View Full Version : NOBO starting April 24?
AlyontheAT2016
10-22-2015, 09:21
I had initially been planning to start May 1, but now I'm thinking I'd like to give myself a little extra time. I'd still like to avoid the bubble, as well as Trail Days, but a NOBO is logistically the easiest hike for me to do. Is an April 24 start (a Sunday) still going to have me miss the bulk of thru-hiker congestion? am I fooling myself?
soumodeler
10-22-2015, 09:50
You will miss the majority of it.
fiddlehead
10-22-2015, 10:37
You're a wise man to start then.
Have fun.
The Cleaner
10-22-2015, 12:22
You'll get to follow the wake of the earlier starters.Trashed shelters and campsites.More towns and hostels will be" hostile" due to ridiculous behavior of the many new hikers on the trail with no real clue of proper hiker behavior...
Slo-go'en
10-22-2015, 13:13
If you average a typical 15 MPD hiking pace you'll miss Trail Days by about 10 days. That should be enough time to let the bottle neck created by TD to disperse and thin out the crowds. A fair number of hikers south of Damascus will skip up ahead to attend the party and then don't bother to bounce back south, so the trail will become a lot quieter for you as you approach Damascus. But once past there you'll start to run into the slow poke party crowd again pretty quickly.
Hitting the Smokies before Memorial Day and/or the end of school will be a plus too.
Wayne
AlyontheAT2016
10-22-2015, 17:31
Thanks for the responses! It seems like it might be a good decision to make then. Knowing I have an extra week to make it to Katahdin makes me feel way more at ease already!
And I don't agree that following the wake of early starters will only bring me trashed shelters and hostile trail towns. That's a pretty cynical thing to assume of a large and diverse group of people.
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