What is the speed record of the AT resupplied, non suppported?
thanks adam
adam bradley
RE speed thru of AT
system
#2
Adam,
This is not easy stuff to find. The only source I could come up with (Roland Mueser’s Long-Distance Hiking: Lessons from the Appalachian Trail) that mentions this with anything like currency states that Wardrow Leonard (AT’90) is the fastest unsupported thru-hiker at 61 days. The problem is that the records on this just aren’t kept in any systematic way. You’d have to try and survey all the sign-in sheets from Amacalola and Khatadin to really get a handle on it and no one seems to have done that. Someone may have done it faster than Leonard, but it just hasn’t been noticed or reported.
For records, you have to turn to those who are obsessed with them, the ultra-trail runners. The record for them (supported, of course) now stands at 47 days, 13 hours and 31 minutes, set by Andrew Thompson in 2005. Though many of these guys are not exactly publicity hounds either (Thompson apparently didn’t even tell the press what he was doing, only issuing a brief statement when he returned home.) The previous record-holder, Peter Palmer, was only publicized because a reporter for the Nashua Telegraph heard about him accidentally and decided to go catch him as he summited Khatadin.
It seems that most thru-hikers just don’t care about records like this, so mostly we have to rely on others to notice when one does something noteworthy in this regard.
Strategic
system
#3
I did see one guy run the Smokies in 28 hours. He would have beat 24 hours but it got dark and he was stranded at one shelter, while his wife with his head lamp was in the next shelter south with me.
Bilko
system
#4
I went back and did the math to find out exactly what Leonard did for daily mileage to get a time of 61 days…it turns out that this equals 35.5 miles a day, with no zero days. I can’t imagine that anybody could do that (how would you resupply) though I suppose that he could have done his version of neros. But any zeros or neros would naturally run up his actual daily mileage even more, to somewhere in the range of 38 to 40 miles a day. That’s speed on a level I can’t even imagine for a weekend, much less for 61 days.
Strategic
system
#5
I met Ward on the A.T. in '96 in Boiling Springs, PA. He was a legend at the time on the trail for a number of reasons, including his speed hiking ability.
We had a fund-raiser for a thru-hiker named Skylark at the Italian restaurant in Boiling Springs that year. (her pack had been stolen at the ‘Dog Patch’ tavern in MD) Anyways, Ward was invited along with the rest of us who were strung out on the trail both north and south of Boiling Springs. “The Honeymooner’s” shuttled hikers to and from the party in their truck. Ward was about 48 miles south of Boiling Springs about mid-day. He refused the free ride into town offered to him, and said that he would hike to the party. Sure enough, around 8 PM he crashed through the doors of the restaurant, sweating from head to toe and wished ‘Skylark’ a happy birthday (he assumed it was her birthday party) and then ran off into the night.
Two days later, he was arrested on the steps of the ATC regional office for terroristic threatening. He was unofficially banned from the AT, although he has been spotted a couple times since, using psudo-trail names. The trail name which he used for years was “Spooky boy” which was apropos - he really enjoyed scaring hikers, especially at night.
Besides his speed record, he is the only hiker to complete a double “yo-yo”. He hiked from Springer to Katahdin to Springer to Katahdin in one year.
I’m sure that there are many others here on TF with Ward Leonard stories!
freebird
system
#6
I had no idea, never having met the man myself. I’d kind of assumed he was a bit strange (I mean, who actually hikes that fast?) but had no other info to go on. Still, it kind of shows what I was talking about; most thru-hikers just don’t go in for this sort of thing. It takes an “unusual” one to do something like try for the speed record or do a double yo-yo. I’d love to hear more of these stories. Who knows, there could be a collection some day. Odd characters of the AT might be the title (but then that would be most of us I suppose, me included.)
Strategic
system
#7
At what point does a healthy mania become a real, genuine mental illness. Sure the guy’s not hurting anyone except maybe himself but you’ve got to wonder sometimes. There seems to be a certain OCD thread in the thru hiker community (myself included). I remember one woman who insisted on touching every white blaze she passed.
Soon we’ll need a 12 step program for thru hikers (see The Hurt thread). Of course most thru hikers wouldnt be happy with just 12 steps:lol
jalan