View Full Version : Where might the SOBO bubble be on Sept 27?
Alleghanian Orogeny
09-21-2014, 12:56
We'll be in Hot Springs for the weekend. Most any time I'm close to the AT, I keep a cooler of goodies in the truck in order to provide a bit of trail magic to any hikers I may see. Seems likely to see some SOBOs between Allen Gap and Hot Springs, where I'll be crossing the AT at Hurricane Gap on Saturday while on a daytrip to the Rich Mtn fire tower and down the TN side to the Paint Creek Corridor.
Does it seem likely we'll see a few SOBOs?
AO
If you see sobos, they'll be the relatively fast ones. The sobo "wave" is really faint, given how few there are to begin with, and the varied departure times. Hiking sobo from PA to mid-VA several years back, between early August and mid-September, I only met two sobo thru hikers in six weeks time, both in SNP, around Labor Day.
I was in Pearisburg on the 28th on my thru last year.
The middle of the SOBO pack, such as it is, is in northern Virginia the last weekend in September. It won't be to Hot Springs until the first week of November. Like Rafe says, any rare SOBOs you might see that weekend are outliers. If the weather is good, though, a weekend in September should see quite a few other hikers.