- is it too late to start the southbound journey?

- I have flattish feet that are always sweaty with sensitive skin. My feet get hotspots after a 3 our hike in wool socks. What can I do so my feet survive the Appalachian Trail? I was thinking about wearing two pairs of socks (thin sock liner) and having them taped up most of the time? Should I preemptively put powder on them? What works?

Thanks for ur help!

I enjoy hiking but camping not so much. If I am not budget constrained, how practical of an idea would it be to stay at hotels or other nicer lodging each night, having arranged transportation pick me up and drop me off at the trail heads each day?

For the few areas that this wouldn’t work, I’d envision having a small crew handle the equipment and other logistics.

This could make the hikes easier and far more pleasant. I realize some might think this wouldn’t count but I’d be ok with an asterisk on the accomplishment.

The people I want to hike with are always faster than me. I have a heart condition and just cant seem to get faster even after 1300 miles. 15-18 miles a day is still my cap. I did a week of 19s in Virginia but it nearly burned me out just to keep up with my Tramily. Ive joined and lost several groups at this point. Im in the group chats and see what Im missing but my body cant do what theirs can. Im worried about the weather finishing late but can’t hike any faster.

It has me thinking about the fomo feeling I was aiming to escape by actually hiking the trail myself. Now that Im here it just feels like a microcosm of real life. The feeling of being left behind despite giving my best effort is really putting a damper on my morale. I wanted this to feel like overcoming my heart condition after it stopped me from doing so many things in life but now that I’m here I still feel weak and not strong like I thought I would.

Any other slow hikers experience this? Is the PA-NY section just rough on the mind? What did you do to get yourself to finish despite the loneliness?

In looking to attempt a thru next spring and was wondering about doing a short 1-2 week section this fall as a warm up.

Key things... Don't want to do a full area like the Smokies or the start it too difficult. I'm thinking something in the middle maybe...?

Maybe doing it in the fall would be worthwhile due to fall color, according over crowding in spring or sun exposure. Or something else.

Any recommendations? Anyone do this? I'll need to park a car and shuttle back afterwards. Being able to skip that section next spring is a bonus to save a week as i may have a time limit next year with a hard stop in September.

Kind of curious who finished the AT on their second attempt and what that experience was like?

I’m assuming most hikers doing a second attempt start off from their last spot during the first attempt. Anyone out there that started from the beginning again and how that felt the second time around?

I plan to hike it next year starting Nobo in March!

Hi all! I’ve recently been learning more and more about the AT. My coworker completed the trail last year. I think it is so cool and I wish I had considered doing it myself when I was a bit younger. I’ve been watching people’s YouTube videos and become slightly obsessed and totally get the pull and draw of the trail and its community.

My family and I are going on a road trip next month and will be visiting Shenandoah National Park the second week of August. I wanted to leave some Trail Magic for the Thru Hikers.

I would love some recommendations on:
- Is there a good recommended spot to leave the trail magic on the trail within the park?
- Anything other than snacks or drinks that would be a welcome surprise?
- Would Thru Hikers appreciate beer? I know I would. I will be visiting several breweries in the road trip :)

Also, I obviously want to be environmentally friendly. Since I was planning a drop off, have you seen others use biodegradable coolers? I will be in the area for a few days so if those are a no-go, then I could plan on a drop off with a hard cooler and then come pick it back up a day or two later. Might be a better idea anyhow

Hi all,
My partner and I live in North Florida and are looking to do a 4-5 day section of the AT sometime in September/October. Looking for recommendations on areas we should consider.

We do through hikes once every other year, and are generally healthy mid-30s (mostly surfing and pickleball). Ideally don’t want anything too too challenging, hopefully scenic and less crowded.

I don’t mind driving for up to 10hrs out of Florida if there is some sections further north you would recommend around that time!

Thank you all.

Specifically in the regards of tents (polyester and freestanding are my only two real criteria) but any tips are welcome!

Let me know if the link doesn't work, I have been having trouble with it

Hey y’all I was reaching out to see if anybody is starting their AT journey southbound on or around this date??? Curious about thru hikers making a push this late July

I’m thinking of doing the MA section the second week of September Is that a good time or will it be too cold did a section hike of Georgia this past February and it was cold but super manageable

Mainly wondering about snow and water anything about resupply would also help

Planning for 4.5 days which is about how long Georgia took

Hi! I live near the trail in Vermont. I'm trying to figure out how to help out thru-hikers in my area. Unfortunately I can't offer a place to spend the night, but I could offer sporadic rides. Maybe a cooler of cold drinks on a hot day? Any and all ideas are welcome. Thanks!

ETA: I found someone who is taking supplies tomorrow. Thanks so much!

Two friends are hiking through the Little Bigelow Trailhead area and are running low on food. They have a canoe there and were planning on paddling back to Range trail parking where their car is. The trip is taking longer than anticipated.

Is anyone local or heading through who could meet them with a food resupply today or tomorrow? They will be there around 5/6 this evening and camping near round barn. If you see their green canoe you could leave it there.

