We had a cut man on our framing crew. He was in his 60s-maybe early 70s.
He had done it 3-4 times inside of 15 years.
Retired Marine, little skinny fugger probably only weighed 125 lbs. had to have knees of steel
Just picking his brain off and on, he told me he’d mail himself ‘care packages’ every 50-80-100 miles just whatever. Also said he would take an entire loaf of bread and make it all up into peanut butter sandwiches and eat that chit for a week straight. Had a Sweetwater purification pump for drinking out of the creeks and mud puddles.
Don’t forget it rains a lot up in those elevations.
Would start out in April, I’m thinking he said something 3-4 months.
Fouck that
*I’ve done about 20-25 miles of the AT inside the GSMNP, 5 days without beer and a shower and I’m ready to to be done.
I have read every book I could find on Kindle on hiking the Appalachian Trail. If I was younger and could leave home for months, I would do it in heartbeat. Then the next year or so I would do the Pacific Crest Trail and finish up with the Continental Divide Trail the next!
I backpacked all over the Beartooth Mountains here in Montana and Wyoming until I had too many commitments at home ( marriage, kids, and job which paid insurance)
If I would have know about the AT, when I got out of the AF in 71, I probably would have never gotten married for several years and then started my life.
I have forgotten what % of hikers who plan to through hike make the whole trip; it's pretty small IIRC. For the ones who make it it tends to be a kind of "vision quest" experience. If you do this you might come back not being as concerned about muscle mass.
I've only done a few week-long trips on the AT. Met a number of thru-hikers on the trail, and I'll tell you, they are some kind of driven and committed! They'd come into camp at or near sundown, set up a simple, basic camp (often just a hammock), and be up and gone with the sun. Just too intense for me.
There is a % with the ultra marathon out look I forget what the record is..... some of them use a chase crew to meet them at road crossings for resupply. A bigger % end up enjoying the "trail family" bonds that develop with other hikers from all "walks" of life....
In 300 zeros (older guy hiking to honor the memory of his brother who died in a war They had planned to do it together) there was a young woman who was really into Yoga. She could just fly along the trail but kept missing the friends she had made so she hiked miles back to be able to camp with them.
My grandparent's farmhouse in Bristol VA has the entire house surrounded in screened porch.
Porch, because it was too hot.
Screen because there are bugs.
When I climbed Mt Daniel in WA state, deer fly attacked my hair whorl.
There is nothing noble in being superior to your fellow man; true nobility is being superior to your former self. -Ernest Hemingway The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything.-- Edward John Phelps
A friend and I did it many yeas ago. We started March 30 and Finished August 1. Most people take six months. Remember that Baxter State Park closes around September 15th every year (Depending on weather) so please plan to finish before then. We were 18 and had to finish prior to college starting so we hiked 20 plus miles a day. (Graduated early so we could take off in March.) You will find that it gets easier as you move north...until you get to the White Mountains. Then you will be glad you hiked the rest of the trail to get ready for them. From the Whites until just before Baxter, will be fun, but testing. Georgia is rough, but only because you are not really used to hiking in the mountains in cold and rain. Then Va. is full of rocks and ticks and bears. Oh, it is also hot. We bathed and washed clothes in streams along the way, but that is not necessary today. Back then, it cost us around $1,000 each to complete it. Today, if you have the equipment needed, you can do it for around $1,000 a month. According to the ATC, only 25% of those that start the trail finish. 25% drop out in the first 40 miles. After that, the number one reason for dropping out is running out of funds.After that is injury. If you make it to Harpers Ferry in WV almost 95% of those hikers make to Baxter. Those from that group that don't, fail because of injury.
BTW, if I can get my knee rehabilitated by March, I plan to hike it one more time. This time at 74. I plan to take seven months and the total cost will be around $10,000. Including all the new equipment I will need. (Almost none of my hunting equipment will work on a through hike.)Also, the guys out there this year are saying that there are many hikers over 65 out there. One guy I follow is DerDieDas, he is 72. Very few of the hikers this year are showing the difficult parts so don't be confused.
The best advice I can give to anyone trying to hike this trail is to hike your own hike and hike it one day at a time. Forget about yesterday when you wake up. Except the beauty. Best wishes and good hiking.
I grew up in Virginia close to the trail. Hunted and trout fished along it. I think I’d go out of my mind. For most of it I’ve been on its thick, view doesn’t change. Just a tunnel through the mountain Laurel .
I have done most of the AT, but never at a single time. Longest I was ever able to squeeze in was two weeks. I have been on the AT since I was a kid, as the AT runs through what was our family's property in Virginia, now in the Jefferson National Forest.
Local guy here had done the parts of the AT a few times & finally made the time to do it complete.
I met him at a party one night & he told me it taxed his mind as much as his body. So much in fact that he cut the handle off his tooth brush to shave the weight of his cargo. Said he realized after the hike that it wasn't affective at all, but at the time it seemed the thing to do. Sounded like mental & physical torture to me.
Him? He was saving up to try to hike the Rocky Mtn. Trail next. I haven't heard any reports about him since & now that I think of him, I'd like to find out what he's been up to. An interesting individual, not jut the hiking, but other life choices as well.
