Thru-hiking the A.T.

A friend of mine has a 20-something daughter who completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail this past fall. We recently had dinner with the friend and his wife, and I peppered him with questions about the daughter's hike.

Backing up a bit, the Appalachian Trail is a hiking trail that goes from Springer Mountain, GA to Mt. Katahdin, ME - more than 2,100 miles along the crest of the Appalachians. Thru-hiking the trail means completing it in one year, which normally means starting in Georgia in the early spring and finishing in Maine by middle October (Baxter State Park in ME, where Mt. Katahdin is located, is closed for the winter on the first heavy snowfall, which is usually in mid-October.)

The upshot of our dinner conversation was that his daughter and her friend did great and had a wonderful time. A local newspaper did a feature on them, here.

The A.T. runs through PA, and its closest point to me is above Reading at Port Clinton - a little more than an hour's drive. I've probably day-hiked the majority of the PA trail between the Susquehanna and the Delaware River, and John and I did a memorable two-day backpack from Delaware Water Gap to Wind Gap in 2009 as training for our Grand Canyon backpack. (I posted trip reports from Day 1, Overnight, and Day 2.)

I've been asked, and have also asked myself, if I'd ever want to thru-hike the A.T. I can't say it's a burning desire. First of all, it's unrealistic. I can't just take six months off and hit the trail. And every time I've seen and talked to thru-hikers, they tend to be either recent college grads (i.e., haven't started "real life" yet and have no responsibilities) or early retirees (50's or 60's and reached a point in life where the kids are grown and they actually can take some time off.)

But even if you disregard that, I'm still not sure I want to. Everything I've heard is that a thru-hike is more a mental endurance test than a physical test. When it's poured rain for a week straight, and everything you're carrying is soaking wet, how badly do you want to continue? So I can't say that's a goal of mine - though hiking buddy Ted has stated numerous times that I will be joining him on a thru-hike one day. So we'll see.

One thing I definitely intend to do is to do more section hiking on the A.T. It runs the length of Shenandoa National Park, and I've only done a few miles of that. And it runs through Maryland near its narrowest point - just 24 miles. That would be a fun 3-day backpack to complete the A.T. in one state. I'd also like to complete the trial between the Susquehanna and the Delaware. These seem like much more realistic goals.