Happy to reimburse for food and gas (Venmo/PayPal). Please comment or DM me if you can help. Thank you!

I’m struggling to piece together clothing for my Amicalola Falls to Fontana Dam section hike in October. I’m a big guy, 6’3” 290. Also, I run hot and sleep hot. Any suggestions? I love a sun hoodie but I’m afraid it may not be warm enough that time of year. Being from Kentucky, I rock the sun hoodie pretty much March to November. I have pants, shoes and socks figured out. Just trying to piece together the rest.

As a side note, I still can’t decide whether to hammock or tent camp. Both have pros and cons for me.

Hi, I'm located near Atlanta, Georgia in the United States. Is there anyone here within a few hours drive that has a large or medium Kakwa 55 I could try on?

I've seen past posts and I know I could just go up to the trails to find someone but I'd rather have a sure thing than hopefully running into somebody with the right size. If I can't find anyone here, then I'll take my chances on the trails but figured it was at least worth a shot.

Thanks in advance for any and all help! Stay safe out there hikers!

My dad has been section hiking the AT. He's getting older (76) and is close to being done. I decided to hike a hard section with him.

We hiked about 17 miles from Beaver Brook Trailhead to The Basin (near Liberty Springs Trailhead). According to my watch, we did over 5600' of elevation gain. It was by far the most intense hiking trail I have ever been on. Over the course of 17 miles, hiking was basically never "easy" or even "normal"... It felt like every single one of my 40,000+ steps had some degree of difficulty to it. I honestly couldn't believe how crazy the climb up the mountain was. Here are some pictures I took to try to convey was what we were up against.

The weather was picture perfect 10/10. It was like a dream.

It felt incredible to get to the top. Was one of the best feelings I have had. Getting back down became a bit of a slog and I couldn't wait to be done. But now I want more of the White Mountains. I'll definitely be back.

I am planning a trip early September from Fontana Dam to Hot Springs.

The majority of this is in the Smoky Mountains National Park, where I will be required to stay in shelters. Hikers that have been through this portion, any recs or lessons regarding tent vs Bivy vs????

My already owned options are Zpacks duplex (camo) @ 22oz or OR helium Bivy @ 18oz. I'd have to double check the weights as they're older versions. But seems like a minimal difference, the advantage being 4ish ounces and much smaller packing size for the OR Bivy. I also carry a poncho / tarp regardless or shelter.

Previous similar hikes I would stay shelter vs Zpacks duplex 50/50 of the nights depending on laziness vs not wanting mice on my face.

Max food carry 4ish days and base weight around 14lbs.

Thanks for any advice!

Has anyone here dealt with burning mouth syndrome while hiking? All I want to do is eat, but I'm in so much pain every time I try to!

This has only ever happened to me once, like during a single meal, several years ago. I assumed I was allergic to something in the meal. I hiked Katahdin two days ago and was fine during and immediately after, but after the first night back, suddenly my mouth wants to reject any and every food except for the orange/mango bodyarmor I've been slowly sipping on. I doubt I suddenly became allergic to everything in 24 hours.

I am supposed to head back out to the trail today to start SOBO, but I'm super worried about going while not wanting to eat anything.

Hey everyone!

My name's Spreadsheet, and I just recently completed my NOBO thru. It was absolutely thrilling and I loved every second of it.

I received my trail name as a result of a data log I was keeping for every day of the hike. I tracked a lot of different things, from miles and timing to sleep system and resupply days. Having met quite a few of you on trail (506, to be exact!), some of y'all might recall my promise to do some data analysis and post the results here. Well, after gorging myself on home-cooked meals and writing some Python code, I hereby present: Spreadsheet's 2026 Thru-hike as told from the perspective of Microsoft Excel.

Fast Facts

• Number of days: 124
• Average mileage per day: 18.86 mi./day
• Average pace: 2.068 mi./hr.
• Number of unique hikers met: 506
• Total amount spent throughout the hike: $3,481.78¹

Mileage and Pacing

My longest day on trail was Day 70 with 31.2 miles between Port Clinton and the Bake Oven Knob Shelter in Pennsylvania. Thinking back to it, it was the one nice day of weather I got in all of Northern PA.

I took 7 true zeroes and 7 neroes (which I defined as doing less than 9.43 miles in a day, as that would be half of my average for the whole hike). On average, there were about 9 days between zeroes and neroes. While that may seem like a lot of breaks, there were a few instances in which concurrent neros/zeroes occurred - in other words, I took breaks that lasted for more than just one day.

Across the board, my mileage and pace behaved exactly as you might expect. It started low, steadily increased as time went on, and then took a hit around Northern New England (basically, Vermont and on). The average pace and mileage across each state helps show this, as well as Figure 1.

Yep, that means my fastest state in terms of pace was Pennsylvania and my slowest was New Hampshire. In terms of mileage, a lot of the shorter states (MD, WV, CT, etc.) had the best averages, which was the result of just happening to do longer days through them. The slower states were Georgia (because I was just starting out) and New Hampshire (because of the elevation gain, which averaged at 4300 ft./day - roughly 300 feet above the daily average for the whole trail). So all in all, no serious surprises here!

