LT Trailjournals

imported
#1

Looking to plan a thru hike of the LT for a couple years down the road. Can anyone recommend a good trail journal of the LT?

Officer Taco

#2

I’m not saying mine is the best one out there but I do have one here on TJ, I tell it like it is! Which is long, hard and muddy!! ;0) www.trailjournals.com/bluebearee

Bluebearee

#3

I have a trailjournal on here also, a hike just this past fall—mainly in September and one 70-mile chunk in late October, in the snow.

www.trailjournals.com/kineokid

Kineo Kid

#4

Like the last 2 posters, I too have a journal on here:) If I were you, I’d just browse a couple of journals. They are all so different - some people write to keep family/friends posted, some (like myself) maintained a personal journal and later posted it, some are intended to be informative about trail/shelter conditions. Browse a couple, find someone whose style you like, who gives you the information you’re looking for. Are you looking for data on the trail? A good escapist read?

Tough to make suggestions - I’ve only read the journals of people I got to know on the trail because I wanted to know what happened to them - not sure that they’d be of much interest to anyone else.

tumblina

#5

Thanks all, I am in the grass roots planning stage and trying to decide between just finishing up what the AT does not cover or doing the whole thing. My heart is with doing a complete thru but my vacation (and my wife’s) may not make that possible.

I have a hard time remembering (and my journal is not in that much detail) about the 1st hundred miles (from the MA line) how “hard” the southern section was. My memory is skewed by having been in trail shape having walked there from GA. I’m sure none of it would be as easy as I remember, even with “training”.

Thanks again all!

Officer Taco

#6

Relatively speaking, the southern 100 miles is ‘easy’. More rolling than the steep up and down that characterizes the northern section. Your other option is to hike SOBO- you’ll start tough and by the time you get to the southern 100 you’ll fly!

Depending on when you hike, the most disconcerting aspect of doing the southern 100 miles at the start of your hike is that you run into lots of AT thru-hikers. You’re just starting out and trying to get into shape, they’ve been hiking for months and fly past you. Tough to feel good about your mileages in comparison:) Plus, they already have their trail community and as an LT hiker you sometimes feel like the ‘younger sibling’ or outsider.

If you hike in the summer, the trail changes drastically both topographically and socially after the AT breaks off.

tumblina

#7

I too just thru hiked NOBO in Sept 2008 and have a journal on TJ www.trailjournals.com/fedex

I like the above suggestion to read a few entries of each to see what you’re looking for. And I agree having thru hiked the AT in 07 I was in awesome shape when I hit VT. Knowing this, for my LT hike I made a good effort to get out and do a few multiday hikes with full pack pushing hard in Maine etc to “be ready” to hike the LT.

The upper/northern part is MUCH MUCH harder with a steeper & more aggressive profile until your’re past Smuggler’s Notch. I opted to hike NOBO and push very hard in the southern part to have lighter days in the northern part while still staying “on schedule”. This worked but I planned monster days in the southern part-probably to much, though I made it happen anyway.

I purposely hiked NOBO hoping to hike with ATers, though it was September so I saw only SOBOs. Did not cut my daily miles in harder terrain - I hiked harder and longer. So in many ways this was a much harder hike for me than my AT hike.

LT is definitely a different and much smaller crowd north of the AT.

Travel light. Expect MUDD!!! Plenty of shelters. Probably could go with no tent/tarp unless hiking during big weekends.

I’d definitely try to do the whole LT. You’ll be happier when you’re done. And it’ll get you ready for the Northern part. If you do opt to SOBO better get out and hike some really intense profiles first or you’ll pay dearly. Maybe you wife could meet you if she can’t take that much time (though you’ll be hiking stronger by then)

Good Luck!

FedEx