THE STORY

The Appalachian Trail is a continuous footpath that roughly follows the crest of the Appalachian mountain range through 14 states from Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in the central Maine wilderness.

In 1922, the first mile of the trail was cut and marked in Palisades Interstate Park in New York. Fifteen years later, in August 1937, the trail was proclaimed complete when the last two stretchesthe south slope of Mt. Sugarloaf in Maine and a dense section near the Davenport Gap in Tennesseewere finally cut and marked. Over the years many sections have been relocated, particularly in the Great Smoky Mountains and Shenandoah National Park, but the total length of the trail remains a bit over 2000 miles.

The Appalachian Trail Conference, organized in 1925 when the project was barely under way, coordinated the effort to build what is today the longest marked footpath in the world. Today the Conference continues to coordinate the efforts of the organizations and individuals who maintain and preserve the Trail. Although the U.S. Department of the Interior is responsible for the administration of the Trail, volunteers still play the major role in clearing, maintaining, and "operating" the Trail.

The Appalachian Mountain system is not an unbroken range, but consists of many mountain ranges often separated by deep valleys. Some of the more notable ranges include the Great Smokies, the Blue Ridge Mountains, the Alleghenies, the Catskills, the Green Mountains, and the White Mountains.

The Trail passes through 14 eastern states. West Virginia has the least Trail mileage of any state5.2 miles with another 20.0 miles along its border with Virginiawhile Virginia boasts the longest section of trail464.7 miles. The most mountainous stretches are in Vermont and New Hampshire. The roughest stretches are in Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and the worst weather is generally thought to occur in Maine.

Myron H. Avery was the first person to walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, starting in Maine in the 1920s when the Trail was still in its formative stage and finishing the last section 14 years later in the fall of 1936. Another early hiker who walked the entire trail, again in several sections, was George W. Outer-bridge, who started in 1932 and finished in 1939.

When in 1948 Earl Shaffer set out to walk the entire Trail in one continuous trip, most people thought the task quite impossible and him foolhardy to try it. Until that time, the Trail had been in existence for some 11 years and only six or seven people had walked the entire length, each doing so in a series of relatively short hikes over a period of years.

Shaffer had served 41/2 years in the Army in World War II, most of it in the Pacific theater, and had a yearning to spend some time alone in the wilderness. He prepared himself by doing jujitsu exercises and abstaining from smoking. He carried what was considered at the time a light load in a rucksack and set out from Mt. Oglethorpe in Georgia on April 4, 1948. He carried mostly dried foods augmented by food purchased along the route.

Shaffer had ordered a complete set of guidebooks and maps, but they did not arrive in time for his trip. Thus, he relied upon the trail markers, often quite poor, his compass, and instinct to find his way. The trail was in bad condition because maintenance had been curtailed during wartime; indeed, entire sections were obliterated by nettles, poison ivy, and briars, and logging had destroyed many blazed trees and markers.

Nevertheless, with a great deal of perseverance Shaffer managed to reach Mt. Katahdin in Maine on August 5, 1948, just 124 days after setting out. He averaged 16.5 miles per day, but because of detours and leaving the trail for food and supplies, his actual average daily mileage was probably closer to 18 or 19. This is a remarkable average, even for hikers today carrying lightweight equipment on a well-marked trail.

Seventeen years later, in 1965, when he was 45, Shaffer hiked the Trail again, this time from Mt. Katahdin to Springer Mountain. He thus became the first person both to hike the Trial continuously and to hike it continuously in both directions. On his second hike, he left on July 19, 1965 (after black-fly season in Maine) and reached Springer Mountain in freezing weather on October 25, exactly 99 days later. His average daily mileage was a spectacular 20.5, a rate few hikers have exceeded since.

Another early through hiker was Gene Espy, who, at age 24 in 1951, hiked from Mt. Oglethorpe, Georgia, to Mt. Katahdin in exactly four months. Unlike some other hikers, he prepared no food caches and made no arrangements to be met anywhere along the way. Like most early hikers, Espy carried a fairly heavy load45 poundseven though he had only minimal extra clothing and equipment.

Espy is one of the few hikers who report having seen more than one or two rattlesnakes. In his diary he records killing nearly 20, the largest nearly 4 feet long. He also notes seeing four copperheads within a 20-minute period along one section of the Trail in Pennsylvania. These snake encounters made Espy a staunch proponent of carrying a strong walking stick.

Another notable early through hiker was Mrs. Emma Gatewood, better known as Grandma Gatewood, who, in the summer of 1955 at age 67, walked the entire Trail, thus becoming the sixth person and the first woman to complete it. Seventeen months later, in April 1957, she was back on the Trail again, completing it in September. Her first journey took 146 days, and her second took 142 days. Her pack of less than 20 pounds was probably the lightest ever taken on the Trail, and she rarely cooked a meal. Unlike many other hikers who chose heavy military boots, Grandma Gatewood wore lightweight men's Keds, wearing out six pairs in the course of her journey. Neither did she carry a tent, sleeping bag, nor regular backpack; instead she carried a blanket and a rain cape in a homemade shoulder bag. Also, contrary to the rules of hiking, she carried no guidebook, map, or compass.

