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Thru-hiking numbers down

Appalachian Trail

Well, it’s getting close to June and northbound thru-hikers still on the Appalachian Trail are probably somewhere in Virginia by now. I took a look at the Applachian Trail Conservancy’s 2000-miler data for the year, and they’re showing a slight dip in thru-hikers starting out this year. According to folks at Amicola State Park, 1,350 [...]

Maildrops for the Appalachian Trail

Picking up a Maildrop on the Appalachian Trail

I wrote earlier on how to send a maildrop on the Appalachian Trail to any post office via General Delivery. Now that there are enough stores near the Appalachian Trail (and Pacific Crest Trail for that matter) to get buy food along the way, I typically just [...]

Backpacking in Chaco Sandals

Backpacking in Chaco Sandals

I present several slideshows on both our Mississippi River Expedition and Appalachian Trail thru-hike every year. I love these presentations and especially enjoy the question and answer sessions. Each time I give the Appalachian Trail talk, I always know I’ll spend some time talking about footwear. Some folks hike [...]

My Wet T-shirt

I wrote this about two weeks into my Appalachian Trail thru-hike. There’s nothing more bracing them putting on wet hiking clothes first thing in the morning!  -JP

My Wet T-shirt

Bog log on the Appalachian Trail

Though the rain in Spain
falls mainly on the plane,
it seems as though
a bit has fallen in Maine,
which brings me to my [...]

Appalachian Trail Slideshows this week

Just a quick reminder that I’ll be giving two slideshows on my Appalachian Trail Thru-hike this week at the Raleigh and Wilmington Great Outdoor Provision Company locations. Both shows will start at 7pm.

Raleigh – March 23
Wilmington – March 25

Upcoming Appalachian Trail Slideshows

Southbound on the Appalachian Trail

Come on out to one of the following Great Outdoor Provision Company locations and catch my slideshow and prep talk on Thru-Hiking the Appalachian Trail. I spent 6 1/2 months hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2000 and it was a life-changing experience to be sure (My journals are here.) I’ll [...]

Sex on the Appalachian Trail

http://www.flickr.com/photos/rasudduth/ / CC BY-NC 2.0

These are some responses to one question on my Appalachian Trail Thru-hiker Study relating to Sex on the Appalachian Trail. The question, (from Meusser’s 1989 study) was “The challenge to do the whole trail, the miles, being really tired, dirty and lacking amenities or privacy prompted one couple
to say, “There’s [...]

Appalachian Trail Photo of the Month Great Smoky Mountains

 

This was taken about halfway into the Great Smoky Mountains, around December 15, 2005.  From reading my journal, I was at least a month behind schedule at this point, and was just looking forward to finishing up at Springer Mountain in Georgia. The weather had other ideas. It had been cold and rainy for the [...]

Songs Stuck in Your Head

It never ever fails. I always have songs stuck in my head. Here are my Top 10 list of songs that got stuck between my ears on the Appalachian Trail and Mississippi RIver.

 Baby Got Back. Sir Mix-a-Lot is a poet and a fine American. This is song I’ve had in my head the most. I’ll always [...]

Thru-hiker Backpacks Part II

Just following up on my post from last week on Thru-hiker Backpacks. This was part of a large study I bagan in 2007 on Appalachian Trail Thru-hikers. Over 540 long-distance hikers, with more than a million collective trail miles were part of this study.

First let’s take a look at the Packs by Brand graph. Bear [...]

The Most Popular Pack on the Appalachian Trail

I started my data collection for the Appalachian Trail Thru-hiker Study at Trail Days (May, 2007) and continued to collect responses through September 2007. As such, the last year for completed thru-hikes in this study was 2006, although many 2007 hikers submitted their surveys during their thru-hikes. Pack preferences come and go, but the Granite [...]

Thru-hiker Backpacks

Just wading through some more data from my AT Thru-hiker Study today and wanted to share some info on pack types.

Here’s the chart of the 434 responses.

Let’s dig into the numbers a little bit and see what we find.

Appalachian Trail Thru-hiker Study – Women on the AT

OK – I’m finally, finally getting around to putting up some very preliminary numbers from my Appalachian Trail Thru-hiker Study. 532 thru-hikers participated in this study, representing over One Million Miles of cumulative experience. Over the next few weeks, I’ll be presenting some of the results, and hope to completely be through this number-crunching madness [...]

New Pictures from the Applachian Trail and Mississippi River

OK, so I’m kind of a slacker when it comes to getting disposable cameras back to the photo lab. Finally took a handful of these things in and man, there were some cool photos on them!

Trail Days, 2003

Trail Days, 2003, Ox and Johnny Swank (John- younger and no beard)

Getting Soaked Outside of Minneapolis

Floodgates Opening

St. Anthony’s [...]

The Downside of Zero Days

I’ve written about “Zero Days” before, but I saw a great thread at Whiteblaze.net recently and got to thinking about them again. For those not familiar with the term, thru-hikers refer to a “zero day” as a day off with no miles hiked, thus a “Zero Day.”Folks chimed in with what they did on their [...]