Thru-hiking
Thru-hiking is the process of
hiking a
long-distance trail from end to end. The term is most commonly associated with the
Appalachian Trail, but is also used for other long trails including the
Pacific Crest Trail, and the
Continental Divide Trail. Thru-hiking is also called "end-to-end hiking" or "end-to-ending" on some trails, like
Vermont's
Long Trail.
Thru-hiking a trail is a long and difficult journey: An
AT thru-hike, for example, requires at least several months, covering over 2,100 miles. Thru-hikers typically organize supplies for the journey far in advance, and have friends and family mail packages to predetermined stops along the way, to be picked up as
poste restante.
Many people without time or interest in thru-hiking instead choose to
section hike a trail, completing it piece by piece, often over many years.
George W. Outerbridge completed the first section hike of the newly completed AT in 1939; trail promoter
Myron Avery had previously section-hiked during the process of
trail blazing.
In 1948,
Earl Shaffer became the first to have publicly thru-hiked the AT, although a 1994 report indicates that a group of Boy Scouts did so twelve years earlier (see
Appalachian Trail).
With the rise of
backpacking in the
United States, thru-hiking, at first considered impossible and later highly eccentric, has become a minor industry. Thousands of hikers attempt to thru-hike the AT every year, although by some estimates only 20% complete the entire trail. Roughly 150 end-to-end the (much shorter) Long Trail, and about 180 thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail, each year. Some dedicated thru-hikers complete a trail more than once; about 30 have reported hiking the AT at least three times.
A number of thru-hikers have achieved a measure of celebrity in backpacking culture. Perhaps the most famous was
Emma "Grandma" Gatewood, who first thru-hiked the trail in 1955 at age 67, with what even at that time was considered extremely inadequate gear, including
sneakers rather than
boots and a
blanket rather than a
sleeping bag; she later completed a second thru-hike and a full section hike.
Lee Barry became the oldest to thru-hike the AT when he completed a thru-hike (his second) in 2004 at age 81. American author
Bill Bryson had a bestseller in 1999 with
A Walk in the Woods, the story of his own (failed) attempt to thru-hike the AT.
*
Hiking*
Long-distance trail*
Noteworthy 2000-milers*
End to End on the Long Trail
