Terrain comparison

[showtime_]

I've never worked my way down the AT in Georgia, but was curious about the difficulty as compared to the Long Trail up in Vermont. I was a little surprised when I got to the northern section of the LT. I was only doing 14 or 15 miles a day north of Appalachian Gap, but that was starting at 8-9am and finishing at around 4-5pm with plenty of energy left.

I'm really just wondering if I could start at Springer doing 20s consistently the way I did during the southern portion of the LT, straight off the couch (and since i've been back i've been training to keep my muscles in shape)

[illabelle]

I couldn't do 20s consistently in Georgia, or anywhere else for that matter. But I'm almost 2.5 times your age, and carrying too much weight around, and and and...
And I haven't done the LT except where it's coincident with the AT. But I have done Georgia. If you have the toughness and energy for 14-15 mpd on the northern LT (which I've heard is "crazy hard"), you have the toughness and energy for Georgia. It just ain't all that bad.

[rafe]

IMO the northern third of the LT compares to the AT's 95th percentile of difficulty. But the GA is no slouch in terms of vertical per mile, certainly more difficult than the southern half of the LT.

[Berserker]

I've never worked my way down the AT in Georgia, but was curious about the difficulty as compared to the Long Trail up in Vermont. I was a little surprised when I got to the northern section of the LT. I was only doing 14 or 15 miles a day north of Appalachian Gap, but that was starting at 8-9am and finishing at around 4-5pm with plenty of energy left.

I'm really just wondering if I could start at Springer doing 20s consistently the way I did during the southern portion of the LT, straight off the couch (and since i've been back i've been training to keep my muscles in shape)

I'm going to say yes based on the information that you provided. I have done the the AT portion of the LT in VT (i.e. the AT through VT) and the AT through GA. In general I found VT to have longer climbs and to be significantly more "gnarly" than GA. By "gnarly" I mean VT has a lot more of the New England style trail where there's lots of roots, larger rocks (i.e. something that can't be easily stepped over) and in general trail that looks flat on the map, but actually traverses terrain that constantly goes up and down over smaller stuff that doesn't appear on an elevation profile. There's also the issue with mud in VT if it's wet. GA has a lot of shorter ups and downs, but the grade on them is not super bad and the trail doesn't have as much of that "gnarly" factor. Mud is also not a huge issue in the SE except during the wettest periods of time.

[Malto]

I would say the Georgia AT is a bit harder than the southern part of the LT. But I also truly believe that once someone has done say 20mpd, doing it again on slightly harder terrain is much easier because they have already conquered the mental barrier. I have done very similar mileage on both sections.