What counts as a thru-hike?

imported
#1

Ok, i’m sure this must be a very tired old topic for a forum like this, but i’m new to the forum, and maybe my take on it has a slightly different twist.

I’m not at all against “hike your own hike,” and i would never suggest anyone should follow someone else’s criteria. But in looking at the A.T. for my future, i’m naturally drawn to the idea of trying to make it as pure of a thru-hike as i can by:

  • white-blazing the whole way.
  • hiking in one direction in one year.
  • connect the dots, etc.

But…since everyone leaves the trail for some amount of time to go into towns anyway, how long could one stretch it out before you would stop calling it a thru-hike, and instead call it a section-hike?

Specifically for me, since i’m 99% sure i’ll never want to give up all my summer work (some of my best gigs are in summer), i’m wondering how it would seem (to me mostly, but i’m curious what others think) if i…

Started the trail say maybe at an autumnal equinox. I could squeeze in a month and a half of hiking northbound from Springer, trying to get past the highest of the mountains. Then, i probably would have a few weeks in winter to do a little Virginia snow-hiking. I could get back on trail in the late springtime for another 2 months or so, and then finish in August and early September.

That would be all in one year, all in one direction, all white-blazes. Does that still “seem like” a thru-hike to you? It sure would offer a mix of solitary and social hiking, and would be pretty advantageous weather-wise.

markv

#2

So, in winter you are leaving the trail until late spring? Sounds like a section hike to me. Two sections: one in autumn and then the other in spring and summer, and in fact two years, though within a 365 day period.
But who am I and, who cares? HYOH. Get out there any way and any time you can. Think of it what you will. Just be ready for a dispute.
BTW, how does that get you summer off for gigs?

Early Bird

#3

Ok let’s forget the definition of a thru-hike for a moment, just a moment, and let’s talk about long distance backpacking. If your intent is to embark on a long distance backpacking adventure using the AT as the route then breaking it up like that isn’t going to give you that experience. You would also not experience the social aspects of a seasonal thru-hike which has a lot to do with the thru-hike experience. An AT thru-hike is a culture in of itself that comes out to play each year. That culture, that experience is what makes a thru-hike. Backpacking the over 2100 miles is just the glue that sticks the experience together.

Two Scoops

#4

What you HAVE done,is more important than what you SAY you have done. (I think that makes sense)

Buckwheat

#5

:rolleyes “Thru-hike” is just a badly-spelled, made-up word.

Your hike sounds great. Go for it!

Eric

#6

Sorry again for the topic…but of course if you don’t like it, you don’t have to follow the post.

Early Bird yes, you pretty much got my convoluted explanation right. But my hiking would be done something roughly like 9/21-11/1, 1/1-1/15, 4/21-6/21, 8/10-9/20. This leaves mid-summer, the holidays, and winter season for work, which are my most important times. (i’m a musician)

I asked, and so i’m glad for your answers, but Two Scoops and Early Bird, it sounds like your reasons for NOT feeling it’s a through-hike are that a) it doesn’t fall within a Gregorian Calendar year, b) 2 months at a time isn’t long enough to consider it long-distance, c) it’s not social enough to call it a threw-hyke, and d) i’d be off the trail for too long.

a) since when should we care about the calendar? i’m sure we’re all more nature-oriented than that. i think a good case could be made for the natural year starting in autumn, if you think about the growth cycle from its core. (quit laughing at me.) isn’t the muslim new year in the autumn?

b) if 2 months at a time isn’t long enough, then i guess the JMT, the Long Trail, etc. aren’t long distance hikes?

c) i guess CDT hikers, or even AT southbounders aren’t getting the throohiike experience, and could be disputed?

d) is the one reason that kind of makes sense to me. But, if you consider the case of someone who starts the trail on January 1st, gets held up for weeks by storms, drives home for awhile because of it, comes back a couple weeks later, goes about the trail slowly, taking extra days in town, hurts an ankle and is in the hospital for a month, gets back on the trail in spring but goes to all the various festivals, goes slowly when friends join on the trail in the summer, takes more many zero-days at a time, and eventually tops off on Katahdin in mid-November snow. Is that a thru-hike? After reading a zillion journals, it seems nobody would doubt those are pure thruh-hieckers…just slow ones with circumstances. Yet the only difference between that hiker and me would be that i planned it.

