What constitutes a "thru-hike?"

[Mick3y]

Exactly. Blueblazing can be rationalized any number of ways (views, shortcuts, etc). But, bottom line, you did not thru-hike the AT unless you have walked its entire length.

So.. When you walk off the trail to go to the bathroom you mark the exact spot you left it? If you miss a fraction of an inch because you walked into the woods and returned a few feet up you aren't a thru-hiker. Always mark the trail before you leave to take a dump..

[fiddlehead]

There are no rules.

[squeezebox]

If you are the type that says a person did not thru hike because s/he missed 1 meter of trail when s/he went off trail to pee, or went on a blue blaze for a view, or took a blister zero day.
I wish you luck in finally calming down so you can enjoy your hike.
It's about enjoying your hike,
not some painful endurance contest.

[rickb]

Exactly. Blueblazing can be rationalized any number of ways (views, shortcuts, etc). But, bottom line, you did not thru-hike the AT unless you have walked its entire length.

Somewhere on this web site is a quote I posted from Benton MacKaye, wherein he explicitly states that the AT is best thought of as a corridor, and not a narrow footpath.

Since he defines the AT differently than you, it is logical to think he would define a thru hike differently than you as well.

[rickb]

Here is that quote:

The Appalachian Trail is a wilderness strip; it could be very wide–several miles wide–if possible. It is not a trailway. Actually, the trail itself could be a strip no wider than space for a fat man to get through. And that’s the trouble: ‘Trailway’ is a very unfortunate word; it gives the impression of a Greyhound bus and a great cement, six-lane highway, which is just the opposite of what the trail is supposed to be.


–BENTON MACKAYE, AIA Journal interview where he bluntly repudiated the Trailway concept as adopted by the Appalachian Trail Conference, 1971

[Coffee]

So.. When you walk off the trail to go to the bathroom you mark the exact spot you left it? If you miss a fraction of an inch because you walked into the woods and returned a few feet up you aren't a thru-hiker. Always mark the trail before you leave to take a dump..

Also, by his definition virtually no one thru hikes the PCT because portions of the trail are usually under snow at times and the corridor approach is used. And no doubt a glissade is an altogether different form of transport than walking, so that's a disqualifier as well!

[Pedaling Fool]

Why waste your energy on that? The question is whether there is anything approaching a consensus. My opinion doesn't matter - nor, as it turns out, does yours.

The fact that there are tons of threads on this is proof there is no consensus; there is not even an official definition provided by the ATC. No one's opinion matters on the definition.

[Don H]

You'd have to hike really fast to finish in one season, and it would be especially tough if you chose winter.

One HIKING season! SOBOs who start in late June might not finish until January.

[Don H]

Standard LW post.

Anyway, in the March/April issue of AT Journeys I just got today, on page 28 it says the ATC proposed the following definition about 10 years ago: "A thru hike is a completely hiked trail done in 12 months, regardless of direction or starting point". So just hike the entire AT, however you want, in 12 months or less and you've thru hiked the AT. Pretty simple.

From the ATC website "

A thru-hiker is a hiker or backpacker who has completed or is attempting to walk the entire Appalachian Trail in one uninterrupted journey. Completing the entire estimated 2,180 miles of the Appalachian Trail in one trip is a mammoth undertaking. Each year, thousands of hikers attempt a thru-hike; only about one in four make it all the way."

http://www.appalachiantrail.org/hiki...section-hiking

The key here is "one uninterrupted journey". Clearly if the ATC considers one in four completing a thru they are counting those who got off the trail for a short time, changed directions or did a flip-flop. If one was to take the statement "one uninterrupted journey" literally then there would be virtually no thru-hikers including Earl Shaffer.

[Oak88]

To thine own self be true, you know if you did a thru. You know and you alone know whether or not you did a thru hike. You do this hike for you not for all of us out here. The ATC website explains what a "thru hike" is. Its very easy to justify in your own mind what a "thru hike " is. Skipping hard states, yellow blazing, blue blazing, skipping 185.9 miles were common by Pennsylvania. I left Harpers Ferry for three days and went home, when I returned to Harpers Ferry to continue north I was asked how I got there and did I "yellow blaze". Canoeing, rafting, hitching to the next "party trail town", claiming the trail was originally only 2000 miles, skipping Pennsylvania because of the rocks, leaving the trail for an injury in NJ and re-appearing in Massachusetts.

The bottom line is no one should care if you claim you hiked the trail. You do it for you and you will always know if you did the trail.

[Lone Wolf]

Standard LW post.

Anyway, in the March/April issue of AT Journeys I just got today, on page 28 it says the ATC proposed the following definition about 10 years ago: "A thru hike is a completely hiked trail done in 12 months, regardless of direction or starting point". So just hike the entire AT, however you want, in 12 months or less and you've thru hiked the AT. Pretty simple.

just the truth

[Happydaddy]

The fact that there are tons of threads on this is proof there is no consensus; there is not even an official definition provided by the ATC. No one's opinion matters on the definition.

I have stumbled upon other threads (here and elsewhere) that get into the general question of what constitutes a thru hike. It seems that, regardless of the specific question, the discussion ends up being a general one. As I said above, I find the search feature here (and on similarly configured sites) to be maddeningly difficult to use for finding threads on specific questions. Having not stumbled on a thread on this specific question, I asked it.

I was particularly interested in how the "community" viewed breaks (zero days, town days, injury/illness interruptions, extended side trips, trips home, etc.) when ascribing the term "thru" to an AT hike. I expected opinions to vary (from lone wolf's absolute to others' more "tolerant." I don't pretend that there is a right answer. I just thought it would be interesting see the range of opinions and to see whether a consensus developed.

