why do Most people really attempt an AT thru hike?

[Sarcasm the elf]

there's nothing to clarify. you've never attempted a thru-hike. you're input is not helpful

You might want to re-read the opening post. The question wasn't about personal experience.

I am not asking why you or I attempt a thru hike but why does the average person so want to hike from Springer to Katahdin?

Beyond these 2500, some crazy higher number must be thinking of hiking the trail.

[Lone Wolf]

nothing personal.

[BirdBrain]

You might want to re-read the opening post. The question wasn't about personal experience.

I saw that original wording and was tempted to opine. However, I remained silent out of respect for experience. Many that posted don't have that experience, so I joined in.

[Lone Wolf]

you're so wrong. let it go

[BirdBrain]

you're so wrong. let it go

Okay. I will believe you and edit out the offensive remarks.

[Lone Wolf]

Okay. I will believe you and edit out the offensive remarks.

i will admit you get my hackles up about the jurek/baxter thing. but i agree to disagree.

[BirdBrain]

i will admit you get my hackles up about the jurek/baxter thing. but i agree to disagree.

I was unaware we were discussing Jurek or Baxter. I thought we were discussing why people would want to thru hike. I sought to dispel some of the previously listed negative stereotypes that, in my opinion, are created by the visible actions of an irresponsible minority, not rehash a volatile debate.

[Bucketfoot]

People want an adventure but they don't want it to be too hard or challenging. A thru hike 25 years ago was far different than it is today with our I phones and trail guides that document every single mile of the trail and every road crossing and what conveniences and amenities are available if you go left or right.A lot of the adventure is being taken out of it. The easier it is to do the higher the number of people that will be doing it.

[full conditions]

Dois probably one of the older through hikes amongst our little group (1976) and there was very little info about the trail available back then. My own inspiration to thru hike came from doing a 50 miler in Vermont with the scouts. Nobody had mentioned that that section wasn't just the Long Trail bit the AT well and that the AT went all the way down to Georgia until a young thru hiker spent the night with us at Little Rock Pond and told us about his hike. I stayed up all night listening to his stories and made up my mind there and then to do my own adventure.

[LittleRock]

Lots of them are kids who just finished college and don't want to get a job, pay taxes, be responsible, etc. Hiking the AT is a good way to avoid those things for another 6 months.

[Another Kevin]

Lots of them are kids who just finished college and don't want to get a job, pay taxes, be responsible, etc. Hiking the AT is a good way to avoid those things for another 6 months.

If everyone were responsible, how would anyone ever thru-hike? This is at least a half-serious question. I have never thru-hiked and probably never shall, because I've never been able simply to walk away from my responsibilities. Even in retirement, I expect that I'll have duties to family, to church, to community, and possibly to a less demanding paying job. The idea of half a year without attending to those things is well-nigh inconceivable.

[Dogwood]

Lots of them are kids who just finished college and don't want to get a job, pay taxes, be responsible, etc. Hiking the AT is a good way to avoid those things for another 6 months.

If everyone were responsible, how would anyone ever thru-hike? This is at least a half-serious question. I have never thru-hiked and probably never shall, because I've never been able simply to walk away from my responsibilities. Even in retirement, I expect that I'll have duties to family, to church, to community, and possibly to a less demanding paying job. The idea of half a year without attending to those things is well-nigh inconceivable.

You both have it incorrect which is no surprise since neither of you have thru-hiked. It's a somewhat common misconception, especially by those who see no way themselves how they could possibly thru-hike, WHILE BEING RESPONSIBLE AT THE SAME TIME, that thru-hikers are not responsible people or avoiding responsibility. It's also a mistaken assumption made by some thru-hiker wanna bees.

Assuming responsibility is not required to thru hike is patently inaccurate. Anyone assuming they are going to dodge all responsibility by attempting thru-hiking is sorely mistaken. At best what can occur is that one set of responsibilities are exchanged for another set of responsibilities. I regularly notice drop out thru-hiker wanna bees for this very reason as this reality sets in. They mistakenly assumed LD hiking entails a free ride, that responsibility, a high degree of responsibility at that, somehow ceases to exist because they decided to LD hike. It is also false to assume another person is being irresponsible because your idea of responsible behavior or your own set of responsibilities does not exactly match or closely parallel theirs.

