View Full Version : How long is too long.....
If you are forced to leave the trail during a thru-hike (injury, no money, family emergency, ect.), how long can you be away and still concider it a thru-hike? Just looking for your opinons.
From what I've read on here, any hike completed during a 12 month period is considered a thru-hike.
Blue Jay
01-06-2009, 20:12
You have to restart before you die.
You have to restart before you die.Not many restart after...
Sadly, it's all about statistics. From what I've been told by the folks down at the ATC: anyone who starts the AT with the intent of completing the trail before the year end statistical data has been collected is considered a thru-hiker. If their hike is not completed within the data collection period, they become section hikers.
Sadly, it's all about statistics. From what I've been told by the folks down at the ATC: anyone who starts the AT with the intent of completing the trail before the year end statistical data has been collected is considered a thru-hiker. If their hike is not completed within the data collection period, they become section hikers.You can still fill out a 2000 miler application as a thru hiker if you want.
You can still fill out a 2000 miler application as a thru hiker if you want.
You can set home and play on the internet and fill out a 2000 miler application
Clyde
If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, its a duck.
Tennessee Viking
01-06-2009, 21:01
I heard once you hit Harpers Ferry. 2000 mile recognition. Complete it in one year.
CrumbSnatcher
01-06-2009, 21:06
your either a thruhiker or a section hiker. when you complete the trail you become a 2,000 miler
once you hit Harpers Ferry.
Because you register as a thru in HF (for statistics).
Although the 2000 miler app has two choices:
Section Hiker, More than one Year or Thru-Hiker--
IMHO, it's not what the ATC thinks... Ask your trail family and friends. What would they say?
Because you register as a thru in HF (for statistics).You don't have to. Only place that gets a good count is Baxter Park.
Chaco Taco
01-06-2009, 21:17
Guy this past year was held up in Rutland VT with Lyme Meningitis(?) for almost a month and summitted with us on Sept 30. Anything is possible just a matter of how much you want it
Johnny Thunder
01-06-2009, 21:41
Chaco...I forgot to tell you that after reviewing pictures it has come to my attention that Blaze (the guy mentioned above) left Neels moments before I arrived on my 4th morning.
So, what I'm saying is. He had Lyme's Menningitis....I had Law and Order and B(obe).
To me the distinction is more about how disruptive your Hike is to the flow of "normal life." If you hike the AT on a series of annual vacations, it's a section hike. If you abandon your job, your family, and your home and go hiking for a significant period of time, you're a thru-hiker, even if you have to go home and attend a wedding, or whatever.
The real deal, though, is that the definitions are arbitrary. You have to live with whatever you do, whether other people approve, admire, or revile your actions.
When I started out on Springer, there was ridgerunner standing out in the middle of a lightning storm with a clipboard. He was taking data for the ATC-- thru-hiker statistics. When he asked me if I was "thru-hiking" and I told him "I'm not through hiking 'til I'm done..." He marked me down as a section hiker. Go figger.
Lone Wolf
01-06-2009, 22:14
If you are forced to leave the trail during a thru-hike (injury, no money, family emergency, ect.), how long can you be away and still concider it a thru-hike? Just looking for your opinons.
no rules. do what you want.
When I started out on Springer, there was ridgerunner standing out in the middle of a lightning storm with a clipboard. He was taking data for the ATC-- thru-hiker statistics. When he asked me if I was "thru-hiking" and I told him "I'm not through hiking 'til I'm done..." He marked me down as a section hiker. Go figger.I have been on springer twice during thru hiker season. First time I saw the guy, but he did not talk to me. Second time no one was there. As far as the ATC statistics knows I was never there.
Blue Jay
01-07-2009, 10:26
From what I've been told by the folks down at the ATC: anyone who starts the AT with the intent of completing the trail before the year end statistical data has been collected is considered a thru-hiker. If their hike is not completed within the data collection period, they become section hikers.
So you're saying if it takes you 365 days and one second, you're not a thru. I've been to the ATC many times and yet never heard anyone talk statistics. I had no idea statistical data had any effect on what one calls oneself.
CrumbSnatcher
01-07-2009, 10:45
So you're saying if it takes you 365 days and one second, you're not a thru. I've been to the ATC many times and yet never heard anyone talk statistics. I had no idea statistical data had any effect on what one calls oneself.
if you take more than 365 days to complete a thruhike thats fine HYOH,why you're always hearing a year is most thruhikers dont hike thru the middle of winter(spring thru late fall)if you take 9 months to thruhike thats 8 miles a day. most, if all thruhikers will be done in that time frame.
Don't worry about it. If you take two months off, so what? If you take six months off, so what? The only questions I would have is, Did you hike from Springer to Katadin? Did you basically follow the AT? Call your self whatever you want.