Over the next seven years, Grandma Gatewood continued to hike various sections of the Trail, some in a north-south direction and, in 1964, when she was age 77, these sections totaled a third completion of the Trail. Moreover, she took time out in 1959 to walk the entire Oregon Trail in honor of its 100th anniversary.

The only other person to have completed the trail three times was also a woman, Dorothy Laker. In contrast to Grandma Gatewood's style, Dorothy Laker did a thorough job of planning for her hikes and carried the best equipment she could afford. It paid off, and she completed her first trip in 1957 in 161 days. Her second trip, which started on June 14, 1962, had to be aborted on October 17 at Mt. Moriah, New Hampshire. On her third hike she got an earlier start, May 4, 1964, and successfully completed the Trail 151 days later on October 2.

Nine years later, in 1971, Laker attempted to complete the last section of her second hike, setting out from Mt. Moriah on August 23, 1971. Unfortunately, she twisted her ankle badly in a boggy area near Saddleback and shortly thereafter a stretch of particularly cold, wet weather set in. She pushed on, but she fell while fording the swollen Kennebec River, ending her attempt to finish the Trail that year. Finally, the next year, more determined than ever, she finished the last 152 miles in a grueling 12-day effort.

There are nearly as many approaches to hiking the Trail as there are people who attempt to do it. Let's consider the various pros and cons of different approaches.

Shelter: There are campsites along the Trail, in most cases no more than a day's hike apart. At many of these campsites there are roofed shelters, generally three-sided with an open front. Shelter facilities are, according to the Appalachian Trail Conference, "primarily provided for the long-distance hiker who may have no other means of shelter. Persons planning short hikes are asked to consider this and plan to carry tents." All very nice in theory, but scores of hikers note that all too often the shelters are packed with Boy Scouts, day campers, or fishermen who have made a shelter their base of operations.

The obvious alternative to using trail shelters is to carry a tent, although many hikers in the fifties and sixties reported great satisfaction in discarding a heavy tent along the way by cutting it up to use as a groundcloth. However, tent design has made great strides since then, and lightweight, modestly roomy tents are now widely available. Needless to say, the larger the tent, the more it weighs, although there is something to be said for a tent large enough to accommodate both you and your pack.

Sleeping: Grandma Gatewood and some other early hikers swore by blankets, but again, the latest lightweight sleeping bags weigh very little more than a single wool blanket yet are considerably more versatile. The key questions today usually boil down to bag shape (mummyvery confining and very warm; rectangularroomy but heavy; and semi-rectangulara cross between mummy and rectangular) and insulation material (goose downwarm, lightweight, and expensiveor a synthetic materialheavier than down but cheaper and much faster to dry when it gets wet).

Many of the shelters have bedframes with cut and broken springs. These are murder on sleeping bags, not to mention uncomfortable. Hikers are well advised to carry a heavy groundcloth to protect sleeping bags from these hazards, as well as for those nights when they must sleep outside on the ground. The floors of shelters are often made from rough logs that are equally uncomfortable; hence, an air mattress or foam pad is a practical necessity.

Cooking: For the most part, the campfire is an item of nostalgia due to the scarcity of dry wood and the danger of forest fires.

Indeed, open fires are not permitted anywhere along the Trail except in fireplaces provided at designated campsites. Therefore, most people carry a small stove. The technology of stoves has also improved greatly during the last decade, and extremely lightweight units which burn a variety of fuels (white gas, propane, and butane) are now available. Some of these fuels, especially white gas, can be purchased easily along the Trail, while others can be carried in compact cylinders or fuel bottles.

Of course, some hikers dispense with cooking altogether and eat cold food on the Trail, stopping for an occasional hot meal at a restaurant or store along the way.

Food supply: The three common methods of obtaining food are buried caches, packages sent ahead and held at post offices, and purchasing needed supplies at stores along the route. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. Food caches require no time-consuming off-trail excursions. Furthermore, canned goods can be buried along with the usual dried and concentrated foodstuffs, thereby giving the hiker a substantial dinner and breakfast when he digs up a cache. Depending upon how many caches are buriedsome hikers bury as many as 50the food load carried by the hiker can be potentially very light.

Purchasing food is the cheapest method of supply, because stores stock ordinary groceries rather than expensive trail mixes. On the other hand, this method requires many off-trail excursions, some of which can be quite long, and the food carried can be relatively heavy.

Food sent to and held at post offices along the way is a compromise; the hiker can send lightweight camp-supply meals and augment them with food purchased from stores, usually found near the post office.

