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Appalachian Trail (AT) - 2,175 miles - View Gallery

The granddaddy of long distance hiking trails, the Appalachian Trail (AT) was designed to be a getaway—“a sanctuary and a refuge from the scramble of every-day worldly commercial life,” in the words of regional forester Benton MacKaye, who first planned the trail in 1921. Atop the highest peaks in the Eastern United States, this 2,175-mile footpath starts at Springer Mountain, Georgia and ends at the summit of Mt. Katahdin at Baxter State Park in Maine. In 1925, under MacKaye’s guidance, the Appalachian Trail Conference formed as the rallying point for volunteers to create this wilderness footpath, which was fully blazed by 1937. While its path has shifted many times over the decades, including out of the way of construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway, the entire route, considered a linear National Park, is now 99% on public lands.

It’s part of the American mythos, the idea of walking the entire Appalachian Trail. While a handful of hearty hikers attempted walking the route before it was well-established, in 1945, the AT drew Earl Shaffer, a young man fresh back from service in World War II, to go the distance alone from Georgia to Maine. Long credited as the first “thru-hiker,” Earl became an iconic figure for the trail community, his book Walking with Spring inspiring many others to do the same. Calling himself “The Crazy One,” Earl hiked the trail several times, working with Bart in 1998 during his last hike – and setting a record at age 79 as the oldest AT thru-hiker – to create their book Calling Me Back to the Hills. And the hills do call, as long-time hikers will attest. Once the Appalachian Trail is in your blood, you’ll want to return. Most thru-hikers start in Georgia before the first blush of spring, and finish as the fall leaves rain down in Maine. The journey can take four to seven months, with thousands attempting and more than 500 completing the entire trail each year.

For millions more, the Appalachian Trail is indeed that urban getaway, a place to escape for a weekend or a day. The landscapes that draw you in are wild and diverse, from the balsam-scented woods of Maine to cliffs overlooking the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, from the rugged glacial boulder deposits on Pennsylvania’s narrow ridges to the softly rounded balds of the Southern Appalachians, like grassy Max Patch in North Carolina and rhododendron-covered Roan Mountain in Tennessee. The Trail reveals layers of history, as well, in places like Jefferson Rock, high above the village of Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, home of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, in the remnants of farm fences and fields in the southern Appalachians, and the alpine huts of the White Mountains of New Hampshire.

It is America’s first long distance trail, connecting centuries-old communities with a ribbon of footpath along the most ancient mountains on our continent. Learn more about the Appalachian Trail and the volunteers who support it at www.appalachiantrail.org

“Fun Facts”
Although Mt. Katahdin at the north end of the Appalachian Trail is only 1,485 feet taller than Springer Mountain at the south end of the Trail, for someone hiking the entire trail, the ups and downs of elevation changes in between is like climbing Mt. Everest nearly 14 times!

While the Appalachian Trail’s highest point, Clingman’s Dome, at 6,625 feet, is a popular destination for sightseers in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Trail’s lowest point, at 124 feet, is mere feet away from tens of thousands of busy commuters—it’s the pedestrian portion of the Bear Mountain Bridge over the Hudson River in New York.

Along the Appalachian Trail, you’ll find statues and monuments commemorating local history. One of the more unusual ones – a gigantic cheese press – is in Cheshire, Massachusetts, where citizens created a giant wheel of cheese, weighing 1,235 pounds, for President Thomas Jefferson’s inauguration in 1802.