Reflections on the Appalachian Trail

By John Kalb | Wednesday, November 27, 2002

In order to complete a thru-hike, one needs luck, hard work, flexibility and dedication, and luck is dependent on all the others. I knew one hiker who dropped off because he fell in love. Other hikers have dropped off because of deaths in the family, and one hiker tragically died on the slopes of Mount Madison this year. One hiker has attempted a thru-hike twice, only to be forced off by broken metatarsal bones—though, in his case, much can be attributed to his lack of flexibility, as he continuously refused to pare down his pack weight and reduce his mileage despite being sixty-seven years old. However, I know a hiker who finished despite having to take a month off for hernia surgery and another who came back after an appendectomy.

Resolve will be tested in every hiker. I don't know a single hiker who went the entire trip without getting sick or banged up at least once. I had to contend with shin splints, knee problems, lousy guidebooks, and Lyme Disease (twice), among other things. Everyone hikes in cold, driving rains, ninety-five degree heat with water sources twenty miles apart, and freezing temperatures.

These difficulties take a toll. Arriving in Vernon, New Jersey, I was tired. I hadn't seen anyone all day, and I found out the next day that I had Lyme Disease. The next morning, after a night at a hostel run by an Episcopal Church in town, I felt better, but I was still having a rough time. I had met a bunch of new people, but was missing all the friends whom I had fallen behind. It was also my four months to the day on the Trail, and I was feeling like I wasn't making progress. One of the new hikers, Sonic, whom I would only see that day, and who would drop off in Massachusetts for much the same reasons that were causing my difficulty, gave me some really solid advice the next day at breakfast, which helped me through the Lyme Disease and the side-effects of the medication.

Other hikers and hostels provide the support network that has caused completion rates to skyrocket over the last few years. I saw even complete strangers offer hikers in need food and moral support on a routine basis. Many hikers who have gotten this support in the past come back to the Trail as 'Trail Angels,' leaving food at road crossings and offering logistical help. My best 'Trail Magic' experience involved a hiker named Indy, who had dropped off the Trail in Vermont due to lack of remaining time but wanted to see some of the highlights of New Hampshire and Maine. He left a cooler full of soda and candy bars in Grafton Notch in Maine for others before he hiked up Old Speck Mountain. I had a chat with him, thanking him for the food. I mentioned that I was nearly out of food, so his kindness was really a Godsend, and he immediately mentioned that he had one of his food drops in the trunk of his car, and that I was free to help myself.

For its first thousand miles or so, the Trail follows the Blue Ridge, a long chain of mountains spanning from Alabama to Pennsylvania. In most places, the Trail follows ridges, which reduce the level of difficulty except when the Trail must go into a river valley or something similar. From North Carolina through the far Southwestern part of Virginia, the Trail goes through its highest section, with long stretches above 5000 feet. In spring, despite being in the South, this section can be very cold.

In Virginia, the ridges begin to get lower. Between the Priest in Central Virginia and Mount Moosilauke, the Trail never rises above 4000 feet. Many hikers experience the Virginia Blues, as increased foliage means fewer views and the hiking becomes monotonous. Virginia has over 500 miles, or roughly a quarter of the Trail's length. Many hikers are under the mistaken impression that with the smaller mountains, the Trail will be much easier, but they forget that the Trail also dips below 1000 feet for the first time in Central Virginia.

The easiest section of the Trail starts in Duncannon, Pennsylvania. For me, this was when it began to get hot and the bugs started to get out, but the hiking was easy every day, with long days making it easy to hike long distances.

Somewhere just after Duncannon, however, the infamous Pennsylvania rocks begin to take their toll. While not as difficult as what was to come, the rocks slowed hikers down, and combined with the heat, the bugs, and the lack of water, really bothered a lot of hikers. The rocks continued about halfway through New Jersey with a brief respite until the New York border, when the Trail entered its most annoying section. West of the Hudson River in New York, there aren't any huge mountains, but the maintainers in this section route the Trail over every little pebble on these open rock faces to make it as hard as possible. Combine this with ninety-five degree heat and a lack of views caused by the surrounding trees, and you have the worst part of the Trail.