I’m half playing devil’s-advocate, since i can’t get on the trail tonight so i have to arm-chair it…but i do find the whole culture interesting, and i hope to hear more opinions without getting anyone riled up.

p.s. aren’t ALL words made-up?

markv

#7

I think the most important part of my post is the title. “YOUR thru-hike.” What makes it a thru-hike TO YOU. What do YOU FEEL is important in order for you to COMFORTABLY be able to think of it and refer to it as a thru-hike without feeling like you are making a dishonest statement. From what I understand, “thru-hike” has no official definition, no matter what book you may have read or who you may have spoken with. I, at least, haven’t seen it in the dictionary yet.
So decide what you believe is essential for your hike to be a thru-hike. There is no right way. Only different ways. Much like life itself.

Leki-Less

#8

wether we want to recognize it or not the word"thru hiker" means a whole lot. Dont know for sure how many on this sight have actually been out there and attempted one. When your out there you are classified. On my big one and my subsequent smaller hikes I was always asked " are u a thru hiker". You will get a label “section hiker”, “day hiker”, “weekend hiker”. Those who have hiked thru for a thousand miles will look down upon you when you answer “NO im just out for a few hundred miles.” Its not right, its just the way it is. On my 2000 hike of the AT. I started March 1, after many zero days spread thru out my hike, I was in Stratton Maine on columbus day weekend. Not enough time to finish the last 200 miles. I went home came back in 2001 and finished the hike. Still today when I tell people that I hiked the whole AT, some of them will say “Did you thru hike” I explain what I did and there whole attitude changes. Oh you mean you didnt do it all at once. Last year i spent about 200 miles on the AT during the summer. I ran into many “thru hikers” I had already done what they still had not accomplished and some of them thought funny thoughts about me. One girl was so caught up in the idea that thru hikers are the best that she was actually going call an INN that provides fresh baked muffins at a road crossing in VT. Every year during the season the inn puts a bag of fresh baked muffins at the trail head, just about everyday. There is a small note that congratulates “thru hikers” on making it so far. When she got there all the muffins for the day were gone. AT the shelter that night she complained about this. She knew there were only 2 or 3 “thru hikers” ahead of her that day and wondered why all the muffins were eaten. She actually asked everyone at the shelter if they took a muffin. Section hikers outnumbered thru hikers that night at the shelter. She was going to call the INN and tell them “people who arent thru hikers are eating your trail magic, cant you do something about this.” So if your out there just hike what you want, Earl Schaffer said " Just be honest about it."

Chef

#9

“Thru-hiker” is just another label. If you need the external validation from others to make you feel good about your accomplishment, you might not get it the way you have planned. But if you can validate yourself with your accomplishment and not worry about what the others think, call it whatever you want to - you still hiked the trail.

“Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

  • Eleanor Roosevelt

Like Chef said (or Schaffer), “Just be honest about it.”

Jeff

#10

This year Ponderor Hiked SOBO from the Shenandoahs to Springer, went immediately back to his starting point and finished NOBO. He passed every white blaze and finished in one year. According to this narrow definition are you telling me he is not a thru hiker?

Big B

#11

I put ‘pt 2’ there because I’ve posted nearly the same thing before…

There was this guy named Ed Kuni, a 55 year old retired postmaster with a lifelong desire to hike the AT. Finally his chance comes . . . So, he’s hiking northbound. Things are going great, putting in an average of 15 miles per day. He gets all the way to Vermont . . . and from out of the blue he gets a phone call from his wife.

His wife tells him some VERY bad news. Ed’s hometown just endured a HUGE flood, and his house now currently resided COMPLETELY UNDER WATER. As well as the houses of many of his neighbors. So at once, Ed abandons his hike and returns to his understandably distraught wife.

The very next spring, Ed is on the trail. He goes all the way, even through Vermont with no interuptions, except he does recieve one odd bit of news: someone from the ATC tells him that should Ed finish the AT that year AND then turn around and finish all the miles between Katahdin and Vermont - the section he missed the previous year - then that would qualify Ed as being the first hiker to have FULLY hiked the AT in consecutive years.

So, after reaching Katahdin, Ed did indeed turn south and hike the AT back to where he’d left off in Vermont. Thus the ATC recognizes Ed Kuni as the first hiker to complete the trail in consecutive years. He even published this 4,000 mile journey in a book, which you can find on the internet without too much haggle (I did, and it was signed).

So . . .

I’m going to assume that every purist on this website will disagree with the idea that Ed is not a thru-hiker.

So, for those of us who aren’t as ‘hip’ as you . . . might you take a moment to share exactly WHY you feel that way? I don’t mean with the ordinary piddle remarks . . . take a chance and make a decent statement. Try to convince me, in other words (good luck :wink: ).

Kineo Kid

#12

So . . .

I’m going to assume that every purist will disagree with the idea that Ed IS a thru-hiker.

Why?

