View Full Version : AT Hiking Rates, by Age of Hiker
This post expands on data from this article: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/content.php?44
I decided to look at the journals for the hikers in this study to see if I could determine how old each hiker was. Often, in the first post or two, or on the page "about" the hiker at trailjournals.com, folks freely reveal their age. And in most other cases it's possible to deduce someone's general age, even if they don't mention a specific number (someone might say "I'm hiking after 32 years as an airline pilot" or "my boyfriend and I have decided to thru-hike after college graduation before we look for jobs"). So I looked at all the journals, putting hikers in three different age categories: younger (under 30); middle (30-49); and older (50 and older). In the end there were only a handful of the 240 NOBO journals in my study in which I could not make a very educated guess.
Here's what I found. Of the hikers in my study:
45% were under 30
26% were age 30-49
29% were 50 and older
The conventional wisdom is that most thru-hikers are pretty young or old enough to have retired from work so I was a little surprised that there were as many as there were in the middle group. I'd be curious to know if experienced observers of thru-hikers here at WB think these numbers sound right, or if anyone knows of any surveys that have been done to try to determine the ages of thru-hikers.
Here are the average (mean) times, and number of mean zero days, it took these various age groups to finish their thru-hikes:
Under 30 -- 167 days to complete and 20 zero days
30-49 -- 170 days to complete and 21 zero days
50 and over -- 174 days to complete and 21 zero days
These differences are not dramatic. Where the interesting differences are revealed are when we look at both age AND gender. Here are how the average (mean) numbers broke down for women keeping a journal for just themselves (no couples):
Women under 30 -- 180 days to complete and 21 zero days
Women 30-49 -- 179 days to complete and 22 zero days
Women 50 and over -- 180 days to complete and 21 zero days
The different age groups for women have amazingly similar numbers. How about for male-female couples thru-hiking together and keeping a journal? Here are the average (mean) times for them:
M/F couples under 30 -- 182 days to complete and 25 zero days
M/F couples 30-49 -- 172 days to complete and 21 zero days
M/F couples 50 and over -- 179 days to complete and 16 zero days
The desire for zero days seemed to decrease with age for these groups. I'm curious why the days to hike was a little lower for middle aged couples -- perhaps because in most cases one or both of them still had a career to get back to and didn't feel like they had unlimited time.
But where the really pronounced differences showed up was for men keeping a solo journal. Here are their mean averages by age group:
Men under 30 -- 154 days to complete and 17 zero days
Men 30-49 -- 168 days to complete and 20 zero days
Men 50 and older -- 174 days to complete and 22 zero days
The difference in the age groups in days to complete the trail was much more pronounced among the men, for some reason. I wondered if there were a lot more men in the "younger" age group doing truly quick hikes -- that is, completing in under 130 days, something fewer than 10% of all hikers in the study were doing. But this does not seem to be the case. Here are how the numbers for "quick" hikers in the study broke down:
52% were in the younger age group (under 30)
29% were in the middle age group (30-49)
19% were in the older age group (50 and over)
They were overwhelmingly male (95%) but they weren't overwhelmingly young. The numbers above are not all that far off the percentage breakdown by age of all the hikers in the study (if you go back to the top of this post and look at those numbers).
So in the end, looking at ages did end up showing some things of interest, I think. Another reason I did this, though, was because I've been thinking about continuing to look at hiker classes beyond 2010 (the last hiker class currently in this study), but I noticed in that last class of 2010 that the age of people journaling at trailjournals.com seemed to be changing -- only 25% of journals in that year were for hikers under 30 which is a lot lower than the 45% for the 2001-2010 period as a whole. I have speculated in the past that this change might be because younger hikers were now more likely to gravitate toward other social media for journaling rather than trailjournals.com -- places like Facebook and various non-hiking blogs.
I think what I will do is go ahead and look at the classes of 2011 and 2012 to see if this "graying of journalists" trend is truly a trend, and then decide whether to include those classes in a future edition of the Hiking Rates study. Stay tuned.
I like the data. Good stuff. I appreciate looking at the data you periodically present.
I think the data regarding the theory that there are less "mid-life" hikers might be SLIGHTLY different if you divided the age groups differently. Younger being under age 35 (or even 40). Mid group age 35 (or 40) to 55 (or 60). Older group 55 (or 60) and over. Many people are pushing off marriage (and lifetime relationships) until much later in life and pushing off having children to even later. Thus, I think that the "younger" group might run later than we think. Many folks in their (early?) 30's are not in a marriage or "lifetime" relationship nor do they have children. So they are still relatively free to thru hike without being too tied down.
