Appalachian Trail

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The Appalachian National Scenic Trail, generally known as the Appalachian Trail or simply The A.T., is a 2,174 mile (3500 km) marked hiking trail in the eastern United States, extending between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. Along the way, the trail also passes through the states of North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire.

The International Appalachian Trail is a 675-mile (1,100 km) extension, running north from Maine into New Brunswick and Quebec. It is actually a separate trail, not an official extension of the Appalachian Trail. An extension of the International Appalachian Trail, to Newfoundland, is still under construction.

The Trail

The trail is currently protected along more than 99 percent of its course by federal or state ownership of the land or by right-of-way. Annually, more than 4,000 volunteers contribute over 175,000 hours of effort on the Appalachian Trail, an effort coordinated largely by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) organization.

In the course of its journey, the trail follows the ridgeline of the Appalachian Mountains, crossing many of its highest peaks, and running, with only a few exceptions, almost continuously through wilderness.

Marking

Throughout its entire length, the AT is marked by 2 by 6 inch (5 by 15 cm) white paint blazes. Side trails to shelters, viewpoints and parking areas use similarly-shaped blue blazes.

In past years some sections of the trail also used yellow metal diamond markers with the AT logo, but these have all been removed.

Hiking

Trail hikers who complete the entire trail in a single season are termed "thru-hikers"; those who traverse the trail during a series of separate trips are known as "section-hikers." Those heading from Georgia to Maine, are termed "north-bounders" while those heading in the opposite direction are termed "south-bounders." Northbound is the direction in which the whole route is most often attempted. Many hikers will start out in early spring and follow the warm weather as it progresses northward. Part of hiker subculture includes making colorful entries in log books at trail shelters, signed under trail names adopted by the hikers.

There are many informal terms that classify people who are attempting to complete a thru hike; however, the following three are most commonly used. A thru-hiker who is considered to be a "purist" will never deviate from the trail. This type of hiker will not skip any miles and will not travel on any side trails as a means to further progress in their attempt at a thru-hike. This type of hiker will only travel on the official Appalachian Trail. A "Blue Blazer" is a thru-hiker who makes use of side trails (which often cut off sections of the actual AT) and are appropriately marked by blue blazes as opposed to the traditional white ones. Finally, someone who is referred to as a "Yellow Blazer" has reverted to hitch hiking as a means to progress in their thru-hike. This last term is somewhat slang in nature, but it refers to the fact that the dividing lines on roads are painted in yellow, thus the term Yellow Blazer is appropriate.

Completion of the trail generally requires five to seven months, although some have done it in as little as 3 months. The trail's rugged terrain and cold weather conditions during the spring and fall, make through-hiking an extremely demanding experience. Only about 20% of those who make the attempt actually succeed in completing the entire trail.

Nearly all of the trail is also open to local use, although there are some rules and regulations that favor "thru-hikers"; some believe that the emphasis on hiking the entire length of the trail is misplaced.

Accommodations

Throughout the length of the trail there are various free shelters available for hikers. The shelters are generally three-wall structures often with a wooden floor. Some shelters are much more complex in structure; however, for the most part function opposed to form is the focus in their construction. There is no official distance that the shelters are spaced, but the general idea is to keep near water sources and about a day's hike apart.

Trail Towns

The trail crosses many roads, and thus it provides ample opportunity for hikers to hitchhike into town in order to resupply on food and various other items. Many trail towns are accustomed to having hikers passing through, and thus many have various hostels and hiker-oriented accommodations. Some of the most well-known trail towns are Monson, Maine; Damascus, Virginia; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; and Hot Springs, North Carolina.

States Included

Georgia

File:Southterm.jpg

A hiker signs the register on Springer Mountain

Georgia has 75 miles (120 k) of the Trail [1], including the southern terminus at Springer Mountain (3280 feet / 992 m). An 8 mile (12 k) approach trail (not part of the AT) begins at the Amicalola Falls State Park visitor center. The approach trail is often littered with items cast aside by overburdened hikers unprepared for the difficulties of the initial hike. At 4,461 feet, Blood Mountain is the highest point on the trail in Georgia.

North Carolina

North Carolina has 88 miles (142 k) of the Trail [2], not including 200+ miles (325 k) along the Tennessee Border. Altitude ranges from 1,725 to 5,498 feet (525 m to 1676 m).

