[at-l] NJ-ME: NB or SB this summer?

[gaudet@attbi.com (Arthur Gaudet)]

Having walked both N and S along the trail I have this opinion:

Walk South if you wish to see & talk with lots of AT thruhikers 
(Starting anytime after July 4th at Katahdin will assure you of 
meeting about 400 of them). You won't form friendships with any since 
you'll meet them once and say goodbye. You will probably end up in a 
pack of southbounders (SoBos) who, after a while, are all traveling 
at the same pace. There you might find a compatible traveler who's 
also heading in the same direction.

Northbound starting anytime before Labor Day will have you traveling 
N with the thruhikers and the rules are reversed. At first it'll seem 
that all of the thruhikers are passing you since they're traveling 
faster & farther than you are. Then as you get to the 4th, 5th or 6th 
week, you'll be travelling about the same as the others, perhaps 
passing some of them. You'll occasionally meet SoBos since the last 
ones get to the VT/MA stateline around Oct 1.

The conversations with people you meet can be wide ranging but I 
found that thruhikers are always interested in some detail that's 
coming up: how far to water, town, shelter, etc. And since you've 
just come from there you'll have the info they want. It's fine, and I 
like to help others. But I have to tell you that one day in 2000, 
just N of Harpers Ferry, I answered questions for more than 40 
hikers, many of them asking the same questions... I also was asked 
from time to time to relay messages down the trail to other 
thruhikers. I started to take notes, writing down names and dates.... 
Of course, once I got past the pack, and didn't see any thruhikers 
for several weeks, I missed the faces & the questions. Since I was 
too early for SoBos to catch me (at least those starting from K.) the 
loneliness eventually stopped my trip and I returned home from VA 
60/Buena Vista, VA.