I think more age groupings might give an even more interesting picture (but you would know best--because you are the guy with the data).
I would be interested to see things broken down by "decade". 1) Under age 25. 2) Age 25-35. 3) Age 36-45. 4) Age 46-55. 5) 56 and 65 6) 65 and older.
Interesting data.
Perhaps a factor on higher than expected mid age numbers is the economic climate since 2008.
Figures prior to 2009 probably are more along traditional "expectations".
It would seem nothing slows a young man down more than a young woman....;)
This is interesting stuff to read although I'm not sure why (smile). I can think of a number of reasons that might help explain different things but they'd just be my opinions and WAGs.
This post expands on data from this article: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/content.php?44
I decided to look at the journals for the hikers in this study to see if I could determine how old each hiker was. Often, in the first post or two, or on the page "about" the hiker at trailjournals.com, folks freely reveal their age. And in most other cases it's possible to deduce someone's general age, even if they don't mention a specific number (someone might say "I'm hiking after 32 years as an airline pilot" or "my boyfriend and I have decided to thru-hike after college graduation before we look for jobs"). So I looked at all the journals, putting hikers in three different age categories: younger (under 30); middle (30-49); and older (50 and older). In the end there were only a handful of the 240 NOBO journals in my study in which I could not make a very educated guess.
Here's what I found. Of the hikers in my study:
45% were under 30
26% were age 30-49
29% were 50 and older
The conventional wisdom is that most thru-hikers are pretty young or old enough to have retired from work so I was a little surprised that there were as many as there were in the middle group. I'd be curious to know if experienced observers of thru-hikers here at WB think these numbers sound right, or if anyone knows of any surveys that have been done to try to determine the ages of thru-hikers.
Here are the average (mean) times, and number of mean zero days, it took these various age groups to finish their thru-hikes:
Under 30 -- 167 days to complete and 20 zero days
30-49 -- 170 days to complete and 21 zero days
50 and over -- 174 days to complete and 21 zero days
These differences are not dramatic. Where the interesting differences are revealed are when we look at both age AND gender. Here are how the average (mean) numbers broke down for women keeping a journal for just themselves (no couples):
Women under 30 -- 180 days to complete and 21 zero days
Women 30-49 -- 179 days to complete and 22 zero days
Women 50 and over -- 180 days to complete and 21 zero days
The different age groups for women have amazingly similar numbers. How about for male-female couples thru-hiking together and keeping a journal? Here are the average (mean) times for them:
M/F couples under 30 -- 182 days to complete and 25 zero days
M/F couples 30-49 -- 172 days to complete and 21 zero days
M/F couples 50 and over -- 179 days to complete and 16 zero days
The desire for zero days seemed to decrease with age for these groups. I'm curious why the days to hike was a little lower for middle aged couples -- perhaps because in most cases one or both of them still had a career to get back to and didn't feel like they had unlimited time.
But where the really pronounced differences showed up was for men keeping a solo journal. Here are their mean averages by age group:
Men under 30 -- 154 days to complete and 17 zero days
Men 30-49 -- 168 days to complete and 20 zero days
Men 50 and older -- 174 days to complete and 22 zero days
The difference in the age groups in days to complete the trail was much more pronounced among the men, for some reason. I wondered if there were a lot more men in the "younger" age group doing truly quick hikes -- that is, completing in under 130 days, something fewer than 10% of all hikers in the study were doing. But this does not seem to be the case. Here are how the numbers for "quick" hikers in the study broke down:
52% were in the younger age group (under 30)
29% were in the middle age group (30-49)
19% were in the older age group (50 and over)
They were overwhelmingly male (95%) but they weren't overwhelmingly young. The numbers above are not all that far off the percentage breakdown by age of all the hikers in the study (if you go back to the top of this post and look at those numbers).
So in the end, looking at ages did end up showing some things of interest, I think. Another reason I did this, though, was because I've been thinking about continuing to look at hiker classes beyond 2010 (the last hiker class currently in this study), but I noticed in that last class of 2010 that the age of people journaling at trailjournals.com seemed to be changing -- only 25% of journals in that year were for hikers under 30 which is a lot lower than the 45% for the 2001-2010 period as a whole. I have speculated in the past that this change might be because younger hikers were now more likely to gravitate toward other social media for journaling rather than trailjournals.com -- places like Facebook and various non-hiking blogs.