Tennessee

Tennessee has 293 miles (472 k) of the Trail [3], including 200+ miles along or near the North Carolina Border. The section that runs just below the summit of Clingmans Dome in Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the highest point on the Trail at 6625 feet (2019 m).

Virginia

Virginia has 550 miles (885 k) miles of the Trail [4], including 20+ miles along the West Virginia border. Some consider this to be the wettest, most challenging part of the hike for northbound hikers because of the spring thaw. On average, it rains 20 out of 30 days during the spring. Substantial portions closely parallel the Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

West Virginia

West Virginia has 4 miles (6 k) of the Trail [5], not including 20+ miles along the Virginia border. Here the Trail passes through the town of Harpers Ferry, home to the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC).

Maryland

Maryland has 41 miles (66 k) of the Trail, Elevation: 230—1,880 feet [6]. This section is great for three- or four-day trips, is easy by A.T. standards, and is a good place to find out if you're ready for more rugged parts of the Trail. You are required to stay at designated shelters and campsites.

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania has 229 miles (369 k) of the Trail [7]. In Pennsylvania, the trail extends east-southeast from north of Harrisburg to the Delaware Water Gap. The first forty miles going north is a walk in the park compared to the rest. North (west) of the Schuylkill River. The Trail runs along the top of the Blue Mountain ridge and virtually separates Southern Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania and Berks County, Pennsylvania south of Summit Station, Pennsylvania.

Just before entering New Jersey, the Blue Mountain ridge becomes the Kittatinny Ridge. Pennsylvania is infamous among thru-hikers for having more long stretches of rocky trail than any other state.

New Jersey

New Jersey is home to 72 miles (116 k) of the Trail [8]. More than half of it is along the top of Kittatinny Ridge at the northwestern corner of the state. The Trail enters New Jersey from the South on a pedestrian walkway along the I-80 bridge over the Delaware River, ascends from the Delaware Water Gap to the top of Kittatinny Ridge in Worthington State Forest, passes Sunfish Pond (right), continues through Stokes State Forest and eventually reaches High Point State Park, highest peak in New Jersey (a side trail is required to reach the actual peak). It then turns in a southeastern direction along the New York New Jersey border for about 30 miles (48 k), passing over long sections of boardwalk bridges over marshy land, then entering Wawayanda State Park and then the Abraham Hewitt State Forest just before entering New York near Greenwood Lake.

Black bear activity along the Trail in New Jersey increased rapidly starting in 2001. In August 2005 a teenage hiker sleeping at Mashipacong Shelter was awakened by a bear biting his leg. The bear was later identified and killed by authorities (New Jersey Herald More complete account). Metal bear boxes are in place at all New Jersey shelters.

New York

New York's 88 miles (142 k) of Trail [9] contain very little elevation change compared to other states. From south to north, the Trail summits many small mountains under 1,400 feet in elevation, its highest point in New York being Prospect Rock at 1,433 ft., and only 0.5 miles from the New Jersey State Line. It continues north, climbing Fitzgerald Falls, passing through Sterling Forest, and then entering Harriman State Park and Bear Mountain State Park. It crosses the Hudson River on the Bear Mountain Bridge, the lowest point on the entire Appalachian Trail (124 feet / 38 m), then passes through Fahnestock State Park, and continues northeast until it enters Connecticut via the Pawling Nature Reserve. The section of the trail that passes through Harriman/Bear Mt. State Park is the oldest section of the trail, completed in 1923.

Connecticut

The 52 miles (84 k) of Trail usually described as in Connecticut [10] lie almost entirely along the ridges to the west above the Housatonic River Valley.

The Schaghticoke Mountain leg of six miles (ten km) beginning and ending at road crossings in Kent (namely with the west-bank river road near Bulls Bridge and state route 341), has several distinctions, beyond being the bulk of one of three "Best Backpacking Spot[s] In Connecticut" cited in Backpacker magazine in October 2001.

First, this portion is usually described as if continuously in the state, but actually passes into New York State for nearly two miles (3 km.) to reach a maximum distance of about one-third mile (.6 km) west of the state line. This portion meets neither roads nor maintained trails in New York, is in practice accessed only via portions of the Trail that are actually in Connecticut, and is maintained by the Connecticut chapter of the AMC (rather than the New York/New Jersey one).

