I am considering starting in Pennsylvania, or maybe New York, in mid March, or maybe early March, and heading south.
Is there any reason why this may be a bad idea?
David
Pennsylvania in March
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#2
You’ll run into the same conditions that you would run into in Georgia headed north - chance of cold, rain, snow, ice, etc. The mountains in PA are lower than the mountains of NC/TN - but since you’re farther north, the weather is likely to be about the same. You wouldn’t really have a lot of solitude since you’d start meeting people in Virginia and would meet most of the northbound crowd over the next few months which could be fun. PA and MD get a lot of weekend hikers, so you wouldn’t necessarily have the trail to yourself. Services in the Shenandoah don’t begin until May and some of the hostels might be closed when you get there if you are way ahead of the crowd.
But no, it’s not a bad idea if you want to make your hike different. PA would be better than NY - less chance of serious snow on the ground to start your hike. I’ve run into a fair amount of snow in northern PA in mid-April, I wouldn’t want to be much farther north then. Of course, that depends on getting some snow - which hasn’t really happened yet.
Ginny
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#3
Yep… you never know what to expect that time of year. March 13th 1993 brought a blizzard to PA and dumped 3+ feet of snow over the Commonwealth.
But you won’t be alone… My hiking partner and I will be out doing a section from Pen Mar to Duncannon towards the end of the month.
Stalking Tortoise