I think what I will do is go ahead and look at the classes of 2011 and 2012 to see if this "graying of journalists" trend is truly a trend, and then decide whether to include those classes in a future edition of the Hiking Rates study. Stay tuned.
What about Thru's with dogs??? Success with/by Breed??? Both Males/Females :-?...
tscoffey
01-14-2013, 10:57
There is inherent selection bias in this sampling, since younger hikers would be more likely to setup a hiking journal/blog.
wcgornto
01-14-2013, 11:44
There is inherent selection bias in this sampling, since younger hikers would be more likely to setup a hiking journal/blog.
I agree, except that I think younger hikers would be less likely to keep a journal and I think the numbers therefore under count younger hikers. While younger hikers might be more tech savvy, I don't think they would have as high a tendency to want to record their experiences in detail for posterity.
I agree, except that I think younger hikers would be less likely to keep a journal and I think the numbers therefore under count younger hikers. While younger hikers might be more tech savvy, I don't think they would have as high a tendency to want to record their experiences in detail for posterity.
Thanks for crunching all those numbers. Amazingly little difference among all subsets. Interesting. Would guess that including all those unlikely to journal, if you could, would have little impact on general results.
Very interesting. I suspect the age breakdown for SOBOs would be quite different.
StylinLP38
01-14-2013, 12:18
Im in the 30 to 40 age bracket and very tech savy. Work as an IT engineer. When I go on a weekend hike I post all the photo's and brief comments on my facebook page. I would do the same when hiking the AT. I don't know if I would keep an actual journal for a variety of reasons. Doubt anyone would find it interesting. Just more of the same. If I were to write it to be more truthful it would not look good on me in my work place lol.
I was surprised at the similarities of hiking times and zeros by age. Not sure which group I would have expected to be the highest. As far as percentage of hikers by age, I do think this will be less accurate than the hiking times. I would expect that younger hikers are more tech savvy, yet more young hikers would use alternatives like facebook. Finally, there could be a higher percentage of middle age hikers that keep journals. Many have likely been dreaming of hiking the trail for years, read dozens of journals and find a journal very normal. I know I fall into that camp.
Keep the number crunching going, I love to see it!!
Odd Man Out
01-14-2013, 12:43
Yo Map Man. You know I'm a big fan of your number crunching. Another great post. http://www.turkotek.com/VB37/images/smilies/bravo.gif
I assume this will be posted with the other article on hiking rates. We refer people to this all the time when a newcomer asks about schedules, "bubble" location, rates, etc... It's nice to know be able add info about specific demographic groups. However I noticed that you put us in the "old" category - thanks http://www.turkotek.com/VB37/images/smilies/flush.gif
We should get together sometime and commiserate. http://www.turkotek.com/VB37/images/smilies/cheers.gif
Interesting that young couples had the most zero days. Maybe they have a particular need to sleep in a bed in a hotel. I wonder why???
I wonder if and by how much "experience" would be a factor. I had already hiked the PCT when I did the AT, and I hiked the majority of it with friends more experienced than me. In that context, it's hard for me to wrap my head around around an average pace for over-50 men of 174 days. But it seems like most people attempting an AT thru-hike are doing it as their first long-distance trip.
I don't recall if your methodology includes or excludes large chunks of time off-trail --- attending a wedding or a funeral, perhaps, or getting off trail for a while to heal up from something, that sort of thing. I have on occasion met thru-hikers who took a whole month off and then got back on to finish in the same year. If that sort of thing is just counted in as zero days, then I think it skews the numbers a bit. This sort of thing certainly happened to me, and to others I've known.
I assume this will be posted with the other article on hiking rates. We refer people to this all the time when a newcomer asks about schedules, "bubble" location, rates, etc... It's nice to know be able add info about specific demographic groups. However I noticed that you put us in the "old" category - thanks http://www.turkotek.com/VB37/images/smilies/flush.gif
Yes, I have posted this in the "comments" section for the AT Hiking Rates article. In fact, I posted it there first but then noticed a "comment" on an article doesn't show up on the list of "Today's Posts" so I figured that for members who have shown an interest in that article I would start a new thread to bring it to their attention. And as for the "old" category that we are in, I believe I was very careful to always use the phrase, "older," as in "this group just happens to be older than the other two groups, but many of them weren't collecting Social Security just yet, buster.":D
I don't recall if your methodology includes or excludes large chunks of time off-trail --- attending a wedding or a funeral, perhaps, or getting off trail for a while to heal up from something, that sort of thing. I have on occasion met thru-hikers who took a whole month off and then got back on to finish in the same year.