Crossing the Hudson River, the Trail gets significantly easier without losing any of its scenic value. Water also becomes less of a problem, as the trail maintainers have dug wells at many of the shelters, knowing that natural water sources are scarce and often polluted. It continues this way with the mountains getting a little higher as the Trail passes into the Berkshires through Connecticut and Massachusetts. The bugs also hit their crescendo in Massachusetts, meaning that doing anything outside a tent besides walking is nearly impossible. With Mount Greylock, the Trail's first 3000 foot mountain since Virginia, however, the Trail begins to be high enough and far enough North that the bugs begin to go away. Vermont is a beautiful state, with several large mountains with fire towers on top providing great views—and good hiking on the main ridge of the Green Mountains. After Killington, the going gets a bit tougher, as the Trail must go against the grain of the ridges to get to New Hampshire.

However, none of this prepares the hiker for the White Mountains and Southern Maine. It is not constantly difficult, as even these mountains sometimes have ridgelines, but steep ups and downs become the rule, not the exception. The hardest part of the entire Trail is the Mahoosuc Range between Gorham, NH and Andover, ME. Its crescendo is in Mahoosuc Notch, a one-mile crawl over, around, under, and through boulders that takes anywhere from one to four hours. While the Notch is the most difficult mile on the whole Trail, it serves as a crash course on dealing with difficult stretches of rock. The rest of Southern Maine is also difficult, though I found this section to be much more rewarding than the White Mountains, as I was often alone on the summits of the mountains, as opposed to the hustle and bustle of Franconia Ridge and Mount Washington. It just felt wilder.

After the Bigelow Range, the terrain was much easier, as I got to enjoy different kinds of scenic beauty, be it hearing the sound of loons on a lake at night, or walking through stands of maple at sunlight at the peak of foliage season. While there were some bumps in this section, most of it was smooth sailing until the base of Katahdin, which was the most difficult, but also the most beautiful mountain on the whole Trail. Even though the summit was up in the clouds, I was able to get a clear view from the Tableland just below. You can see forever up there.

A certain part of me didn't want to finish the hike. At the beginning of the Hundred Mile Wilderness after Monson, my energy level dropped precipitously, as something was not yet ready to come home. However, I had a deadline to meet, as I had promised friends that I would meet them at the base of Katahdin on October 12, so I was unfortunately forced to move faster than in any other section of the entire Trail.

This may have contributed to my somewhat negative perception of the Hundred. At each end of the section, a sign warns hikers that there is nowhere to get food or supplies in the section. This is false, as there are several places where one can go buy supplies, and also irresponsible, as hikers should be given all of their options for getting help in case of trouble. This wildness is also skin-deep at best. For example, while trying to get to White House Landing Wilderness Camp on the shores of Pemadumcook Lake (which was formed by a dam, not by Mother Nature), I turned onto the wrong logging road (there is only one mentioned in the guide books, while there are in fact two). The moment I got out of the Trail Corridor, I passed into an area that was clear cut in 2000. Enough florae had returned that it was not a completely barren wasteland, but it certainly did not fit the usual definition of wilderness.

Over the last several years, the Trail has been relocated out of towns in places like Gorham, New Hampshire in the name of getting the Trail off of roads. This forces hikers to hitchhike into towns. While hitchhiking into towns is something every hiker must do at some point or another during a thru-hike, forcing hikers to do it more makes little sense, as there is some inherent risk. This is done in the name of keeping it a wilderness trail, which is ridiculous in light of the fact that the AT passes within fifty miles of Washington, D.C. and thirty-five miles of New York, not to mention even closer to places like Harrisburg, PA and Roanoke, VA.

Despite all this, however, the Trail is still a wonderful adventure. While it was not such a huge life-changing experience that I thought it might be before I started, I did get a lot of good out of it and would recommend hiking it to other people. It is not for everyone, but the only way one can know is by trying. For me, it worked out nicely.

Reflections on the Appalachian Trail

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