[at-l] Solitude and safety, NOBO vs. SOBO? (was: young,Female SOBO)

[ellen at clinic.net (Bob C.)]

>"...Becoming a part of "a shifting coalition of groups" sounds like a nightmare
>to me!" reports Kelley.

 When I hiked 10 years ago, most hikers I met during the initial weeks were
 experiencing a trail that was totally different from the trail they had
 imagined. The reason? Most had ignored the obvious, and concentrated on the
 myths and mystique. There's a mystique about the trail that tends to be totally
 divorced from reality.

Facts:  Each year around 3,000 people start at Springer, mostly in the weeks
between mid February and mid April. That's an average of 50 a day, converging on
shelters that for the most part are designed to hold eight people.

  Unfortunately, these 50 are not equally dispersed. They tend to bunch up on
  weekends and towards the end of March, early April. They are also joined by
  hundreds more of section hikers, weekend hikers and day hikers.

  You meet a shifting coalition of people because we don't all move at a uniform
  speed. You'll see the same folks for a few days. Some will drop behind, for a
  thousand different reasons. Others will move ahead, for an equal number of
  reasons. Then the roles and the reasons reverse. People drop back because of
  gear problems or blisters, or weather or.... And move ahead when these
  problems resolve.

  This should be pretty obvious to anyone who stops to think about. Those who
  don't, I'm afraid are doomed to be surprised. The trail is what it is, not
  what one imagines it to be, or might like it to be.

  A dedicated loner can escape some of the crush of humanity by camping away
  from the established shelters. And the crowds thin out after a couple of
  months (only 300 or so of the 3,000, actually make it to Katahdin).

   But come summer, one has to expect day hikers and weekenders.

  This is not wilderness. Probably 150 million people or more live within a
  day's drive of the narrow corridor we call the Appalachian Trail.

 A few of us are working to widen the corridor, to produce alternative trails,
 and to provide buffers to improve wildness. It's these efforts that produced
 some of the list acrimony of recent days.

 BTW. Southbounders face, somewhat different, but equally serious people
 problems. Camp groups -- hordes of 12-15-year-olds -- tend to crowd the
 campsites once school is out -- especially through Maine and northern New
 England.

 It's my observation that the most successful thru hikes are by those who can
 except the trail as it is, rather than agonizing over the failure to find the
 trail of their dreams.

 Weary