View Full Version : The longest, most isolated stretch of the AT
TheYoungOne
10-15-2012, 14:56
I have a question for all you thru hikers. Where is the most isolated part of the AT? A place where there is a long stretch between resupply towns and the chance of you running into a non hiker is slim to none.
When you when thoru this area where you nervous, or did you love it?
Hard to say...From an earlier thread:
http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?6180-Longest-roadless-stretch
The Smokies, from fontana dam to New Found Gap is 40.3 miles of no roads, although the trail does skirt a road at Clingmans Dome at 32.4 miles from fontana dam and at indian gap at 38.6 miles, the trail does not cross either road.
Also, from New Found Gap to Davenport is 31.3 miles of no road crossings.
As pointed out in this thread, though, road crossings may not be the best way of describing 'remoteness'. The Smokeys are very busy and have quite a bit of people. My gut feeling says that somewhere in Maine may be the most remote if you combine distance from road, amount of use and not seeing any man-made structures.
Where that exact stretch is? I leave that to those who known Maine and/or the AT better than I.
the closest i found to remoteness was the 100 MW in Maine. no resupply from one end to the other and no real road crossing. now with that being said there is no shortage of people anywhere on the AT during prime hiking season. the average was like 1 or 2 people per mile. then at every shelter which is an average of 8 miles apart there is on average 3-4 people. resupply is very easy south of Maine and NH due to all the road crossings every day.
peakbagger
10-15-2012, 15:41
Depressingly there is none. The longest stetch between roads is probably in the smokies, with the whites and the Mahoosucs a close second. The 100 mile "wilderness" would probably come in third. In all cases there are plenty of day and section hikers. Western Maine to RT 17 doesnt get a lot of non thru hiker traffic but Pine Ellis in Andover can slack you through it, if you want you can ignore them and that is about 4 days of hiking. Same issue opportunity with Long Fall dam rd east of Bigelow to Monson, if you skip Caratunk for resupply its quite remote and its doesnt get a lot of thruhikers.
Of course off season all bets are off. In April 2012, I and a friend did virginia starting at the south gate of SNP and heading south. We went 4 weeks before we ran into the early northbounders. Most nights we had shelters to ourselves , rarely saw anyone on the trails except for maintainers and only saw folks on the weekends. Once we hit the early thruhikers, we decided to head home. We had similiar experiences in PA, NJ, and NY by hiking in the spring. Another year we went north of the Shenadoahs in the fall and had the trail to ourselves up into southern PA.
Depends really. As a long distance winter hiker I once went 33 days without seeing a single human being on trail, not a one. More times than I could ever count, a week or two would go by on trail walking completely alone during winter. The trail is a remote place off season. During prime time you can forget about it. A couple fews days of solitude if you're lucky.
Every state has its own degree of remoteness but the 100 mile wilderness is the most remote.
yellowsirocco
10-15-2012, 17:05
100 mile ain't no wilderness. Going NOBO, the first 20 miles or so parallels a lot of houses. There is actually a road bridge over Big Wilson not too far downstream of the AT. That doesn't sound like wilderness. Over by Gulf Hagas there is a lot of traffic and a lot of weekenders. So between there is just the Barren-Chairbacks that are wild. I am not going to analyze the rest of it, but you get the point. There are lots of logging roads and those roads go to lots of places close by the trail, but not close enough to see or hear. Look at the maps.
Depends really. As a long distance winter hiker I once went 33 days without seeing a single human being on trail, not a one. More times than I could ever count, a week or two would go by on trail walking completely alone during winter. The trail is a remote place off season. During prime time you can forget about it. A couple fews days of solitude if you're lucky.
I agree. In bad weather, or even in really cold weather, any part of the AT is "remote." Good weather -- no part is remote. The 100 mile wilderness after October 15th would be my vote for solitude without really challenging weather, at least until November 1st. You pretty much have the state to yourself for a couple of weeks.
BarFight
10-18-2012, 10:26
Depends on where you are and the weather...to me, the stretch from Rangely to Stratton felt the most remote, but that was because it rained the entire time and I saw only fellow thru-hikers. It was so socked in you couldn't see anything from Saddleback, I didn't go up Sugarloaf, etc. It was fun. I had great weather in the 100-miles and was surprised by the number of roads and people. It's a lot easier to slackpack the hundred miles then other places in Maine.
If you define "remote" by the number of people you see when you are hiking, the longest area with generally the lowest amount of hiker traffic is between Pearisburg and Dragon's Tooth, Va., a distance of 64 miles.
Laurie P.
i would say pick a boring section of the trail and go on an off day. the least number of people ive seen on the AT was hiking in central PA during the week in the fall. the popular areas, by definition, will never be remote in that sense.
Kerosene
10-18-2012, 14:06
If you define "remote" by the number of people you see when you are hiking, the longest area with generally the lowest amount of hiker traffic is between Pearisburg and Dragon's Tooth, Va., a distance of 64 miles.That's a surprise. I seemed to encounter quite a few people, going in both directions, when I SOBOed through this section in late May/early June 2005. Certainly I was passing through a few of the thru-hiker "bubbles", and it was a lovely season to cover this section, so perhaps it's just other times of the year when it is underused. Conversely, in southwestern Maine in mid-September 2012 I only encountered perhaps 20 other hikers in 4 days (between Grafton Notch and Rangeley).
The numerous 100 mile "wilderness" roads make it seem more accessible than it really is. Non are public roads, but rather private roads built primarily for carrying out logs and pulp wood to Maine mills. Only a couple have regular non logging traffic. They all lead somewhere, but few signs tell one to just where. And come off seasons, very few are plowed unless an active logging operation happens to be working in the area. Most are used only by residents of the area for access to favorite fishing spots. Many have attempted a winter traverse of the northern portion of the trail in Maine. Only very few have gotten very far before giving up.
Depends on where you are and the weather...to me, the stretch from Rangely to Stratton felt the most remote, but that was because it rained the entire time and I saw only fellow thru-hikers. It was so socked in you couldn't see anything from Saddleback, I didn't go up Sugarloaf, etc. It was fun. I had great weather in the 100-miles and was surprised by the number of roads and people. It's a lot easier to slackpack the hundred miles then other places in Maine.
The numerous 100 mile "wilderness" roads make it seem more accessible than it really is. Non are public roads, but rather private roads built primarily for carrying out logs and pulp wood to Maine mills. .
When the paper companies don't plan to farm trees along their roads for a certain amount of time they pull the bridges, and culverts. A tote road that the trail crosses in the 100 mile may not see traffic for years on end, until the paper company who owns it needs to farm in the area again. These roads whether in use or not are off limits to foot travel anyhow. The misconception that many hikers have when they cross a tote road is that the road appears to be somehow accessible. The reality is that many of these roads are not what they appear. These roads are amended and relocated so much that maps are useless. The reason many tote roads are 1 lane wide is because the pulp trucks either travel only in one direction, or use radio contact to divert from head ons between one another, kind of like what the railroad does.
hikerboy57
10-19-2012, 17:42
Still jo mary rd and katahdin iron works rd do provide accessibility into the100 mile.
Still jo mary rd and katahdin iron works rd do provide accessibility into the100 mile.
If by accessibility you mean car then yes you are right. Unless of course the road is flooded, or made impassible by mud, or there is any amount of snow on the ground.