Second, at the northern end of that isolated New York segment, the state line is also the western boundary of a 480-acre Connecticut reservation inhabited by 11 Schaghticoke Indians. Inside it, the AT roughly parallels its northern boundary, crossing back outside it after four-tenths mile (.7 km). (The Trail's association with the reservation has another wrinkle: continuing roughly east, it approaches that northern boundary again, as it joins, and turns away northward to follow, the course of what is probably the abandoned northern dead-end portion of a former road. The remainder of that former road course (its origin to the south) is probably what is now mapped, within the reservation, as one-third mile (.5 km) of highway-connected trail at the south end, and .2 mile (.3 km) of otherwise isolated road in the middle.)

In light of the routing through the reservation, the ATC and National Park Service began efforts in the early 1980s to acquire land to the north that would provide for a federally owned route avoiding the reservation's current recognized boundaries. In 2000, the recognized leadership of the reservation announced exclusion of hikers from the reservation portion of the AT for a period of four days, and the ATC temporarily rerouted the trail onto four miles (seven km) of roads in place of the entire six miles (ten km) of trail, before the scheduled closure was cancelled. The acquisition plans are also complicated by possibly illegal (though in either case not necessarily legally remediable) sales of reservation land in the 18th and 19th centuries, that might at least include some of the proposed acquisition.

Third, this leg was officially and temporarily rerouted again in the early 2000s, as the result of a fire in both states that was fought with earth-moving equipment. The trailbed south of the summit faced erosion from destruction of logs used for side-hilling, and of vegetation and organic soil adjacent to it; reconstruction was a major Connecticut-AT trail-maintenance effort.

The trail passes within one mile of the business district of Kent, a popular resupply point for long-distance hikers. In the town of Salisbury (which occupies the northwestern corner of the state), it skirts the town center before summitting Bear Mountain, the highest peak in Connecticut at 2,316 feet, descending, and entering Massachusetts. (The state's highest point, on the shoulder of Mount Frisell at the Massachusetts line, lies about 1.5 miles (2 km) off the AT, as does the junction of those two states with New York. Such a side-trip is on the order of 4 miles long and entails about 1300 vertical feet of climbing (6 km and 400 m).)

Massachusetts

Massachusetts has 90 miles (145 k) of Trail [11]. This entire section of trail is in western Massachusetts and specifically is within Berkshire County. It summits the highest peak in the Southern Berkshires, Mount Everett (2,602 ft.), then descends to the Housatonic River Valley and skirts the town of Great Barrington. The Trail passes directly through the towns of Dalton and Cheshire, and summits the highest point in the state at 3,491 feet, Mount Greylock. It then quickly descends to the valley within 2 miles of both North Adams and Williamstown, before ascending again to the Vermont state line.

Vermont

Vermont has 150 miles (241 k) of the Trail [12]. Upon entering Vermont, the Trail coincides with the southernmost sections of the generally north-/south-oriented Long Trail (which is subject to a request by its maintainers to protect it in its most vulnerable part of the year by forgoing spring hiking). It follows the ridge of the southern Green Mountains, summiting such notable peaks as Stratton Mountain, Glastenbury Mountain and Killington Peak. After parting ways with the Long Trail at Maine Junction, the AT turns in a more eastward direction, crossing the White River, passing through Norwich, and entering Hanover, New Hampshire as it crosses the Connecticut River.

New Hampshire

New Hampshire has 161 miles (259 k) of the Trail [13]. The New Hampshire AT is nearly all within the White Mountain National Forest. For northbound thru-hikers, it is the beginning of the main challenges that go beyond enduring distance and time: in New Hampshire and Maine, rough or steep ground are more frequent and alpine conditions are found near summits and along ridges. The trail reaches more than half of the four-thousand footers of New Hampshire, including Mount Washington, the highest point of the AT north of Tennessee. A series of comfortable huts is maintained along parts of the NH trail by the Appalachian Mountain Club.

Maine

The 281 miles (452 k) of the Trail in Maine are particularly difficult [14]. More moose are seen by hikers in this state than any other on the Trail.

The western section includes the mile-long boulder scramble of Mahoosuc Notch, often called the Trail's hardest mile.