Brian, I thought about just how long an interruption a hiker could have and still call it a thru-hike, but found myself baffled at just where to draw the line. A couple weeks? A couple months? In the end I decided it was none of my business and that as long as a NOBO hike was completed in a calendar year, and every mile of trail was completed, I would consider that a thru-hike for the purposes of the study. Any day that wasn't spent hiking the AT between the start and end dates was counted as a zero day. When I counted zero days for the article I did divide them into short term breaks (one or two days) and long term breaks (three days or more) for one of the tables in the original article. The mean number of days for short term breaks ended up being around 13 days and the mean number for long term breaks was about 8. Around 28% of the thru-hikers in the study took no breaks of three days or more. On the other hand, there were six hikers in the study who took at least 50 zero days. One guy took a break part way through his hike to ride his bike across the country!
map man, you're awesome. These posts are great.
younger = faster, party more, more neros, more issues
older = slower but steadier, more stable, less issues
net = similar times
makes sense
younger = faster, party more, more neros, more issues
older = slower but steadier, more stable, less issues
net = similar times
makes sense
I'm practicing my Lone Wolf esque responses - short and sweet
wornoutboots
01-15-2013, 00:23
Great Post!!
Maybe change the Middle Age to = "Mature" & the Old to = "Wise" .......................... You can come up with your own referances to the youngin's
Odd Man Out
01-15-2013, 01:00
Great Post!!
Maybe change the Middle Age to = "Mature" & the Old to = "Wise" .......................... You can come up with your own referances to the youngin's
How about Graffiti "artists"?
double d
01-15-2013, 01:08
Very cool data Map Man, thanks for putting this information together, as I've always wondered about some of the issues you presented. Thanks again.
JustADude
01-15-2013, 13:42
I agree, except that I think younger hikers would be less likely to keep a journal and I think the numbers therefore under count younger hikers. While younger hikers might be more tech savvy, I don't think they would have as high a tendency to want to record their experiences in detail for posterity.
Hats off to Map Man. This is fantastic work!
I also agree that there may be something to the sampling bias. One interpretation of that bias may be that those who are likely to keep journals, especially on any consistent basis, may by nature be inclined to be more methodical and may plan more. Then based on that planning they develop a more reasonable hiking plan and then stick to the plan (within life events)...or some other non-sense like that...again good work and good for campfire/trail talk as we pound away the miles...
Thanks again Map Man!
To eliminate "sample bias", I think we should help Map Man get a National Science Foundation grant, and then let him tranquilize and tag random hikers on the trail and track their movements with electronic tracking devices. :)
How about hiking rates comparing "wet" years with relatively "dry" years? Is that doable?
Greatly appreciated, as always.
StylinLP38
01-15-2013, 16:30
We need to get the Appalachian people to tag thru-hikers ears like they do the bears. Much more accurate!
Old Hiker
01-15-2013, 16:42
To eliminate "sample bias", I think we should help Map Man get a National Science Foundation grant, and then let him tranquilize and tag random hikers on the trail and track their movements with electronic tracking devices. :)
Need to keep bias from creeping in - if I KNEW I had been tagged for a study, it may change my hiking habits. Need to find them asleep and insert the device without them knowing about it. <your joke here>
Great data, Map Man. I don't feel so bad about my attempt now. Wait 'til 2016.
To eliminate "sample bias", I think we should help Map Man get a National Science Foundation grant, and then let him tranquilize and tag random hikers on the trail and track their movements with electronic tracking devices. :)
This would be my dream job. Once I have enough money to retire you wouldn't even have to pay me to do it.
Need to keep bias from creeping in - if I KNEW I had been tagged for a study, it may change my hiking habits.
I've given this some thought. Most hikers love free stuff, right? And what do most thru-hikers carry with them, whether they are carrying their full rig or slackpacking? Lip balm. Give away free long lasting tubes of lip balm (with hidden tracking devices built in) at Springer to all thru-hikers.