Running the trail?

imported
#1

I often hear hikers boasting about 20 to 30 mile days on the AT. Doesn’t this negate the reason we are here in the first place? Do these people even see anything along the footpath?
My heaviest days may consist of 12 miles and I usually feel that I’m truckin’ right along for the best part of the day. Do most hikers in good shape consistently gain 20+ mile days? Is it something that is achieved after conditioning a body to nothing but hiking for months at a time?
I have always felt that If I could thru-hike the entire trail I would still keep my milage about the same and enjoy the path, taking an extra month or two to complete.
Is this an unrealistic view?

Skunker

#2

We’re not missing anything, we just hike faster than most…or some other folks. If you hike from sun up to sun down and do 2mph you did 20 that day with several stops. A 12 for me is done before 11am. I’d get bored if I went that slow. It does take while to build up to it if your over say 30yrs. I need a week to pull those every day, although we just did 100 miles in six days last month in Conn. Miner soreness and a sprained ankle from the start. Woohoo!

Bushwhacky

#3

There and we are kind of relative. If you only have four months to do the K you best be haulin’ manure. We enjoy the punishment of long days. It’s pays back for all those donuts.
Not an unrealistic view. You just find yourself doing what every length day fits that week. Some we did 10-12, some we did 25’s Also unless you tent the shelters are all spaced weird. Nothing more depressing than having a 22 on a rainy day, mud, slim and crud all over you, or a day of being sick and the next safe heaven is waaay down range. You learn. A typical AT week town to town is 6 out, 12-15-18-7-19-.5-3 in to town. Or something like that. Depends on what you want to see. When we went in ‘01 it snowed like hell in the Smokys. 11 miles in 11 hrs was a good day…and you were dead by the end of the day. I think if you’re doing a Flyin’ Brian hike you just might miss something but that was a whole different trip for him.

BW

#4

Everyone, young and old, seems to hike between 2 and 3 miles per hour. After an initial break-in period (say, 4-6 weeks) most people can sustain their pace all day, day after day. Part of this is increased fitness, part is reduced pack weight.

So 12 miles would take you 4-6 hours. That leaves 18-20 hours a day. If you can use that time to reflect, take photos, read a book, etc., that’s fantastic! But bear in mind a couple things:

  • At 12 miles per day, most people will be passing you. That means you’ll have more limited opportunities to make and keep friends. That’s a wonderful part of hiking the trail that you should not overlook.

  • You probably won’t stop to contemplate beautiful Appalachian vistas in quite the same way a tourist or weekender would. The mountains are your home all day, every day, for months. They are your world. So there’s less impulse to plant your butt on the top of every summit, stare reverently, and think lofty thoughts.

Eric

#5

12 mile days will get you to Maine. 20 mile days will get you to Maine. No matter what people say, 2 mile days will get you to Maine. Time has absolutely no hold on the AT, it’s going to be there 24/7, 365 days per year. Time only has an effect on you if you allow it, until your clock runs out. We waste most of it working any way. Go as slow or as fast as you want.

Blue Jay

#6

The big mileage hikers usually hike around 2-3 miles per hour like Eric said, just like evryone else. The difference is, they get up before dawn and start hiking at daybreak. They hike until an hour or so before dark (sometimes after dark). It’s not a matter of how fast they are hiking, it’s a matter of how many hours each day they hike. A person that hikes 12 miles a day (like I did on my section hike) usually started hiking around 8-9am and hiked until 3-4pm. Thats about 5-6 hours hiking with an hour or two spent on breaks. Someone that hikes 20+ miles would start hiking at 5-6am and hike until 5-6pm, which would be 9-10 hours hiking and 2-3 hours for breaks. As you get more in shape on the trail you will be able to do higher mileage, not because you are hiking faster, but because you can hike longer.

Nooga

#7

Take a look at your pack weight. I use to have a 48 pound pack and no matter how hard I tried could rarely do more than 12 miles a day. I took out 20 pounds and found that with less effort and a great deal more agility I was covering 18 - 20 miles a day. The weight loss made my pack more managable and the overall experience much more enjoyable. Try it, you don’t have to take it as far as JARDINE but he gives an excellent blueprint.

KABAR

#8

Some of the young people I was hiking with would comment on how fast I hiked until they realized that I was always the first one out of camp and rarely stopped. My rest breaks were usually 5-15 minutes even for lunch. Most of the younger people were getting up later and would stop to smell the roses all day. We all ended up at the same places at night though. There was one guy named Late Start who would get going at noon and pass me every day.