I find many in the the thru-hiking community who regularly successfully LD hike to exhibit a high degree of responsibility, organization, and considerate behavior.

[fiddlehead]

“We travel not to escape life, but for life not to escape us.” – Anonymous

[Another Kevin]

I find many in the the thru-hiking community who regularly successfully LD hike to exhibit a high degree of responsibility, organization, and considerate behavior.

That actually doesn't surprise me. I don't see how you could possibly thru-hike successfully without a considerable measure of planning, discipline and persistence. People with those virtues are seldom irresponsible. What puzzles me is how they've managed to detach themselves from their other responsibilities for such a length of time. I'm not thinking that they're shirking, so much as envious that their duties have allowed them to pull off such a feat without neglecting something else. I can hardly imagine being in that fortunate position.

[rafe]

Some come to laugh their past away
Some come to make it just one more day

There are as many rationales as there are long-distance hikers. One's chosen rationale may prove to be shaky once reality hits, which is why so many attempts fail. None of us know what it's like until we go do it. I got into it thinking I was pretty well prepared, but after two months and ~700 miles, it felt more like drudgery than fun. I didn't need to walk another 1500 miles and three or four more months to make a point.

Why do people quit half-way? Just as well to ask, why did they walk that far?

[Malto]

That actually doesn't surprise me. I don't see how you could possibly thru-hike successfully without a considerable measure of planning, discipline and persistence. People with those virtues are seldom irresponsible. What puzzles me is how they've managed to detach themselves from their other responsibilities for such a length of time. I'm not thinking that they're shirking, so much as envious that their duties have allowed them to pull off such a feat without neglecting something else. I can hardly imagine being in that fortunate position.

I have found that many serial LD hikers have structured their lives in a way to avoid those responsibility that you referenced. Some evolve/devolve from that lifestyle and others make it a permanent way of life. I know quite a few that work the winter just enough to fund the next season's hike. A whole different lifestyle than a 9-5 job working to build up a 401k for retirement or looking to fund their kids college. Not right or wrong, just very different.

[full conditions]

That actually doesn't surprise me. I don't see how you could possibly thru-hike successfully without a considerable measure of planning, discipline and persistence. People with those virtues are seldom irresponsible. What puzzles me is how they've managed to detach themselves from their other responsibilities for such a length of time. I'm not thinking that they're shirking, so much as envious that their duties have allowed them to pull off such a feat without neglecting something else. I can hardly imagine being in that fortunate position.

For me it meant working an after school job for four years and delaying my entry into college for a year. In other words, it was a priority that came ahead of doing other normal, kid things like sports, dating, etc... . I was aware enough to realize that the window between high school and college would likely be my only window as I figured I'd head off to grad school after college and then go shopping for a career.

[Wülfgang]

What puzzles me is how they've managed to detach themselves from their other responsibilities for such a length of time. I'm not thinking that they're shirking, so much as envious that their duties have allowed them to pull off such a feat without neglecting something else. I can hardly imagine being in that fortunate position.

I've often wondered the same. How do these people manage to do serial LD hikes? Year after year? It's a pretty massive undertaking for me to take 4-5 months off from working and still keep my home life afloat.

I think these people tend to be either A) retired, B) have little to no debt, responsibilities, and low overhead expenses, C) independently wealthy in some way, or D) live a pretty spartan hippie lifestyle when they aren't hiking. Or some combination of the above.

[Another Kevin]

For me it meant working an after school job for four years and delaying my entry into college for a year. In other words, it was a priority that came ahead of doing other normal, kid things like sports, dating, etc... . I was aware enough to realize that the window between high school and college would likely be my only window as I figured I'd head off to grad school after college and then go shopping for a career.

That window never opened for me. I've never had a moment when I was done with something and hadn't started with something else.

