Appalachian Trail, a little country store in Gardners, Pennsylvania, invites hikers to take on an additional challenge: eating a half-gallon of ice cream in one sitting. So far this year, about 50 thru-hikers have finished the challenge.
Besides bragging rights, they earned the honor of having their photos posted on a store bulletin board. The record, set two years ago, is under 4 minutes. It took nearly 40 minutes for Sam Cooper to finish his chocolate chip cookie dough earlier this week. He called it “pure misery,” and added: “I don’t think anybody should be doing this. This is not healthy at all.”
The challenge is thought to have begun more than four decades ago at the Pine Grove Furnace General Store in Gardners, a few miles north of the current true halfway point on the 2,197-mile (3,536-kilometer) trail.
As thru-hikers slog their way north through Virginia and Maryland, the ice cream challenge is a regular topic of conversation at shelters and campfires, said Stephan Berens, 49, a psychiatric nurse from Nuremberg, Germany.
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