Big B

#9

Its not neccessarily the speed and pace you set, but rather how consistent you are. Us young bucks hiked 3mph mostly and still did not do as many miles a day as 60 yr old Fixy who hiked sun up to sun down. Hes was a PCTer so he was in love with his tarp, as the rest of us were married to shelters and often stopped at 430 if the next shelter was 8 more miles, which was of course, very stupid.
BW nailed it on the head. Its not rushing, your just in incredible shape. Theres no way around it. I generally felt that if i did less than 20 a day i either had to spend a good part of the day in town or really go out of my way to waste time, not just the ordinary break, smelling the roses etc…
A-Train

A-Train

#10

Even Cujo, who in 1999 hiked the A.T. in 49 days, was a trail walker and not a trail runner. He hiked 12 to 15 hours a day and averaged 44 miles per day. To hike 44 miles in 15 hours you must average just under 3 mph and to do it in 12 you must average about 3.66. This is faster than most thru hikers but its not a run. Cujo didn’t have all the same experiences as a 4 to 7+ month thru hiker but he did take the time to make brief register entries and he took the time to talk to many hikers he passed and no doubt enjoyed many of the same experiences other “slower” hikers did. I think any time spent in the woods is the highest quality time.

celt

#11

Some days it just feels good to crank out 22. Some I’d be lucky to get 3. Of course I’ll never forget Rockytop’s 9 day Maryland challenge last year when a lot of hikers were shooting for the tri-state challenge (one day, 40 plus miles). How slow can you go? HYOH. Don’t forget in summer you have 15ish hours of daylight to kill. 17 miles will go by in no time with time to saunter to and fro and smell the proverbial roses. I did my hike in 6 1/2 months. Next time I’ll shoot for nine.

Cap’n

#12

I’ve read several accounts of through hikes from the 60’s through the early 80’s. Most were accomplished in 4 - 5 months. Presumably packs weighed more in those days, say 40 - 50 lbs (as reported in at least one journal). So is pack weight really the limiting factor in speed, or is it something else?

Saluki Dave

#13

I was so glad that I experienced both extremes of speed (or lack of it) last summer. I frequently hiked 20-25 miles thru VA and PA but took 39 days in Maine, often covering under 8 miles. I swam, read, met all those hikers who’d been behind me for months (I also started a bit earlier than most), and just sat on top of mountains or on pond shores and took it all in. I learned how to push myself physically on the long days and finally (it took some time) was able to truly enjoy the solitude and slow pace of my time in Maine. I never was able to slow my hiking pace much below 3mph, but all the more time for “meditation”. Both experiences were integral to my hike.

Wedding Singer

#14

Speed doesn’t matter. It’s the time that matters. Doing a thru you have to insure that you have adaquate time. Allow up to 7 months if that’s what is required to complete.
Age is also a definate factor and so is the ultimate trail condition you reach. Folks in the over 50 group probably can’t sustain days doing 15+ miles. If so they will eventualy fall prey to the trail. Some hikers, because of physical reasons, just need to settle into a lesser daily hiking milage rate. It’s the daily average that makes the difference. Most folks,I met, who claimed to be doing 20 mi. days, didn’t average much over 14 mi. a day for the whole hike.
As far as keeping up with other hikers in a group. It’s like water. You will eventualy settle in to a group that is doing the same kind of miles you are doing. These hikers are the ones who you will be with when you finish.
Pack weight isn’t all that important. Take what you feel you need. You will reduce your load as you travel. You will gain experience from other hikers you meet. I started with approximately 45 lbs. on my back and finished with under 35 lbs.
Like the expression goes, “hike your own hike.” It has a lot of meaning. Enjoy it. You probably won’t do it again. Have enough money and time.

Grampie

#15

Actually, I found that the older hikers on the AT often made much better time than the younger hikers. They were less likely to get caught up in towns, much less likely to just hike from shelter to shelter, more likely to have the discipline to hike every day from dawn (or predawn) to dusck. The young hikers were jackrabbits. They would sleep late then race to the next shelter or they would race to the next town and stay in town for three or four days. The older hikers would get up early, hike until 5 or 6 o’clock, and mostly finished the trail a month or two sooner than the younger hikers they started with.

The main difference with age and hiking (besides hiking more intelligently) is that older hikers take longer to heal, if they do get injured. Tendonitis that would heal in 3 or 4 days for a young hiker would take two weeks or more with older hikers. So the older hikers have to be more careful to start slowly and build to the longer miles.

Spirit Walker