The idea of saving for a trip in high school would have been anathema in my house when I was in high school. I was expected to work part time during the school year and full time in summer (I got a dispensation for part-time work when I started taking summer classes at the local university), but the money was supposed to go to my college fund, not to any plans for a vacation.

Between high school and college was also Right Out because I wasn't yet "able to be responsible for myself." I graduated high school early. By the time I was 18 and "independent," I had junior standing in college.

At that point, like a high-flying skyrocket, I kind of exploded. Kids make mistakes. Smart kids make worse ones. It took me the better part of two years to reboot my life, but during that time, I was actually (in retrospect) building a career. And my parents' demand as a condition for continuing to live in their house was that anything I made beyond the necessities was to go into my "return to college" fund, so I had few opportunities to do "kid things" then, either.

I eventually went back to school full time and finished my undergrad. I had solid job offers by the time I was out. In fact, I started work for a few days and then took an arranged day or two off to drive back to campus and attend my commencement. That's how eager my new boss was to have me.

I stuck with the job I had out of school (plus a couple of transfers/promotions) for about seven years, and did a master's degree part time during that time. I bought a house and "settled down" although I was still single. (When did I have time to meet anyone?) By the time I had the master's degree, I came to realize that the PhD was the union card for the job I wanted. I rented out the house and took off for grad school once again, carrying a half-time teaching load while working on the degree. While I was there, I met my wife, rather by coincidence, since I still didn't have a lot of time to socialize. We married a couple of months before I finished the doctorate. Once again, I had immediate job offers waiting - in fact, our honeymoon was the longest vacation I've ever taken.

In the next few years, we went through a couple of job changes and a couple of transcontinental moves, and my daughter arrived.

And through all of this, I've always been responsible for caring for others. When I was a kid, it was the brother ten years younger, the elderly and disabled auntie across the street, the grandmother with early Alzheimer's. When I was a young single man living far enough from my birth home that I couldn't care for family, it was a collection of pro bono jobs that I took on whenever work and school allowed. Then I was married, and wife and daughter came first.

I managed to get back into hiking, justifying it to myself by saying that it was part of my daughter's education. I believe that part has paid off handsomely. The lessons that she got in preparedness and self-reliance have stood her in good stead in many situations. Moreover, she's a competent hiker. She's planned and executed hikes that were entirely off-trail, and done 4000-foot summits in the Northeast in deep winter.

Now my daughter is moved away (although her education is still eating away alarmingly at the family finances) and I have a little time to hike again on my own part (as opposed to hiking to train the daughter). I can count the years to a normal retirement age without taking off my boots. Even in retirement, though, I don't expect ever to have a big block of time. My wife has had several health crises. One of these days there will no doubt be grandchildren. I have work to do in church and community. All of that is likely to go on until I'm too feeble even to contemplate an extended hike.

I wouldn't have had it any other way, but I can still barely imagine any other way. I'm not saying that those who find another way are negligent. I merely can barely imagine, from my experience, the circumstances under which another way would open.

That's why I say that if I were do do such a thing, it would be for the experience of doing something hard, something that requires discipline, and planning, and stamina both mental and spiritual, for no better reason than that I want to do it for myself. For the whole of my parents' lives, I always heard from them how undisciplined and lazy I was, and that was what stuck in my mind even as those outside the family told me how I was always the serious one and the straight-arrow. It wasn't until my wife started to relay comments to me that I ever learnt how fiercely proud my parents were of me when I wasn't there. What you learn early largely defines your identity. I'd really like to find out, someday, what I'm capable of without being motivated by a sense of duty, and being left afterwards with a sense that the duty could have been better fulfilled.

[Cobble]

Kevin, that's pretty cool. Kudos to a well lived life.(I say that cuz you said you wouldn't have it any other way.)

Thru hikers in my experience are not running away from things, rather they are running towards something. You hear that in the conversations and see it in the determination on rainy days. What that something they go towards is often very different but those that are running from things tend to run away somewhere else once they realize how hard the trail is.

I suspect the successful thru hikers are the ones running towards something they can only get from the trail.(or else they'd leave too!)

I section hiked the AT for a reason and now I am going to thru hike the PCT for a very different reason.