[at-l] Thru-hike Graphs

[datto_atl@yahoo.com (Datto)]

The following link shows a graph (for you geeks, it's
an X-Y Scatter Chart) of hiked mileages of three
northbound 1998 thru-hikers (one male, two female)
versus:

a) my planned Year 2000 northbound thru-hike miles 
b) my actual Year 2000 thru-hike mileages

I used the 1998 thru-hiker progress charts (garnered
through trail journal dates and locations) to plan my
thru-hike schedule and then track my own progress vs
my planned itinerary while on my thru-hike. Maybe this
will help you upcoming thru-hikers currently in the
planning stages:

http://friends.backcountry.net/datto/pic/HIKES03.jpg

The above chart should be appropriately sized for
those using a 1024x768 display resolution on your
computer. It'll be huge for those running straight
VGA.

Interesting notes:

The data shows I stayed pretty much on schedule and my
planned thru-hike itinerary was realistic until a
point beginning around Day 150 (around Goreham, New
Hampshire) where the terrain of the far northeastern
part of the Trail started to slow me down --
significantly more than I'd anticipated when I'd
planned my thru-hike schedule. 

Then, because I was a little behind schedule after day
150 and it was later in the year, the weather started
to deteriorate due to the season being later in autumn
and the amount of sunlight available for hiking during
the day started to diminish. So being behind schedule
and running out of daylight compounded the difficulty
of trying to catch up to my planned thru-hike schedule
and finish on-time.

When I hit the blizzard in central Maine that dumped
18" of snow on me (October 10th or so -- around day
185), the whole entire thru-hike schedule was tossed
out the window. Instead of finishing my thru-hike as
near as possible to the date when I'd planned to
finish (October 2nd or so), I ended up completing my
thru-hike on October 21st.

Moral -- The recommendation of others saying a
northbound thru-hiker should plan to complete a
thru-hike prior to October 15th is probably valid.
Future thru-hikers take a significant risk (but not an
impossibility) of not being able to complete a
thru-hike if thru-hikers don't get done by October
15th.

That said, I should add here that I'm glad I didn't
start my thru-hike any earlier than April 10th. The
shelter journals at the very southern AT when I was on
my thru-hike indicated the weather and snowstorms were
atrocious during the two to three weeks prior to the
beginning of my thru-hike. Many Year 2000 thru-hikers
simply left the trail permanently because the weather
was just too bad to put up with in the weeks prior to
me starting my thru-hike. In contrast, I had
unexpectedly good weather at the beginning of my
thru-hike. That's not to say it would happen that way
every year but I'd bet statistics would show the
weather in April is significantly better than it is in
March on the southern AT.

I did take a few more zero days on my thru-hike than
most I suppose -- much of that was due to the
commitment of writing an on-line trail journal -- and
the decision to write it with a palmtop (my
handwriting is ugly). Occasionally I'd have to take an
extra zero day to catch up on electronifying my
handwritten daily notes to the palmtop and then
sending the updates electronically to Karen who'd
upload it to the Internet. Doing the on-line trail
journal added, ohh..., maybe four more zero days to my
schedule that I wouldn't have taken otherwise. But the
trail journal is so valuable to relive my experiences
I had on my thru-hike I wouldn't have given it up just
to make for a quicker thru-hike schedule.

Datto

PS: I don't have the original Excel chart anymore with
all the raw data -- ahh...do you call that hard disk
housekeeping or a finger fumble by not saving it?


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