The AT

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.” – Confucius

The Appalachian Trail is the Everest of hiking trails. It is a 2,181 mile journey and to hike the entire trail, one must take approximately 5,757,840 footsteps. To try and give a little perspective of this feat, I have done a little figuring using a local landmark, Horsetooth Mountain, as my control for this explanation.

Horsetooth Mountain in Fort Collins sits at 5,400 feet in elevation and rises up to 7,256 feet at its summit. The trail to the top is approximately 2.75 miles long and 5.5 miles roundtrip. When you hike it, you climb 1,856 feet up and descend 1,856 feet down giving you a plus minus of 3,712 feet in elevation. When you hike Horsetooth, you take approximately 14,520 footsteps.

To simulate hiking the Appalachian Trail, you would have to hike Horsetooth Mountain 396.5 times. If you hiked it twice a day, it would take you 198.25 days. That many days equals 28.3 weeks or 6.6 months.
Imagine starting on April 1st and hiking Horsetooth twice a day every day for the months of: April, May, June, July, August, September, and half of October.

Some qualifying differences to mention would include not carrying a backpack of say 30 lbs. You also would be hiking the exact same trail 396.5 times. I think the biggest difference would be the sheer magnitude of the task at hand in hiking the Appalachian Trail. Imagine starting
off hiking 181 miles in say 2.5 weeks and then facing the realization that you still have 2,000 more miles to go.

If that realization doesn’t discourage you, there are other factors that may. There is the weather on the east coast consisting of anything from heat and humidity, to rain and fog, to cold and snow in the higher elevations. There are bugs including mosquitoes, flies, and ticks.
There is Poison Ivy. There are snakes. There are mice and rats in the shelters and there are leeches in the streams.

You will sleep in a tent or in an open shelter every night. You go the bathroom in outhouses, if you are lucky. Your food and drink is what you want to carry, which I guess rules out that 6-pack of beer every night sitting around the campfire.

The scenery is trees and rocks and dirt and more trees and more rocks and more dirt. Since the forest cannot be seen through these trees, you are kind of hiking in a wooded tunnel. Did I mention that you will smell bad and constantly be dirty?

It is said to cost $1.50 - $2.50 a mile to thru hike the trail. Where do unemployed people get $3,271.50 - $5,452.50 for their trip? If they do
work, how do they get 5-6 months off and still have a job to come back to?

It is also said that life is different on the trail. Really? With an itinerary consisting of: wake up, cook breakfast, break camp, walk 15 miles, stop, make camp, eat dinner, sleep, repeat 150 times, this sounds pretty
routine to me.

I am told what makes this hike so special is the things you miss. Things like taking a shower, having ice cream on a hot day, eating a cheese burger and fries, eating pizza, not smelling bad, not being dirty, not being eaten alive by bugs, and missing all that news coverage of the daily lives of the Kardashians.

I do wish people well who both attempt and complete this journey. I am just not sold on the idea, yet.