Since this is a pretty anal group about such things (more-so than any other hiking group I've been associated with) you will probably get some flack no matter what you decide. Many folks seem to think that how you hike your hike, somehow makes their own hike either more or less meaningful, and will criticize you for not doing it their way.
Personally, I think that in order to be a REAL thru hiker, one must take the exact same number of steps with their left foot as they did with their right foot. If they didn't then they favored their weaker foot, and so, overall, they didn't put out as much effort as I do. I hate it when people take shortcuts and do things the easy way, then expect the same recognition as me!!!
HYOH and don't worry about anyone else's opinion.
CrumbSnatcher
01-07-2009, 10:51
When I started out on Springer, there was ridgerunner standing out in the middle of a lightning storm with a clipboard. He was taking data for the ATC-- thru-hiker statistics. When he asked me if I was "thru-hiking" and I told him "I'm not through hiking 'til I'm done..." He marked me down as a section hiker. Go figger.
THATS CAUSE YOU HAVE A SENSE OF HUMOR,HE DIDN'T. if you go out to thruhike this spring with the intentions of going to maine your a thruhiker. if you didn't make it you still thruhiked in 09'. what im saying is you start off a section hiker or a thruhiker and in the end you become a 2,000 miler. you don't hike the whole trail to become a thruhiker, you hike the whole trail as a thruhiker to become a 2,000 miler.
Lone Wolf
01-07-2009, 10:53
the last few times at springer i told the dude i was thru-hiking. i only hiked to the parking lot :)
CrumbSnatcher
01-07-2009, 11:00
the last few times at springer i told the dude i was thru-hiking. i only hiked to the parking lot :)
i missed the parking lot,too busy counting my steps Lyle Style:)
Pedaling Fool
01-07-2009, 11:04
If you are forced to leave the trail during a thru-hike (injury, no money, family emergency, ect.), how long can you be away and still concider it a thru-hike? Just looking for your opinons.
People argue over this a lot, but it's all for nothing, because there is no official definition of thru-hiker – which is why it’s called it a 2,000-miler certificate.
The ATC uses the term loosely to refer to one who attempts to hike the trail end-to-end in one continuous trip. This is their official stance on the definition of Thru-hiker:
How does ATC define thru-hiking?
We don't. ATC uses the term "2,000-miler" as a matter of tradition and convenience. ATC defines a "2,000-miler" as anyone who has hiked the entire Trail between Springer Mountain in Georgia and Katahdin in Maine. 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.
--From the ATC's FAQ website http://www.appalachiantrail.org/site/c.jkLXJ8MQKtH/b.788745/k.9CE2/FAQ_ThruHiking.htm
Pedaling Fool
01-07-2009, 11:10
When I started out on Springer, there was ridgerunner standing out in the middle of a lightning storm with a clipboard. He was taking data for the ATC-- thru-hiker statistics. When he asked me if I was "thru-hiking" and I told him "I'm not through hiking 'til I'm done..." He marked me down as a section hiker. Go figger.
Don't worry LW was looking out for you.:sun
the last few times at springer i told the dude i was thru-hiking. i only hiked to the parking lot :)
Rockhound
01-07-2009, 11:13
Hike for the love of hiking. Hike as a personal challenge. Hike to lose weight. Hike for a worthy cause, but dont hike just so you can become a statistic.
Tipi Walter
01-07-2009, 12:22
To me the distinction is more about how disruptive your Hike is to the flow of "normal life." If you hike the AT on a series of annual vacations, it's a section hike. If you abandon your job, your family, and your home and go hiking for a significant period of time, you're a thru-hiker, even if you have to go home and attend a wedding, or whatever.
The real deal, though, is that the definitions are arbitrary. You have to live with whatever you do, whether other people approve, admire, or revile your actions.
Or you could say the "normal life" is living on the trail or outdoors and any break from such a life could be considered "disruptive."
Don't worry about it. If you take two months off, so what? If you take six months off, so what? The only questions I would have is, Did you hike from Springer to Katadin? Did you basically follow the AT? Call your self whatever you want.
Since this is a pretty anal group about such things (more-so than any other hiking group I've been associated with) you will probably get some flack no matter what you decide. Many folks seem to think that how you hike your hike, somehow makes their own hike either more or less meaningful, and will criticize you for not doing it their way.
HYOH and don't worry about anyone else's opinion.
The Whiteblaze crew might be a "pretty anal group", you've got that right, concerned with endless AT banter on shelters/bears/hostels and motels/town trips/short resupply/2000 miler fixation-patches/and for some a short-term entrance into the world of backpacking afterwhich they never return. All this is needed, though, since Whiteblaze is a forum on, well, the white blaze, the Appalachian Trail, and all that entails.
