which is harder AT or PCT. one more thing which trail should i start with i have hiked on the at and am planning on taking a year off from school but i dont know which trail to hike.
boy who wanders
Hikes - Appalachian Trail
system
#2
Which to do first depends on what kind of country you enjoy hiking in. The PCT is hot and dry. The AT is wet and green. The PCT has long long stretches with no water. The AT has a lot of short steep rocky up and down that makes for difficult walking. The AT generally has towns every few days so you can carry a light load and resupply often. It has a very strong trail community. If you are a total beginner, it is easier in some ways because there are a lot of people on the trail and near the trail who can help if things go wrong. The PCT is easier in terms of gentle graded wheelchair trail - but because there are no shelters you don’t have as strong a community as you do on the AT. You are more likely to hike alone. The AT can be done easily doing less than 12 miles a day - you have a very long window of opportunity before winter closes Katahdin - and even then, if you flip, you can easily hike for 10 or more months. On the PCT you have a much shorter time frame to do a thruhike. Snows close the Sierras until June and hit the Cascades in September/October. I averaged 12 mpd on the AT and 19 mpd on the PCT. Do you like desert or do you like trees? The AT is known as “the long green tunnel” for a reason. But if you can see beauty in growing things - it may be for you. We saw more wildlife on the AT than on the PCT. Why not do the AT this year and the PCT next? They’re both worth doing.
Ginny