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Hello, I'm Meredith. I'm currently a junior in high school (16) and I plan on graduating Dec of 2020 and thru-hiking the AT (northbound) starting in March of '21, before I go off to college. I'm looking for other young hikers who might want to partner up and start together. Message me if you are interested.
I private messaged you!! I am very interested!
UPDATE: I am now planning to start around mid to late January, not March.
^Apologies in advance for the unsolicited advice, but unless you really like hiking in the snow and cold rain, and the late spring bug swarms of New England sound appealing, I would probably recommend against a January start. Different strokes for different folks of course, but unless you've done overnight backpacking trips in the snow before, and/or you've been to VT/NH/ME during mud/blackfly season, you might find a January-July thru-hike pretty unpleasant. Some people start in Jan/Feb and finish and love it, but it definitely stacks the odds against you! Just something to keep in mind.
If your concern is finishing before school starts up in August, maybe consider hiking the AT in two halves, bookending your college experience: GA to Harpers Ferry the summer between high school and college, and then HF to Katahdin the summer after graduating and before entering the workforce. If I'd had the funds at the time, that's how I would have done it. As it was, I waited until I'd worked a few years after college to thru-hike. Be prepared for naysayers-- when I first did a 200-mile solo LASH a couple years before my thru, I had several people tell me "oh I'd never let my daughter do what you're doing!" etc. and I was a 23-year-old with a graduate degree, so I can only imagine what comments you'll get at 17. But the overwhelming majority of folks out there are wonderful and supportive, and they'll admire your boldness. If you haven't yet, check out Becoming Odyssa by Jennifer Pharr Davis, as she was quite young when she thru-hiked the first time. Sheltered, by Emily Harper, is another trail memoir and I think she was fresh out of high school. Her book is free on Kindle and not professionally edited, so be prepared for lots of typos, but a relevant perspective.
I wish you the best of luck!
I know this is an old post but I can't help myself, the irony of your user name as you mansplained to the poster.... :DQuote:
Originally Posted by KnightErrant
^I'm a woman who started doing solo section hikes at age 21, so I thought my experience as a young (although granted not as young as OP) female solo hiker trying to fit a thru-hike into my college years might be relevant to OP based on her post about changing her start date to accommodate school. The rest of my post was just encouragement and book recommendations by authors who also thru-hiked as young women, which I enjoyed reading when I was planning a thru hike as a young woman.
Nonetheless, the advice was still unsolicited, which I recognized was a bit obnoxious (hence the apology). After all, my UN is just a reference to my alma mater, not a claim of perfect chivalry. ;)
If you would like a section hiking buddy; I would be interested.