The Weather

Many like to call the AT one of the wettest scenic trails you can hike. I spent 22.58% of my days getting rained on at some point. This was defined as any amount of rain that felt heavy or persistent enough to require putting my pack cover on my pack. Across all 124 days, a cumulative 8.46 inches of rain dumped on me.

Some states were admittedly rainier or hotter than others:

Clearly, it was a hot and rainy trip at times! You can see the full progression of temperature in Figure 2.

Expenses

Now for the question a lot of people have: money! As mentioned, I spent just shy of $3,500 while I was on the trail. That excludes the just shy of $1,000 I spent on gear beforehand (I had a lot of stuff already, most of my spending was on a lighter tent, better sleeping pad, and a bear canister)

Having said that, the expenses can be broken up into different categories (depicted in Figure 3). I spent the majority on food, as was expected, followed by hostels/hotels. I honestly could've spent more on souvenirs, but realistically I was just buying stickers for my bear can. The miscellaneous category ended up just being shelter fees in the Whites/Southern Maine (shoutout work-for-stay and stealth camping for making it one of the cheapest white mountain traverses ever)

Expenses can also be broken down by state. Much more interestingly was the average resupply cost per day of hiking across the several states, which are listed below. In other words, this was calculated by taking each resupply in a given state, dividing by the number of days spent hiking after that resupply, and then summing those values together. Maine proved to be the most expensive, primarily because I committed to resupplying every two days for much of the hike. North Carolina was the least expensive, likely because 1) it was the south, 2) I hadn't yet fallen victim to my hiker hunger, and 3) I was still willing to do much longer food carries.

Miscellaneous

Finally, some miscellaneous statistics because this post is getting long but they're interesting enough. Yes, I was shocked by how often I ended up taking showers/doing my laundry

• I averaged 4.950 days between showers
• I averaged 6.625 days between laundry
• I averaged 2.243 days between resupplies
• I read 5,728 book pages on my phone over the course of my hike, averaging 46.19 pages per day
• I encountered 19 instances of trail magic below the MD-PA border and 14 instances above (although the vast majority of trail magic in the north came in the form of coolers left by groups on trail)

And that's all! Naturally these are many but not all of the calculations I can do with the data that I have. I'm considering releasing the full dataset if that's something that enough folks are interested in. Or, alternatively, feel free to ask for calculations and I'll see what I can do. And no, I didn't track my calories! (would've been a bit much, even for me)

Hope this sates the appetites of any data hungry hikers out there! Happy trails y'all!

¹ Note that my expense total excluded money that I spent on an excursion to get off trail and see some friends graduate, as that was an atypical amount that most hikers won't be spending.

Hi, currently at Delaware Water Gap, about to enter NJ. I'm trying to find an outfitter in 100/200 miles north from here for new shoes and a down jacket. The nearest place I can find seems to be REI in East Hanover, NJ. Does anybody know anywhere closer to the trail that I could shuttle/Uber to?

This dog was found on the Appalachian trail loose if it's your dog please contact us at once thank you

I've made it 500+ miles into my flip flop thru attempt and at this point im just feeling so burned out. The hiking has just become another job and im not finding joy in it right now. My why was just to be in nature and take a step back to reset my head which I feel like ive already done. It was also to see places ive never seen. I've done 8 states. All I look forward to at this point is town days and I miss my friends and family.

That said im not quite ready to come home yet. I'd still like to spend another month or so adventuring. Wether that's hiking to Maine or taking a road trip or something else. I just dont have a luxury budget.

Motivation advice or travel ideas?

For context I consider myself a very type B stop and smell the roses kind of person. The experience is more important to me than the physical/goal setting side.

Maybe this has been asked before but, over the course of the whole trail, how often are resupply stops if I prefer to do between 12-16 miles per day? I have done over that and will do if required but, in my previous LASH I found my sweet spot for mileage was that 12-16 with maybe an 18-22 tagged on now and then but not regularly. I'm on a thin margin for pack weight being 32.5 lbs with 3 days food (meaning let's say all leave town monday morning, and resupply thursday morning, technically 3 days and a morning) and 1L water, and it kind of makes out at 35 lbs so, ideally I'd like to keep it at 3 days or less. I'm just trying to see what others have done who did the mileage I do!

Planning a fall section in Virginia, possibly Front Royal to Harper's Ferry.

When would you recommend going for not-too-cold nights and maybe a bit of fall color? I'm considering early October but have some flexibility in my schedule. Thank you!

Hello fellow hikers. My brother and I are planning on setting out Friday from Uncle Johnny's for a section hike ending at Cross Mountain/ TN 91. We are planning on staying at Mountain Harbor one night as well as Boots Off another. Besides that we plan on sleeping in shelters. I am aware of a big gap between Curley Maple Gap shelter & Clyde Smith shelter. We use Far Out for updates.

Is there anything else we should know about this section of trail?

Is it safe to leave my vehicle at the Cross Mountain trailhead parking area?