The Appalachian Trail is about a 2,200 mile trail that traverses 14 states from Mt. Springer in northern Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. It is the longest hiking only footpath in the world with a total elevation gain/loss that is equivalent to hiking to the top of Mt. Everest and back down, 14 times. Before diving into all the logistics that are important to know, its worth having the discussion to why you want to step away from society for 4-6 months to walk in the woods. It’s also worth noting that I do not say walk in the woods lightly. Hiking the Appalachian Trail is not a vacation, and it is not fun (most of the time), it will undoubtably be the hardest thing you will have ever attempted. There is a reason only 25% of people who attempt to thru-hike this trail make it. It takes grit, endurance, a strong mind and above all a reason for being out there. Thru-hiking is a full time job, you will wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, pack up camp, walk for 8-12 hours, set up camp, eat dinner (which will NEVER satisfy you), doing the whole thing again the next day. There will be days where you will have no choice to put on wet socks, wet underwear, wet pants, wet shirt, wet shoes, get out into the rain, pack up your wet tent and trudge 20 miles onward on a trail that is closer to a stream now. There will be sections of the trail that you cannot pause or you will be eaten alive by mosquitos and black flies. There are streams that you will have to cross that will make you want to turn around. There are mountains you will have to descend that will make you fearful for your life. There are climbs that you will have to make that will seemingly never end.
This isn’t meant to scare you off but why do you want to thru-hike? Why do you want to leave everything you are familiar with to walk up mountains just to come down the other side? Why do you want to put your body and mind through one of the most physically and mentally demanding challenges that a person can do? For me, I don’t think I really ever had a choice, from the moment I found out about the trail when I was 16 my life was forever changed. I didn’t know what I wanted to do after high school but it sure as hell wasn’t what the rest of the world was doing and what society tells most young people to do. I wanted more out of life than that, and I wanted to see what I was capable of. I wanted to take a break learning in a classroom and learn from the world. From the day I found out about the trail, I began researching like a mad women, every thing I read made me fall more and more in love with the idea. I then started researching ways to make it happen, that’s when I stumbled upon the concept of a gap year, taking a year off before going to university (a really popular thing in Europe). Every bone in my body screamed that this was it, yet I was still torn between what everyone expected of me and what my heart told me to do. There isn’t a golden answer that will magically allow you to complete the trail, and I am not one to say what a wrong reason would be. However, I will say that the trail isn’t a place you go to run from your problems, it is where you go to face your problems, head on. The trail isn’t the place where you go to find out what you’re going to do with your life, it’s the place you go to learn how to be okay with not knowing. If your intentions are pure and you truly want it with all of your heart, you will get there.
I began my hike when I was 18 years old, alone, with 0 backpacking experience. I had spent one night previous to this in the woods, going on my one and only “practice” hike before taking off for 5 months. My hike was supposed to be 7ish miles to a campsite and then another 10 out back to my car in the morning. With a few wrong turns, my first day ended up being around 15-20 miles and with me posting up camp in the dark with no water a little ways off from the trail. I ate my lunch for dinner and went to bed, never having gotten to practice using my brand new jetboil before starting my hike. I woke up the next morning to find out that I was only a few hundred yards away from the campsite and water. There was a couple that I had passed the day before at the campsite and I stopped to chat with them and share my misfortunes. As it happened to be they were also planning on hiking the AT, but the following year. This was one of the many omens reassuring the path that I was about to take. They made me some coffee and we chatted for a bit before I bid them farewell. I then made about 5 more wrong turns, added about 5 miles to the 10 I had left, but eventually made it back to my car. Nothing really went the way I had intended but I had plenty of food and if I was only going to practice once, this was the best practice hike I could have asked for. The point to this story is that the only reason I thought I could thru-hike the Appalachian Trail with 0 backpacking experience is because I read one blog post from a chic saying the same thing. I thought hey, if she can do it, so can I! After all, we have been walking since we were wee lads, it is just one foot in front of the other, over and over and over again. Quite simple really. If there’s one thing we are good at as humans, it is adapting to our surroundings, it is hardwired in most of us. You don’t need to be a professional mountain climber, you don’t even need to know how to light your jetboil, you just need to be willing to go with the flow and bend and mold to whatever is required.
Thru-hiking is tough, but it is also a transformative experience. Everything you go through, everything you encounter, everyone you meet , and every step you take will ultimately transform your life and turn everything you think you know upside down. The world is a very large and very beautiful place and when you are living among it, sleeping under the stars, and spending every waking moment breathing the fresh air, that becomes increasingly clearer. Thru-hiking puts a lot into perspective, like how small and insignificant most of our problems really are. Being in the woods for extended periods of time is simply good for the soul, the mind, and for the body. When you endeavor on a long hike such as this, everything that you think you are gets stripped away. Your occupation doesn’t matter, where you’re from doesn’t matter, even your name doesn’t matter (you exchange it for what is called a “trail name”). You are left with the core of your existence and who you really are without all the noise and labels that we are so accustomed to. This all leads to having authentic conversations with your fellow humans and making genuine connections. Thru-hiking forces you to live in the present moment and to revert to life in it’s simplest form. Traveling is amazing, but traveling with everything you need on your back and propelling yourself forward by your own means is the most liberating thing that I have yet to experience in this life. It is the ultimate form of freedom that I wish everyone could experience at least once in their life.
So, you still wanna thru-hike the Appalachian Trail? The first step is committing to your desire! Start telling everyone, manifest it into a reality. Check out my next post on a simplified 4-step process to planning a thru-hike!
Follow your dreams, they know where to go! (saw this on a t-shirt)
Peace & love,
-Lioness
