Best start date? E or W?

imported
#1

Just curious as I have been thinking about this trail since i first heard of it.

What would you say is the best start date…from both coasts and why?

Any reason to do the center loop in any specific direction>?

lion king

#2

I posted this in the American Discovery Trail forum and it showed up here…

if you guys can transfer it over, thanks as I dont want to double post the same thing.

Thanks

Lion KIng

#3

Hi Lion King,

I remember you from AT 2003!

The start date of the ADT is controlled by two factors: snow in the Rockies and snow in the Sierra. Neither mountain range is easy to navigate with much snow and both require special skills when completely covered with snow.

Miles per day then becomes a factor when you want to travel through both sets of mountains after mid June and before mid October in “normal” years.

A single season thru east bound could be started anytime if you travel the miles to Foresthill, CA by June 15th and then trvel 25 miles per day to get thru Colorado.

We left the East coast approximately March 1 (Dolly Sold, WV was snow bound) to reach the Rockies by July 1, crossing the Sierra early Oct and finishing the 15th. We left the northern tier from Denver to Cincinatti unhiked. Our thru was unbroken coast to coast when we hikes all west bound using the southern tier. The southern tier is about 100 miles longer than the northern one.

Nevada and Utah are similar to hiking the CDT with navigation challenges, cross country travel, 144 mile waterless stretches and NO fellow hikers. Look at dates that you might hike in those states as we hit a high of 118* in UT in August.

A trip calculator is at www.GottaWalk.com so you can choose different hiking speeds and start dates and see arrival dates at different points.
There are three ADT trail journals (GottaWalk, Robin Grappa and Teitelbaums) and a couple of others posted other places.

Marcia