Kineo Kid

#13

Ed is definately a thru-hiker. I hiked with him in 73 through the Smokies. As we all struggled north we were in awe of a guy who would start over from scratch just because he didn’t finish the first time. The guy was an inspiration to all of us. Wherever you are Ed, the class of 73 thanks you!

CitySlicker73

#14

The AT is one of the longest continuous trails in the world. When I hiked it my intention was to challenge myself with a continuous six month hike. It just happened to be on the AT because it is closer to my home, the easier of the long trails to hike as far as logistics and the weather is usually cooperative. Are you are hiking the AT to say you hiked the length of the AT? I did it to say I backpacked for what ended up being seven months which happened to be on the AT. Yes breaking the hike up in sections is still hiking the length of the trail and has its own challenges associated with it. If that is what you want to do then by all means do it. But hiking it continuously has challenges you will not see, which are mainly of the mental variety. I was trying to promote you possible seeking those challenges. By the way, my hike was interrupted for two weeks with a shoulder injury but I did what I intended. I carried a backpack for six months. Was it a thru-hike? I really don’t care if it was. Do your own hike but consider doing it continuously. If you want to backpack for two months then hike the JMT. Why do you want to hike the AT in a year anyway? You are wasting a perfectly good long trail from a long distance hiking perspective. But you don’t seem to want to do that type of a hike. Okay, no problem. But you started this thread asking if your hike would be considered a thru-hike. Why do you care? Do whatever you want. Just set the goal and do it.

Two Scoops

#15

is a hole is made of segments, if you stretch a antenna out its one hole but if you look close its many peaces strung toget her, so if I hike many pieces but after 50 years look back and see one A.T. that I hiked, its a hole through-hike.

Segment

#16

There’s a lot of "you"s above, and with this forum set-up, i can’t tell when “you” is me, and whom to respond to.

But one common thread seems to be why am i wanting to do this hike, and why do i care what others think. i would be doing it (don’t worry, not another list)…

primarily to have the hike become my lifestyle, though of course not permanently. When i hike 5 days, it feels like a vacation, and i don’t get into a rhythm until it’s almost over. Obviously if you hike 6 months straight, it becomes your life during that time, not a vacation. i’m asking about my yearlong thru-ish-hike plan partly to get a feel for if i would get that change of lifestyle or not.

a secondary reason is for a sense of accomplishment. i like goals, which is why mostly i’ve done mountains and not long trails. Mostly the sense of accomplishment comes from inside, but if everyone is saying you didn’t do what i’ve felt i’ve accomplished (a thru-hike), then i’m NOT above feeling less accomplishment because of that. Don’t we all color things differently depending on other people’s reactions to them? How much less accomplishment i’d feel, i’m trying to get a sense of by asking y’all.

A for why the AT…hm. I’m doing the JMT this summer. My initial interest in the AT came from the need to do all those eastern state highpoints. I’m a highpointer with 26 so far, but none of the central/southeastern ones, and i’ve made a point of doing real hikes for each one instead of driving up and tagging a sign. I’ve read some about the Pacific Northwest Trail, and that sounds amazing, but of course the AT has a certain aura to it. I don’t think i would be “wasting it,” of course.

I think your hike with the 2 week injury was continuous. I’m sure you should and everyone should. How about if it were 4 weeks? Surely you should. How about if it were two 4 week injuries? Hm. Three 4 week injuries and a 2 month injury? Hey, that’s my hike! My injury: severe dollarcitis, with lovemywork complications.

markv

#17

markv in order to determine a sense of accomplishment you would first have to define the task to be accomplished. If your task is the hike the length of the AT within the period of one year then that is what you will have accomplished. If you are after sampling the feeling of the thru-hike lifestyle, I do not feel you will accomplish that by hiking the trail in the fashion you indicate. My comment about wasting the trail was in regards to the length of the trail. There are few trails of that length that are continuously blazed. The AT can be a very good and safe introduction to long distance backpacking for anyone that wants to use it in that way. I said “You are wasting a perfectly good long trail from a long distance hiking perspective.” I was trying to appeal to a different sense of accomplishment. Isn’t that why you hike all of the peaks? If you want to hike the AT in the fashion you mentioned then fine, just do it. Will you accomplish the sense of what most define as a thru-hike, probably not and it has nothing to do with a calendar year? It has to do with wearing the same two t-shirts for six months. It has to do with trying to maintain your weight and not lose any more. It has to do with fighting the desire to quit. It has to do with the feeling of making it to the end. I’m not trying to demean what you wish to do. I’m just saying the length of the trail has a lot to offer you that few people really get to feel.

The two weeks I was off trail were in Cherokee, NC. I didn’t come home. I didn’t because I would have felt it to be an interruption of my hike. But that is just me.

Two Scoops