[Starchild]

With time to think more of it, and noticing the thread again, a thru hike is a journey one takes. The AT is just not white blazes, but also include official AT communities that the trail doesn't even go through or even near. Likewise shelters and water sources for AT hikers are also located off the white blazes path.

So the AT is more then the narrow strip of land, and there is more to experience, staying on the path you will miss so much and that is not the complete AT experience. I would expand the AT even further into the good will of others, so it also includes what the trail angels add, opening up rides, slack pack opportunities, flip flop sections, and places to sleep, and even further to adventures that happen while you are thru hiking that take you far off trail - these are all parts of life when your home is the AT.


And that is what separates a thru hiker from a section hiker, the thru hiker is living with the AT as home, and what separates a thru hiker from a 'lasher' (Long-as$ section hiker) is that the thru hiker within the span of their journey knows in their heart that they started and completed the trail as they were meant to do so.

But people like hard rules so the ATC has come up with the calendar year guideline, allowances for blue and yellow blazing (maybe aqua I don't know).

[Pedaling Fool]

The fact that there are tons of threads on this is proof there is no consensus; there is not even an official definition provided by the ATC. No one's opinion matters on the definition.

I stand corrected, sort of... The ATC does now define the term thru-hiker; they use to not do that and said so on their website.

However, their definition is not very detailed and in no way settles the question that is the title of this thread, nor the countless debates on this topic in the past.

Here is their definition: http://www.appalachiantrail.org/hiki...on-hiking/faqs

How does the ATC define thru-hiking?

We define a thru-hike as a hike of the entire Appalachian Trail in 12 months or less.


However, they still do not issue a certificate of completion of a thru-hike, because it's too difficult to narrow that definition down, they don't want to deal with it.

What is a 2,000-miler?

A "2,000-miler" is a hiker who has walked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail and reported his or her hike completion to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. The ATC has been keeping records of trail completions since the A.T. was first completed in 1937. ATC uses the term "2,000-miler" as a matter of tradition and convenience. When the term was coined, the A.T. was only slightly more than 2,000 miles. Its length changes every year due to relocations. In recognizing 2,000-milers, we don't consider issues such as the sequence, direction, speed or whether one carries a pack. We do expect that persons applying for inclusion in our 2,000-miler records have made an honest effort to walk the entire Trail. A 2,000-miler application form can be found here.










So, looking at their definition, it in no way answers the question of how much time you can take off. Actually, if you take it literally, you can not take any time off what so ever. So, if anything, this "definition" only adds fuel to the debate; it in NO way settles the debate.

Personally, I don't have strict definition of the term thru-hiker, I simply use it in a loose manner to describe a non-interrupted hike of the AT; I don't care if someone missed a couple feet here or there or if they took some time off.... but there are some that have some very strict definitions and they are very vocal and that is why there is so many threads on this issue and why there is no consensus.

[Sarcasm the elf]

I have stumbled upon other threads (here and elsewhere) that get into the general question of what constitutes a thru hike. It seems that, regardless of the specific question, the discussion ends up being a general one. As I said above, I find the search feature here (and on similarly configured sites) to be maddeningly difficult to use for finding threads on specific questions. Having not stumbled on a thread on this specific question, I asked it.

On a side note about searching threads on this site, the best way I've found to is to use google. In the google search window type the words you want to search for and the at the end type "site:whiteblaze.net" (without the quotation marks) the results listed will only be for this site.

[Happydaddy]

On a side note about searching threads on this site, the best way I've found to is to use google. In the google search window type the words you want to search for and the at the end type "site:whiteblaze.net" (without the quotation marks) the results listed will only be for this site.

Thanks - I'll try that. I know it annoys [some] people to see repetitive threads.

[Tuckahoe]

Well, I have no intent of doing a thru-hike, so in the big picture my opinion does not matter on this much debated topic. But yall are going to have to suffer through reading it anyway.

I grew up with the understanding that the AT was a system of trails, as much as it was a single trail, and that all those blue (or other) blazes were as much part of the trail. They were after all the entry points to the trail, the way to the awesome views or at one time the original route of the white blazed AT.

My take is that if one has walked from GA to ME, or ME to GA or even flip flopped, than they did a thru-hike. I dont care whether they missed a half mile of white blazes, cause they took a blue blaze to a view, or hiked a 5 mile blue blaze because that was the trail in the 1970s when their mom thru-hiked. About the only objection I would have would be "yellow blazing."

But then again, since reading Three Hundred Zeros, I have always considered Dennis Blanchard's two section hikes to be a thru.

[Pedaling Fool]

Here's just one example, but it wasn't as lengthy as others on here, but gives you an idea of various people's definition. Things like slackpacking will cause one to be disqualified from being a thru-hiker under some definitions. http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/show...f-a-Thru-Hiker

[Sarcasm the elf]

Thanks - I'll try that. I know it annoys [some] people to see repetitive threads.

I wouldn't worry too much about repetitive threads. Most of us are reluctant to admit it, but this place would get kind of boring if people didn't open new threads to give us something to discuss (argue) about.

[lonehiker]

Also, by his definition virtually no one thru hikes the PCT because portions of the trail are usually under snow at times and the corridor approach is used. And no doubt a glissade is an altogether different form of transport than walking, so that's a disqualifier as well!

This is an AT thread not a PCT thread. Pay attention.