[at-l] Appalachain Trail Institute

[spiriteagle99@hotmail.com (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Sunny Acres wrote:

>At Trail Days my friend attended one of Warren Doyle's sessions and heard 
>about the Appalachian Trail Institute.  She is thinking about attending and 
>wants me to go with her.  Does anyone have info and/or >experience to 
>share? How much is it? Is is worth the $ ?  What does it entail?  Will she 
>need gear? What are the benefits/drawbacks?
>THANKS! Sunny


Sunny -
I attended one of Warrens workshops over 10 years ago.  I think he's still 
teaching the same kind of info that he was then.  I don't know what the cost 
is now.  It was expensive then, but well worth the price. It was a 5 day 
"school" where he discussed the Trail, medical stuff, attitude, gear, 
history and a lot of other stuff.  It was a realistic look at thruhiking.  
Warren is an extremist in some ways (and a purist) but makes no demands on 
others to be the same way.  You'd need some gear, but he'd tell you what to 
bring - count on needing at least boots and a pack.  There is some hiking 
involved.

The drawbacks are the 5 days and the price.  The benefits are a realistic 
view of what you're planning to do - and the fact that (at least when I did 
it) 85% of those who took the course and then actually tried to thruhike 
finished.  Normal finishing rate is 8% to 12%.  If you're serious about 
finishing a thruhike, it IS worth the price.

Many of those who take his course never try to thruhike - of the dozen or so 
people in our class, three of us thruhiked and two others followed his 
advice and tried the Long Trail before trying the AT.  They finished the 
Long Trail but decided that long distance hiking wasn't really what they 
wanted to do.

I've been asked if I'd have finished without the information he provided - 
the answer is probably yes.  But I'm "different".  Always have been and see 
no reason to change now.

If you have more questions I'll try to answer.  Maybe there are more recent 
"graduates" here?

Walk softly,
Jim



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