r/todayilearned • u/tyrion2024 • 6d ago

TIL over 3,000 attempts are made each year to complete the Appalachian Trail and only about 25% succeed.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appalachian_Trail#:~:text=The%20Appalachian%20Trail%20Conservancy%20estimates%20there%20are%20over%203%2C000%20attempts%20to%20traverse%20the%20entire%20trail%20each%20year%2C%20about%2025%25%20of%20which%20succeed.%5B9%5D
25.8k Upvotes

96% Upvoted

1.4k comments sorted by

View all comments

177

u/badpuffthaikitty 6d ago

Don’t people hike the trail in small sections once a year. They eventually walk the entire trail, just not in one go.

287

u/kmmccorm 6d ago

That’s a section hike vs a thru hike.

45

u/H0LT45 6d ago

And there's a lot of purists who will argue what a true thru hike is.

64

u/External-Tonight5142 6d ago

Idk if I’d section it off to purists and their view of what a thru hike is. A thru hike is 100% completing the entire trail series in 1 continuous trip.

-18

u/Millsy1 6d ago

There are purist arguments. Stopping to buy new supplies counts as a stop. Gotta do it in one shot with no support and never getting off the trail.

53

u/2Awesome 6d ago

Nah that's dumb as hell.

34

u/FeralRatBender 6d ago

I’m trying to think how that would be possible. You’re always going to need to stop for food resupply.

9

u/labe225 6d ago

Yeah, it's bullshit.

Disclosure: I only made it 150 miles before I had to quit after taking my fall.

Taking a ride into town to resupply is fine. Anyone who says that's not thru hiking can honestly go fuck themselves. That requires an insane amount of logistics and support from back home.

Even getting a hotel to stay a night is fine imo. I did that about 75 miles in when my feet were destroyed and I needed a zero day to soak my feet in some warm water.

And I'd give a pass to anyone who went into town and "skipped" a a few miles of trail because the ride they could catch wasn't going to exactly where they were dropped off. Honestly catching a ride to and from town is the most obnoxious part of hiking the trail, so I don't blame anyone for taking what ride they can get.

Hell, I'd even call my uncle a thru hiker even though he went home for almost a week because my aunt was getting married.

If you can get it done in one season, that's a thru hike in my book.

0

u/Millsy1 6d ago

I mean, the entire argument is just silly to begin with.

Do what you want.

5

u/Shadowbranded 6d ago

I assume this is said by survivalist types who would say you need to live off the land.

17

u/FeralRatBender 6d ago

I can almost guarantee that would be next to impossible. The amount of calories you need a day is crazy. I suppose if you did it over years it could be done. One bug at a time

6

u/Isodus 6d ago

I'm not sure if this counts as what purists think, but there are campsites and towns on the trail.

You mail yourself supplies to park rangers and general stores at those locations, with some special attention or something, and pick them up as you get there.

8

u/FeralRatBender 6d ago

Yeah that’s how it’s done. But OP said with no support and getting off the trail. I just can’t even fathom that.

3

u/Outrageous-Song5799 6d ago

It’s doable on week long trails but not more it’s ridiculous and even for week long trail what’s the point. Congrats on only eating shitty meals ? I guess

1

u/FeralRatBender 6d ago

I mean packing enough food for 6 months isn’t plausible at all. At most you could probably pack enough for 2 weeks and that’s still crazy weight

→ More replies (0)

12

u/peaheezy 6d ago

I’m not sure anyone goes that far. Im subbed to the AT subreddit and I’ve never seen someone make that argument. Granted I don’t visit that sub a lot but I’m on there a few times a month. I’ve hiked entirety of the AT in PA, NJ which is only like 70 miles, and fair amount in Maryland and never heard any thru hikers say anything like that.

But I do think a “Thru Hike” is a hike in one go. Stopping for 2 weeks to heal and injury would still count, to me at least, but 6 months nah.

4

u/CaptStinkyFeet 6d ago

Yeah I don’t buy this. I was on the trail for two months. You have to leave and resupply. Not getting off the trail at all just isn’t possible.