No matter what the method of resupply, most hikers' diets are unbalanced and quite different from what they normally eat. Almost invariably the trail diet is deficient in fruits and fresh vegetables and abundant in grains and fibers. Because he is walking all day, the hiker burns up far more calories than he would in the course of a normal day at home. All these factors mean that he is calling upon his body to make some fairly radical adjustments in a short period of time. Some people's bodies adjust better than others', but nearly everyone experiences diet-related problems to some extent.

Water: It is advisable to carry a canteen or water bag to assure a supply of potable water. In many areas along the Trail the water is unsafe for drinking, and a considerable distance may pass before potable water can be found. All water obtained from unprotected or open sources should be purified by boiling or by chemical treatment before use.

Pack: Hikers constantly debate the relative merits of the external versus internal frame pack. The external frame pack rides farther away from the back and is cooler on hot days. Sleeping bag and mattress are usually carried on the outside and can be attached to the pack frame in a way that gives optimum weight distribution. Because these items are carried on the outside, an external frame pack generally holds more, but it also weighs more.

Everything normally is put inside of an internal frame pack, although some hikers still tie a sleeping pad to the outside. Proponents say that an internal frame pack keeps a hiker's things drier and is lighter and more compact than an external frame pack.

Footwear: Boots, say some hikers, make or break the trip.

Grandma Gatewood wouldn't agree, but in this she is clearly in the minority. Probably the major debate about footwear these days is leather versus synthetics. Many hikers still swear by a heavy handcrafted pair of one-piece leather boots, while others like a synthetic blend, alone or in some combination with leather, for its ability to breathe and dry quickly.

It is rare that a pair of boots, even the best custom-made pair, will last the entire trail without needing at least new soles. New soles usually last about 800 to 1000 miles; the rocky areas of Pennsylvania and New Jersey will do in a second pair; and the mountains of New England will finish off a third.

Raingear: When it rains on the Appalachian Trail it often comes down for days or weeks at a time. Thus, no matter what kind of raingear he carries, the hiker gets wet as the water seeps under his clothes, down his neck, and into his boots. Therefore, one approach is to not carry any raingear at all and to dry off when stopping at night but not otherwise. Most people still attempt to keep partially dry and carry a poncho or rain parka, and some hikers even carry rain pants.

Hazards: Most through hikers report that the first thing non-hikers ask about is snakes. In fact, snakes avoid human contact and many hikers have walked the entire Trail without seeing a single one. Nevertheless, it is probably better to err on the side of caution, and practically every hiker carries a 1 oz. snakebite kit.

For the most part, other animals also avoid humans, except if they have been fed by people (as have some of the bears in the Great Smoky Mountain National Park) or if they have been successful in the past finding food open in packs (raccoons, porcupines, and skunks usually do). Mice, which make their homes in many of the shelters, are always a problem.

But by far the most dangerous animals are the dogs found roaming about the small towns from Georgia to Pennsylvania. Not afraid of humans, they are perhaps the worst enemies hikers face on the trip. Against curs, as well as many other animals, the best defense is to avoid them and the second defense is a heavy hiking stick.

For many hikers, the worst hazard along the Trail is the poison ivy, oak, and sumac. In some stretches it is impossible to go around the thickets of poison ivy, and the hiker who has any susceptibility at all will probably come down with a case.

Probably the most common injury is a twisted ankle. The many rock scrambles, stream crossings, and boggy areas offer ample opportunity to put a foot down on an unstable surface.

A long hike is rough on equipment, and most hikers rip, tear, and wear out socks, pants, shirts, zippers, straps, stuff sacks, tents, groundcloths, and practically everything else at an amazing rate. It is vital to carry a small sewing kit and make repairs at the first sign of a rip. Worn socks should be replaced immediately to avoid blisters, whereas other items can be replaced later.

Trail markings: In theory, from each blaze on the Trail it is possible to see the next one. In practice, it isn't so. The Trail often has long sections where there are few opportunities for orientation or checking the route. The Trail guidebooks advise hikers never to proceed more than a quarter mile (roughly five minutes of hiking) without noticing some Trail indication. The cardinal mistake is an insistence on going forward when the route seems obscure or dubious.

Major stretches of the Trail are relocated almost every year because of commercial or residential development. Thus, even the latest maps and guidebooks are invariably out of date. The hiker must remain alert to the painted blazes and, if they deviate from the guidebook, should follow the blazes in preference to the printed data. In practice, this means that he will almost inevitably get lostor at least stray from the Trailmore than once during the trip.

A decision to walk the Trail is not something to be undertaken lightly. A major physical and mental commitment is neededa commitment to being alone and independent for three to seven months; a commitment to overcoming boredom, discomfort, weather, and hazards; a commitment to forcing the body to do more than it has ever done before; and a commitment to enjoying the challenge and adventure of a lifetime.

