The Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail is designated as a National Scenic Trail.  What this means is that it is a protected corridor of land, like the other scenic trails which include the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail.  In the case of the AT, it runs 2100 miles up the eastern side of the country.  The mountains there are referred to as the Appalachians, but the trail actually joins several mountain ranges including the Shenandoahs, Alleghenies, the Smokies, the Green Mountains and the White Mountains.

These ranges, collectively, are one of the oldest geological formations in the world.  The Rockies?  Mere upstarts, just like the Cascades.  For those of us that have hiked on it, it is the oldest pile of rocks in the world.  It's affectionately referred to as the long green tunnel.  What I'm saying here is that it is many things, but I was trying to avoid starting off with that cliched phrase.  I would have preferred not to use it at all, but I haven't figured out a way around it.

You'll notice that the logo above reads 'Maine to Georgia', but the fact is that 90% of the pople who try to hike the whole trail in one calendar year (thru-hikers) hike it from Georgia to Maine.  Furthermore, only 10% of the people who set out to hike the trail actually make it, and right now, that means that about 300-400 people succeed in completing a thru-hike in any given year.

The trail goes through 14 states:  Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.  In six out of the fourteen, I've not hiked so much as an inch of the trail.  My grand total mileage is about 500 miles right now.

The trail is not really about communing with nature.  In most states, the trail is too close to roads or populations for that.  This doesn't mean it's all like that or that you can't achieve solitude, but one shouldn't go into this thinking that it's wilderness.  Luckily, I knew this, and this is not why I didn't complete the 1200 miles that I wanted to do last summer.  Really, what knocked me out was fatigue.  I just stopped having fun.  When you're simply going hiking, you choose the best place to go.  When you feel like you have to cover miles, you have to hike a lot of places that you would never choose to go.  There are dozens of places on my AT AT Resources page where you can find all manner of information about the Trail.

Here's what I enjoyed about the trail:

Gear!

Planning a goal every day

Displaying adaptability

Spending a lot of time outdoors

The people (I didn't expect to be into the social thing but I was.  This is a good thing because it's a very social trail, and if you don't give in to that, you will be very unhappy

Seeing so many places that I never would have gone...on purpose

Here's what I didn't enjoy:

Not making a daily goal (I'm incredibly bull headed)

Actual injuries (there was pain every day and I was OK with that...it was expected)

Being forced to spend a lot of time outdoors

You'll notice that there is a conflict there.  I got tired of falling down on wet rocks in Massachusetts and decided that I wanted to come home.  It's really pretty simple.

All the details are included in my AT Journal.  There are tons of pictures, and my vanity dictates that I mention I've lost 40 lbs. since those pictures were taken.  Obviously, I did not lose them on the trail, much to my chagrin.  I lost about 10 lbs on the trail and gained them back once I got home.  I lost the 40 in the latter half of 2000.  If you have questions about that or if you want a dieting pep talk, write me.

The pieces of maps are all copywrited by the ATC.  I believe I've cut them up in such a way that they would be no replacement for purchasing the actual maps.  Maps are fun.  If you want the maps, please, buy the maps.

Backpacking | Gear | Trip Reports