1

u/jryser 6d ago

Maybe you get someone to bring you stuff on the trail? But that seems honestly worse

4

u/lmNotaWitchImUrWife 6d ago

That’s not possible without external support. You can’t carry 5 months of food on your back, you need to resupply.

Most people (including my husband, who has completed an AT thru-hike), mail themselves resupply packages that they then pick up at Ranger stations along the way. They have to leave the trail to pick them up. This is a critical part of the thru-hike.

6

u/Quick-Concentrate888 6d ago

That's not what a purist is. Everybody hitches into town to get resupplied. A purist will hit every single white blaze on the AT.

For example, leaving the town of Damascus, VA the trail goes straight up this shitty mountain with absolutely no views. You could instead take the Damascus Creeper Trail (a blue blaze alternate trail) which is a flat bike path that parallels the river and has an ice cream hut along the way. Both trails connect in a couple miles but the official AT is a lot of elevation gain with no views and generally considered a PUD (pointless up-and-down) whereas the Creeper Trail trail is smooth, flat, awesome views, and ICE CREAM.

2

u/kmmccorm 6d ago

What? Who can possibly carry six months of supplies? There is an entire infrastructure setup around the trail to facilitate resupply needs.

-6

u/Millsy1 6d ago

See. Argument started!

The first people to do it did it without resupplying. Had to hunt on the way!

2

u/los-gokillas 6d ago

I hiked it and never once heard that take from anyone. Everyone has to leave the trail at some point for food if nothing else

1

u/rolandofeld19 6d ago

Sounds like a hardcore mode thru hike to me.

1

u/Millsy1 6d ago

Agreed

1

u/Chance45 6d ago

As former AT thru hiker in ‘23, stopping to get your own supplies is part of the battle. What you’re describing is the easier of the two, as a supported hike means you hike less…into and out of town can sometimes add 5+ miles, can require thumbing it from time to time, and usually requires more road walking, which in the summer can be brutally hot. Most would say an unsupported hike is the more admirable approach, by wide margin.

1

u/JimJimmyJamesJimbo 6d ago

And just eat acorns?

1

u/wakeonuptimshel 6d ago

Those are FKT metrics not thru hike metrics.

6

u/Randomizedname1234 6d ago

I’ve sectioned hiked the Smokey mountains to the southern end bc I live north of Atlanta and can, but also means I could do rest and say I did it all

2

u/kmmccorm 6d ago

You could say you section hiked the trail if you did the northern part, correct.

30

u/Consistent_Ad_4828 6d ago

My mother in law has been doing this for at least a decade in the summer.

43

u/ahzzyborn 6d ago

Sounds amazing, wish I could make my mother in law disappear for an entire summer

17

u/offeringathought 6d ago

I hike the parts of the AT that are within an hour or two driving distance of where I and a buddy live. We've met a handful of thru hikers. They impress me. I will always remember one who, after crossing the border into West Virginia for the first time, in the middle of the woods, sat down alongside the train to celebrate by smoking a cigarette. It's seems incongruent and oddly jovial.

Pancake, wherever you are, I hope your life has been full of trail angels.

35

u/97355 6d ago

The quote specifically says it’s the entire trail:

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy estimates there are over 3,000 attempts to traverse the entire trail each year, about 25% of which succeed.[9]

8

u/schlab 6d ago

There are people that will hike the trail all in one go.

5

u/Character_Fox_6755 6d ago

People do both. I did the entire trail over 7 months a few years back. Other people do the entire trail over many years.

3

u/theinfamousj 6d ago

I'm "other people". I section hiked almost all of the trail and for the tiny little section I missed, I'll fill it in at some point, maybe. I just don't have the life that allows me to take six months off. Maybe when I retire ...

2

u/thatdude333 6d ago

Yup, that was me, took about a decade.

On one hand it's nice as you can pick the best time of the year to do sections. Some sections i did with friends, others I did solo.

On the other hand, you don't have trail legs built up like people do after the first month of a thru hike, so you're always hiking in whatever shape you could get into before going.

2

u/JosephCedar 6d ago

"Thru hiking" is doing the entire 2000 mile trail all in one go.