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A ranger in Shenandoah mentioned the average thru-hike takes 5 months, and I haven't stopped thinking about it
I was filling up my water at a shelter near Mary's Rock last month when a ridge runner started chatting with me about the Appalachian Trail. He mentioned that the average thru-hike takes about 5 to 6 months, but what really got me was when he said he sees the same faces at mile 500 that he saw at mile 50, just way quieter and a lot skinnier. Back when I did my first section hike in 2009, I thought people were flying through Virginia in like 3 weeks. Now I know it's more like a month or more with zeros and neros stacked up. He also said the dropout rate is around 75 percent, which honestly tracks with how many folks I saw bail after the Smokies. I keep thinking about how I used to plan routes like it was a sprint, and now I look at 15 mile days as a good pace, not a slow one. Does anyone else find their mileage goals have gotten more chill the longer they've been hiking, or am I just getting old?
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lewis.troy1mo ago
Watched a guy at Grayson Highlands last October cook the same pot of ramen for like 45 minutes because he kept forgetting it was there. Said he'd been out since Georgia and his brain just stopped tracking time around Damascus. He wasn't even upset about it, just sat there stirring and staring at the ponies. I hiked past him twice that day because I kept taking breaks and he kept passing me on the flats. That whole thing stuck with me more than any mileage chart. Five months does something to a person that a weekend section hike never will.
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