But AT backpacking is a peculiar form of backpacking as described, and for the most part is concerned with short periods of hauling weight with frequent town interruptions for resupply and hot showers. Add the glut of fellow backpackers sharing the trail with you and you get a specialized form of backpacking and backpackers so vocal here on WB. I know my trip reports aren't shakespeare, but there isn't anything quite so boring as reading AT trail journals filled with tiny snippets of thought including hundreds of trail named individuals you'll never meet and don't really care to know. Some amount of long term solitude is needed to keep a decent trail journal, along with long unbroken periods of backpacking. Just my fetid opinion. Nothing to get hung about.
Hike for the love of hiking. Hike as a personal challenge. Hike to lose weight. Hike for a worthy cause, but dont hike just so you can become a statistic.
Backpackers can be just as ambitious as Wall Street CEOs, politician-lawyers, Tour de France riders, and record breaking speed hikers. They need a patch or the Thruhiker designation to be considered righteous. But to me the only ambition required is to see how many bag nights a person can accumulate thru a lifetime of backpacking. Anybody can sleep indoors, but how many want to stay outside permanently? The thruhiker might do it for a few months and then never return, and he might even congratulate himself on being a "thruhiker", but he's back where he started: indoors and in debt. Maybe that was the plan all along.
There's no need for a patch or a label, you just need a tent and a sleeping bag and the four seasons in a treeline or under a bush somewhere. When you hit age 75, you can then tally up the score.
Lone Wolf
01-07-2009, 12:24
Or you could say the "normal life" is living on the trail or outdoors and any break from such a life could be considered "disruptive."
The Whiteblaze crew might be a "pretty anal group", you've got that right, concerned with endless AT banter on shelters/bears/hostels and motels/town trips/short resupply/2000 miler fixation-patches/and for some a short-term entrance into the world of backpacking afterwhich they never return. All this is needed, though, since Whiteblaze is a forum on, well, the white blaze, the Appalachian Trail, and all that entails.
But AT backpacking is a peculiar form of backpacking as described, and for the most part is concerned with short periods of hauling weight with frequent town interruptions for resupply and hot showers. Add the glut of fellow backpackers sharing the trail with you and you get a specialized form of backpacking and backpackers so vocal here on WB. I know my trip reports aren't shakespeare, but there isn't anything quite so boring as reading AT trail journals filled with tiny snippets of thought including hundreds of trail named individuals you'll never meet and don't really care to know. Some amount of long term solitude is needed to keep a decent trail journal, along with long unbroken periods of backpacking. Just my fetid opinion. Nothing to get hung about.
Backpackers can be just as ambitious as Wall Street CEOs, politician-lawyers, Tour de France riders, and record breaking speed hikers. They need a patch or the Thruhiker designation to be considered righteous. But to me the only ambition required is to see how many bag nights a person can accumulate thru a lifetime of backpacking. Anybody can sleep indoors, but how many want to stay outside permanently? The thruhiker might do it for a few months and then never return, and he might even congratulate himself on being a "thruhiker", but he's back where he started: indoors and in debt. Maybe that was the plan all along.
There's no need for a patch or a label, you just need a tent and a sleeping bag and the four seasons in a treeline or under a bush somewhere. When you hit age 75, you can then tally up the score.
:D yup
Or you could say the "normal life" is living on the trail or outdoors and any break from such a life could be considered "disruptive."
But thru-hikers have to be obsessed with the end-to-end thing, whether it makes any sense or not. ;)
Lone Wolf
01-07-2009, 12:30
But thru-hikers have to be obsessed with the end-to-end thing, whether it makes any sense or not. ;)
i got over that foolishness by the time i got to hot springs on my first hike in 86. was burned out. took a few days off then started slackpacking (low and slow miles with full pack) and promised myself to go until it wasn't fun anymore. made it to gorham, n.h. and got the hell off. enuf was enuf. katahdin wasn't goin' nowhere
Plodderman
01-07-2009, 13:16
For me thru hike is one continuous hike with a couple of weeks off for injury if necessary but I am a section hiker and if I complete the trail over twenty years then so be it.
Like LW said.
Relying on other people's standards is a slippery slope. Don't let them make rules or definitions for you to follow.
Rockhound
06-29-2009, 15:26
I would blue blaze or yellow blaze or aqua blaze at least 25 or 30 miles just to avoid becoming a statistic. It aint about the miles.
I can't see it happening for me, but IF I wanted (Had?) to take 13 - 14 (or 24) months to go from GA = ME or ME - GA I'm a Thru Hiker.
If the ATC told me I wasn't, well, I have used a certan 4 letter 3 letter word combo before, , , , , Starts & ends with "F" :p
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