Appalachian Trail Summary

We have less than a week left of our six month journey in the United States and what an amazing journey we've had.  We spent just over five months, 155 days (138 walking days plus 17 rest days) walking/backpacking the Appalachian Trail.  A huge challenge to take on on one of the most difficult long distance trails in the world, our most ambitious 'walking holiday' yet.   We walked just under 2200 miles, 2199.4 in total.   2185.3 miles on the AT, 8.9 miles on the AT Approach Trail and 5.2 miles to get back down off mount Katahdin.  Plus loads of additional 0.1, 0.2 or 0.3 mile trips, which mount up, to and from campsites, shelters and water sources.  We were committed to it though, we were confident from the start that we would complete the trail, only illness or injury would stop us, we knew we wouldn't have a change of heart.  We really did love it on the trail and never got bored of hiking. We don't miss carrying a heavy backpack on our backs day after day though!

As far as we are aware from Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) stats we now belong to a small minority of English people, just over one hundred since 1973, who have completed an AT thru hike.  Only around 15,000 people in total worldwide, mainly Americans, have reported completing hiking the whole of the AT, both thru hikers and section hikers, since 1936.  Many more have attempted it, the success rate for anyone attempting to complete an AT thru hike averages around 25% each year.  Women make up only 25% of reported completed thru hikes.  It's slowly sinking in what a massive journey of endurance we have undertaken, such a huge achievement.

Our journey started on a mild February day and finished on a warm sunny day in July.  We were blessed with good weather for most of our journey.  We were always keeping an eye on the weather forecasts and were fortunate to be in the right place at the right time to get off trail in bad weather, which only happened on a handful of occasions.   We had, amazingly, around 110 days of dry weather - 55 warm/hot sunny days, 10 very cold sunny days, 30 days cloudy with sunny spells and 15 cloudy days.  We had five days of snow, one on a rest day, only four days hiking with snow on the ground.  We had a couple of very frosty days and only a handful of days when it fell below freezing temperature at night.  We only had about 20 days when it was damp, misty or rained, most just quick showers lasting no more than a couple of hours.  We had just four days of prolonged rain, two on trail, two rest days.  We had a few huge thunderstorms, most of these during the evening or night, it rained overnight on about 15 occasions.  Overall we were extremely lucky weatherwise.

We met loads of amazing people along the way, too many to list here (we mentioned everyone we met in our daily blogs.) Fellow AT northbound thru hikers, section hikers, day hikers, townsfolk, trail angels, trail maintenance teams etc.  Everyone was extremely friendly.  People kept asking us after our hike, did we meet any 'crazy' people? We didn't at all, everyone we met was lovely.  Hitching a ride to town was a new experience for me, Nigel had hitched before, and we were a bit wary as we'd heard a few horror stories, but we never had any bad experiences, again only really friendly helpful people.  A huge thank you to everyone we met along the way for being there, sharing and making our journey such a memorable one. Also a huge thank you to all our family, friends, Facebook and blog followers who supported us from a distance.

We made a few observations along the way.  American people are fascinated by there own state or states.  All the american thru hikers ticked off the states as they walked through them rather than miles, most when we mentioned it had no idea they'd just past the quarter, three quarter way mark etc.  We walked through 14 states in total.  We counted the states but preferred to tick of mile markers instead, every 100 miles or half, third or one fifth of the way.  All the locals we met always asked what was our favourite state? Hoping we'd say the one we were in!  We don't have a favourite state, they were all great and slightly different from each other.

Nigel's brief summary of each state:

Georgia - ups and downs
North Carolina - more ups and downs
Tennessee - ins and outs
Virginia - biggest state, how could you get blue, most trail magic
West Virginia - apart from ATC, blink and you miss it
Pennsylvania - mostly flat but the 'Rocks' prepare you for Maine tree roots!
New Jersey - more rocks and bogs included
New York - Bear Mountain - urban strange
Connecticut - posh presumptuous :) lol
Massachusetts - hard to spell
Vermont - slippery when wet
New Hampshire - hard ball, mountains take no prisoners
Maine - where the woods get wilder

Everyone asks which is the easiest part of the trail - none of it!  If it gets easier you walk bigger miles so it still makes it a long/hard day.

We stayed in an assortment of accommodation.  Our tent, shelters, hostels, bunkrooms, garages, motels and hotels, all of varying standards. On trail we preferred our tent to the shelters.  In towns we preferred the privacy of hotels/motels/private  rooms to shared hostels/bunkrooms.  Our favourite three AT hostels though we're Aquone Hiker Lodge, Hiker Inn, Damascus and Bearded Woods Bunk & Dine.  Our worst 'The Doyle', Duncannon.

We saw the forests and wildlife come to life.  The first couple of months the forest was very dull and brown, bare winter trees and dead leaf litter covering the ground.  After a couple of months though Spring arrived and it was amazing seeing the changes in the forest, the spring flowers gradually growing and blossoming and the trees turning leafy green.  As the weather warmed we saw more wildlife too.  We eventually saw a bear in Vermont and moose in Maine.  There were plenty of white tailed deer, wild turkeys, grouse, squirrels, chipmunks, frogs, snakes (we saw no venomous ones) porcupines, turtles, lizards, salamanders and lots of birds.  We became so familiar with the sounds of the forest, especially the bird song.

We were extremely pleased with our gear choice for the trail (see early blog post Dec 2013 'Gear List').  Tent, packs, cooking set, sleeping bag system etc. were all spot on for the trip, we didn't swop or change anything.  Our clothing choice too worked well, bouncing on our winter gear/clothes to save weight when no longer needed.  Apart from five days I wore the same pair of boots for the whole trail, my trusty leather Zamberlans which have been sent home as a trail momento.  Nigel got through three pairs of trail shoes.

We were lucky and had no major health issues on the trail.  We both had bouts of vomiting and diarrhoea that knocked us off trail for three days plus my stomach 'alien' during the 100 mile wilderness.  Nigel had a short bout of monkey butt. I had niggly knees for a few weeks and Nigel sore heals briefly, knee supports and new insoles cured them and we only got a couple of blisters each. 

Everyone hikes their own hike and has different ways of hiking the trail.  For us we had said all along our thru hike was to be a continuous, unsupported backpacking journey.  Continuous meaning going in one continuous direction - south to north, NOBO (northbound), no skipping sections and going back or hiking some sections southbound.  Nigel did go SOBO (southbound) over the bridge at NOC to get to the bar!
Unsupported meaning no help from a third party whilst hiking the trail e.g. slackpacking, a service many hostels provide. Help getting to and from towns excluded.  We did slackpack twice, first from North Woodstock where we left our gear in our hotel room as we were returning to the same hotel that night and summiting Mount Katahdin where again we had to return to the same start location.

We stayed true to our journey, hiked our own hike and had an amazing unforgettable adventure.

A few more stats:
-155 days in total completing the trail.
-138 walking days.
-17 rest days = 15 zero days (including two double zero days and 3 sickness days ), 4 Nero days (less than 8 miles in a day).
-Average miles per day = 15.94.
-biggest mileage day 25.6
-shortest mileage day 1.5
-26 days walking 20+ miles
-17 days walking 10 miles or less
-2 very bad mosquito days!