Ask crash about hiking the Appalachian Trail

[crash]

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Do people leave care packages at spots along the way, or something like that?

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The AT is never too far from a road. You rarely have to carry more than 5 days worth of food (some exceptions to this), then you can hitch a ride to a town and load up. Also you can mail yourself boxes of food to local post offices.

[crash]

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did you run into a guy named mando?
how long was your beard?
how many hippies did you have sex with?

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Never met mando.
I shaved as often as I could. Once a week or so.
As many as I could.

[Costanza]

As a member of the wife+kids club around here, I'm seconding the recommendation to the younger unattached guys here to do something like this, whether it's hiking the AT or some other extended trip.

My sister and her husband have a cabin in the Smokies and we've gone up there with them several times. We usually drive up to Clingman's Dome which is the highest point in the Smoky Mountains. The trail goes through the park there, and if we're there at the right time of the year we usually run into some hikers. When we do, the evening's conversation usually turns to the backpacking trip I took through Europe the summer after I graduated from college. Of the 4 of us I'm the only one who did something like this and the others wish they had.

So, make some memories while you can.


For the questions:

Did you start with a group or go by yourself? If with a group, did everyone finish?
Did you run into many people who started in Maine or do most people start in Georgia?
Do you still keep in touch with anyone you met along the way?

[Senor Cardgage]

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I live in northeast Tennessee, so on a couple of local hiking trips, I've gotten a chance to meet a few people hiking the entire trail.

Seems like an awesome experience.

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It was. Where do you live? I used to live in Oak Ridge, and I have relatives in Kingsport. The trail goes right over "Rocky Top". Not sure if it was the mountain that inspired the song, but it was cool to be standing on Rocky Top. It made me think of UT-Alabama at Neyland.

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I'm in Johnson City, and my father lives in Kingsport. Not a huge fan of the culture around here, but you could hardly ask for a more beautiful place to live.

Did you ever meet people kind enough to feed you for free along the way? Those campsites must've been a great relief.

[crash]

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It made me think of UT-Alabama at Neyland.

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[censored] you Rocky Top go to hell Tennesee. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

How many miles a day did you hike? What problems did you encounter along the way?

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I started out doing around 10 or 12 miles a day, or even less (not in good shape). Toward the end I could do 18 or 20 a day.

My biggest problem early was my knees, I got tendonitis under my kneecaps. very painful, I just had to pop Advil and keep walking.

Other than that, it can get mentally tough--three weeks of rain can wear you down, for example.

Go Big Orange

[crash]

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If the OP at all interested you then buy this book. It's awesome.

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Your first sentence struck me as funny for some reason. Yeah that book is awesome.

[crash]

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As a member of the wife+kids club around here, I'm seconding the recommendation to the younger unattached guys here to do something like this, whether it's hiking the AT or some other extended trip.

My sister and her husband have a cabin in the Smokies and we've gone up there with them several times. We usually drive up to Clingman's Dome which is the highest point in the Smoky Mountains. The trail goes through the park there, and if we're there at the right time of the year we usually run into some hikers. When we do, the evening's conversation usually turns to the backpacking trip I took through Europe the summer after I graduated from college. Of the 4 of us I'm the only one who did something like this and the others wish they had.

So, make some memories while you can.


For the questions:

Did you start with a group or go by yourself? If with a group, did everyone finish?
Did you run into many people who started in Maine or do most people start in Georgia?
Do you still keep in touch with anyone you met along the way?

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I started by myself. If you go south to north, and start around March or April, there will be a lot of people around (at least until people start to drop out). I started alone, and since I'm kind of an [censored], I didn't make good friends until a month or so into it. Then I found some other [censored] and everything was cool. For the second half of the hike, I hiked with three other guys (although sometimes I would take off by myself for a few days).

Out of my early group of 10 friends, three finished. You hear completion rates of 10-20%, I think it depends on the weather.

Most people--I would guess 80% (?) start in Georgia. When I got to the new England states, I met a lot of people whio had started in Maine. It may be my fault--I readily admit I can be a prick--but the southbounders seemed to have attitude.

I still keep in touch with the three guys I finished with, it's like going to boot camp with someone.

[crash]

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I live in northeast Tennessee, so on a couple of local hiking trips, I've gotten a chance to meet a few people hiking the entire trail.

Seems like an awesome experience.

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It was. Where do you live? I used to live in Oak Ridge, and I have relatives in Kingsport. The trail goes right over "Rocky Top". Not sure if it was the mountain that inspired the song, but it was cool to be standing on Rocky Top. It made me think of UT-Alabama at Neyland.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm in Johnson City, and my father lives in Kingsport. Not a huge fan of the culture around here, but you could hardly ask for a more beautiful place to live.

Did you ever meet people kind enough to feed you for free along the way? Those campsites must've been a great relief.

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Oh yeah, lots of day campers love to hear stories and give you food. It's called "yogi-ing", as in trying to get in someone's pic-a-nic basket, although in this case they give willingly. You burst out of the woods looking like you're on the Bataan death march, the day campers take pity on you and shower you with food.

Best people to bum cigs from: bikers (motorcyclists). they're good people.

ya the tri-cities can be a little... let's just say red-necky.

[crash]

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I've always wondered why people go from south to north. Cold weather is more likely to make the last leg of the trip tougher doing it that way.

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Cold weather (most people start in March/April) and black fly season in Maine would make you want to quit.

OP, I've researched this but never done it (I've hiked maybe 100 miles of it in different places). Some questions:

Favorite part of the trail?
Most boring part?
What was the worst weather you encountered?
Did you meet other AT hikers and hike sections of the trail with them?
Most ground covered in a day?

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Favorite part: White Mountains in New Hapmshire, and Maine. I'd never been up there and the scenery was outstanding.

Most boring part was probably northern Virginia. The state is 500 miles long, and toward the end you just want to get the [censored] out of the state. Plus it's just up and down, up and down.

Since so many hikers start at the same time, there was no problem meeting other people and hiking with them if you wanted to.

Worst weather: 10 degrees in the mountains of Georgia, 8 inches of snow in Georgia, 3 weeks of rain in Virginia.

Most miles in a day: 26.5, to get into a town in Virginia to take a couple days off.

[Yeti]

crash,

Any bear encounters?