Thru-hikers on the AT, and at AOA

There was a recent FB post by Gary over at Appalachian Outdoors Adventures about Appalachian Trail (AT) thru-hikers; apparently he had a couple of folks in the store and they were enjoying their break in town with a stop at the store. I’ve seen a couple of hikers out on some AT sections already this year – about this time is the beginning of the peak for this part of Virginia, so I wanted to make a point of taking a look at the AT log that they keep in the store.


Now, for those who aren’t familiar with the AT, here are a few fun facts: The trail runs approximately 2,165 miles (the figure is constantly revised, as the route changes slightly from year to year for various reasons) through 14 eastern states, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. It is estimated that between 1,500 and 2,000 people attempt to thru-hike every year, and as many as 25 percent may complete the journey, but most estimates put the number at around 20 percent. There have been as many as 5,000 hikers who have completed the AT thru-hike.

I compiled that information from various sources, there is general information at the Wikipedia link below. There are a number of good books on the topic of thru-hiking, including “AWOL on the Appalachian Trail” and “A Walk in the Woods” – I may add Amazon links sometime in the future.
Sunday afternoon Tessie dog and I were making our rounds, and we made a stop at the store. Linda showed me the log and told me that it seemed like they’d already had a lot of people in this year. I made a count and found 26 so far – they may have had some that didn’t sign in, or just didn’t record the visit for whatever reason.



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The first “north bound,” or no-bo, hiker this year was “Trail Blazer” – he was at AOA on April 4. I assume he’d gotten an early start, and that he was trucking through the miles. In any case, he certainly picked an appropriate trail handle.

The log book showed that a south bound (so-bo) hiker was in on March 14, but I couldn’t make out from the entry if this was a thru-hiker or not. It was hard to figure out, since at the normal pace that hiker would have started in November or December, and I don’t think you could get through the Maine and New Hampshire sections at that time of year. So I didn’t count that entry in the total.

There were quite a few interesting posts in the book and I enjoyed reading them. There was an entry from a hiker that had left a fleece jacket along the Trail back in April – with cold days (the estimated annual “frost fee” date in Luray is May 14 (thanks, David Sours), and we are at least 1,000 feet below the trail as it winds through Shenandoah National Park) still ahead that is a needed item – who offered a reward and a description.

On Saturday this week, a couple of my Northern Virginia friends were in the store to pick up some supplies for a camping trip they were in over at GWNF. They reported running into two thru-hikers in the store during their visit. Maybe they were the very same thru-hikers who recorded being in town for “a couple of zeroes” – zeroes being zero trail mile days – and a movie, along with a hockey game down the street at Uncle Bucks.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Trail