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Can I Do It?
AMC Outdoors, May 1997 By Karen Berger An AT thru-hike is an enormous physical feat, its day-in, day-out demands comparable to the training of elite athletes. In the five and a half to six months it takes the average hiker to complete the AT, he or she will carry a 40-or-so-pound pack five million steps and climb and descend 470,000 feet of elevation. (Figure 83 marathons and 400 trips up and down the Empire State Building.) But a thru-hike also challenges the mind and spirit-after all, it's emotional strength that gets you through a week of rain when your socks smell like toxic waste and your clothes feel like used dishrags against your skin. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy* estimates that each year more than 2,000 hikers start the AT with the intention of thru-hiking. But the vast majority—somewhere between 70 and 90 percent—do not finish.
* Updated May 2006; Editor's note: Formerly known as the Appalachian Trail Conference, the ATC changed its name in July 2005. Photo: Chris Gailey |
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