[at-l] crowds

[Bob Cummings <ellen@clinic.net> (Bob C.)]

On average 60 or 70 people a day start during the peak season -- March through
mid April, spread over five or six hours, or 10 or 12 per hour on average.
Within a day or two these disperse over 10 or 15 miles of the trail. If they
were all solo hikers, there would be a hiker on average every thousand yards.
Actually hikers tend to clump together so there are moving clusters a half mile
apart, maybe more.

Pick a spot in between clusters and keep at their pace and you will be lucky to
see more than a dozen people a day actually on the trail. Avoid starting on a
weekend and the trail can be a very lonely place, even in Georgia in Mid-March.

Except at the shelters, that is. But even some shelters won't be full.

Three years ago I hiked with a group of four from Fontana Dam to Clingman's Dome
starting the end of March -- about the time Early to Mid-March starters could be
expected to be coming through. I remember in particular stopping at Double
Spring Gap Shelter about 3 p.m. to escape a light snow. No more than a dozen
hikers passed the shelter in the three hours before dark. Only three thru hikers
stayed at Double Springs Gap that night. In 1993 I had stayed at the same
shelter. It wasn't full that night either.

Weary, AT '93