View Full Version : How many mountains would you cross over on the trail?
Groundsound1
06-30-2014, 19:45
Not sure if this would be an impossible question or not, but along the entire AT, how many mountains do you think you would cross over hiking the whole way? just pure curiosity, i say mountain instead of peak because, well, a little hill has a peak, and so does an anthill. :rolleyes:
Slo-go'en
06-30-2014, 20:12
I don't know, I lost count...
BTW, a peak is a point which is at least 300 feet higher then the connecting ridge line. Any lower and it's just a bump along the way..
it's not hiking the peaks and Mountains that get you on the AT, it's 20ft down and 21ft up is going uphill and vise-versa is downhill.
ChefATLTCT
07-02-2014, 10:49
I read somewhere years ago it goes over 300 plus named peaks, and the elevation gain when added together equals 19 mt everest.
In Maine we developed a saying "No nubbin left unclimbed". The trail used to be much different, with a lot of flat road walks, but was rerouted during the 1980's-2000. After meeting a few of the "Maine-tainers" I believe they are quite proud of their trail being difficult, and it was made more progressively difficult on purpose.
Google "Coastline Paradox"
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox
This touches on the mathematical notion of fractals and all that good stuff. The only way to come up with a number is to stipulate that one of your "mountains" has a valley of a certain depth on either side of it. This gets to be an issue for peakbaggers.