The central Maine section crosses of the Kennebec River at a point where it is 70 yards wide, the widest unbridged river along the Trail. Fording the river is unsafe due to swift and powerful current and the unannounced release of water from upstream hydroelectric facilities. The Maine Appalachian Trail Club offers a canoe ferry ride across the river during peak hiking season. Although there are dozens of river and stream fords on the Maine section of the trail, this is the only one that requires a boat crossing.

The most isolated portion in the state (and arguably on the entire trail) is known as the "100-Mile Wilderness." This section heads east-northeast from the town of Monson and ends outside Baxter State Park just south of Abol Bridge.

The park closes to camping from October 15 to May 15 each year. Park management strongly discourages thru-hiking within the park before May 31 or after October 15 [15].

History

The trail was originally conceived by Benton MacKaye, a forester who wrote his original plan shortly after the death of his wife in 1921. MacKaye's utopian idea detailed a grand trail that would connect a series of farms and wilderness work/study camps for city-dwellers. In 1922, at the suggestion of Major William A. Welch, director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, his idea was publicized by Raymond H. Torrey with a story in the New York Evening Post under a full page banner headline reading "A Great Trail from Maine to Georgia!"; the idea was quickly adopted by the new Palisades Interstate Park Trail Conference as their main project.

On October 7, 1923, the first section of the trail, from Bear Mountain west through Harriman State Park to Arden, New York, was opened by groups of enthusiastic volunteers. To maintain forward momentum, MacKaye called for a two-day Appalachian Trail conference to be held in March of 1925 in Washington, D.C. This resulted in the formation of the Appalachian Trail Conference organization, though little progress was made on the trail for several years.

At the end of the 1920s and beginning of the 1930s, a retired judge named Arthur Perkins and his younger associate Myron H. Avery took up the cause. Avery, who soon took over the ATC, adopted the more practical goal of building a simple hiking trail. He and MacKaye clashed over the ATC's response to a major commercial development along the trail's path; MacKaye left the organization, while Avery was willing to simply reroute the trail.

The trail was first walked end-to-end the year before it was completed, in 1936, by Myron Avery, though not as a thru-hike. In August of 1937, the trail was completed to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, and the ATC shifted its focus toward protecting the trail lands and mapping the trail for hikers. From 1938 to the end of World War II, the trail suffered a series of natural and man-made setbacks. At the end of the war, the damage to the trail was repaired.

In 1948, Earl Shaffer of York, Pennsylvania brought a great deal of attention to the project by completing the first documented thru-hike. But in 1994, a story appeared in the Appalachian Trailway News describing a 121-day Maine to Georgia thru-hike in 1936 by six Boy Scouts from the Bronx [16]. The story has been accepted by ALDHA [17], though some doubt has also been expressed (See [18], p. 4).

In the 1960s, the ATC made real progress toward protecting the trail from development, thanks to a number of sympathetic politicians and officials. The "National Trails System Act" of 1968, paved the way for a series of national scenic trails within the national park and national forest systems. Trail volunteers worked with the National Park Service to map a permanent route for the trail, and by 1971 a permanent route had been marked (though minor changes continue to this day). By the close of the 20th century, the Park Service had completed the purchase of all but a few miles of the trail's span.

Thru-hiking information

The A.T.C.'s official Appalachian Trail guide is the Thru-Hikers Companion, compiled by volunteers of the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association (ALDHA) (available at Aldha.org). (available at AppalachianTrail.org) Also available from the ATC is the Official AT Databook, an annually updated compilation of trail mileages, water sources, road crossings, shelter locations, etc. The 2006 DataBook is the 28th annual edition, and is rightly considered indispensable by AT hikers. Also available through the A.T.C. are individual State guidebooks and map sets.

Another guide book to the A.T. is the "Thru-Hiker's Handbook" by Dan "Wingfoot" Bruce and published by the Center for Appalachian Trail Studies (available at TrailPlace.com).

Appalachian Trail literature

Scores of books about the trail have been published by thru-hikers and others. The first thru-hiker, Earl Shaffer, wrote a wonderful account of his journey titled "Walking With Spring"; few subsequent books about the A.T. have matched it. Larry Luxenberg published Walking the Appalachian Trail, a collection of interviews with thru-hikers. Adrienne Hall's book, A Journey North, published in 2001, discussed the particulars of being a female thru-hiker. In 1998 Bill Bryson described his attempts at walking the trail in his book A Walk in the Woods. It is a less-than-serious view of the trail, from a less-than-fit person's perspective.

External links