[at-l] re:Hiking the Appalachian Trail

[weathercarrot at hotmail.com (The Weathercarrot)]

Greg Brown writes:

<< I had often wondered what the average durations of thru-hikes have been 
in relation to advancements in gear, etc and from what I have read in the 
past the average length of a hike seems to have increased, just as Jim said. 
Jim, do you have any thoughts or speculations on why the length of time for 
the average thru hike has increased in duration over the
years?  More time spent in towns?  Perhaps even greater frequency of
shelters to encourage shorter hikes?  >>

>From researching this very question, it seems to me that the largest 
difference between the trail of the 50's-70's and today is the amount of 
distractions encountered by the long distance hiker.  The community of the 
trail has developed into a very significant part of the experience, in the 
form of a higher number of hikers inevitably creating a more social 
environment, as well as the hiker-oriented services in towns responding to 
that trend. Where once the focus was primarily on hiking itself, that focus 
has diversified to the point where hiking is merely one of several 
components. When only a handful of hikers came through each year, they were 
alone for much of the time, and towns regarded the thru-hikers as an 
occasional novelty, but hardly enough to spark the level of support systems 
and services that later developed. So it was easier to stay focused, and 
just keep walking.

The average start date was around the 15th of April, which was reasonable 
considering that few needed more time than that to get to Katahdin, and they 
were able to miss the sometimes sketchy spring weather of March. The big 
transition time occurredd between the mid-80's and mid-90's. Even as late as 
1991 you could still start on March 1st and hardly see anyone for weeks. By 
1995 that had completely changed. The starting window became wider and wider 
as people started earlier because they either wanted to be ahead of the 
increasingly large crowds, or because the perception of what was feasible 
took an abrupt turn.  In a remarkably short amount of time, mid and early 
March as a start time was deemed to be normal, and February was on the verge 
of being common. Again, part of that was to get ahead of the crowds, but 
also because of evolving perceptions. Meanwhile, on the other end, the 
finishing time remained roughly stable over the decades, since there was 
always less wiggle room with Baxter state park, as well as harsh conditions 
setting in throughout ME and NH above tree line by mid-October. But overall, 
the standard season has increased from 4-5 months to more than seven months 
as the culture has changed. Average durations now hover around 5 months and 
three weeks, just shy of  6 months. A large chunk of that is in the form of 
days off in town, and a general feeling that there's plenty of time to get 
to Maine and there's lots of fun stuff to keep everyone occupied when you're 
not actually walking through the woods.....

wc