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Before you ever even touch Springer Mountain, or buy your gear, tell your friends and family that you’re going, quit your job… before you do any of that, every AT thru-hiker has to start somewhere. But unfortunately, there is a lot of information out there. From gear, to food, to money, to resupplies, there is a lot for folks to think about even before they start their thru-hike.
And so since I hiked it last year, here are the five pieces of advice that I would give to any AT thru-hiker.
Gadget, Sassafras, Soap and Rifle at the quarter-way mark NOBO on the Appalachian Trail.
#1: Figure out what experience you want
NOBO
The first thing that I would recommend is to figure out what experience you’re looking for out of your thru-hike, then tailor your start date and your location accordingly. If you’re looking for a more social hike, or the more traditional AT thru-hike, you’re probably thinking about going “NOBO” or Northbound.
Now if you’re planning on starting NOBO, I would recommend starting in mid-February to mid-April. The folks that are starting in February, they don’t mind the cold, they’re probably trying to get ahead of the bubble or norovirus, and they don’t want shelters that are too crowded, but they still want a little bit of a social AT experience. I personally started in February and I loved my start date. I really liked that I wasn’t hiking in the heat for half of my hike, that there were still plenty of people around, and I got a little bit of snow a couple of times, so that was pretty fun. I liked my winter start date.
And if you’re on the faster side and you really don’t like the cold, you’d rather hike in the late spring or the summer, then you’re probably thinking about a mid-March to late-April start date. These folks are typically college kids or kids fresh out of high school. They’re young, they’re fast, they’re really social, and there is a ton of them.
You’re going to see a lot of norovirus in this bubble, but honestly if you just wash your hands and you are careful around privies and you filter all your water, you probably shouldn’t have any issues. But people that start in April tend to make a lot of friends, and they make it to Katahdin pretty fast.
From left to right: Gadget, Sassafras, Soap and Fresh Ground.
Flip-Flop
Now if you’re looking for a less social trail experience, and you’re more interested in the nature and seeing the best parts of trail when it’s at the most beautiful time of year, I would recommend a flip-flop. The cool thing about a flip-flop is that you can start essentially any time of the year and start from anywhere on the trail, and you can go North or South, whatever you want to do.
You’ll essentially never be competing for spots in the shelter. There’s definitely going to be less people on the trail depending on where you start and what direction you go, but the good news is that you’re going to be able to time it in such a way that if you want to be hiking South in the fall and seeing all the leaves change in Virginia, you can do that. That is something that your typical NOBO is not going to be able to experience, since they’re likely going to be off trail before it’s really peak leaf peeping season.
But if you’re a flip-flopper, you really get that benefit. If I were to do it again and flip-flop, I would probably start in Harper’s Ferry. I would hike north for three months, hit Mount Katahdin, flip back to Harper’s Ferry, and then hike south until October so that I could really see all the best leaves changing and all the different colors as I was hiking through Virginia down into Georgia, but that’s just what I would do.
SOBO
Now if you’re a fast and strong hiker looking for a serious challenge, I recommend that you go SOBO. SOBO-ers are a smaller crowd of hikers, but they’re typically tough as nails. You’re going to be hitting the hardest parts of trail right out of the gate, so you’re going to get your butt whooped, and then as soon as you get out of the Whites, essentially you’re just going to fly through the rest of the trail.
Everybody I know that has hiked SOBO loved hiking SOBO. So if you’re looking for a different trail experience, maybe consider that.
#2: Memorialize your hike
Now the second thing that I would recommend is finding some sort of way to memorialize your hike, whether that is vlogging or journaling, blogging, or just posting on Instagram.
I think it is so so important. I cannot recommend this enough. When you are thru-hiking, time flies.
You are waking up every morning, you’re eating breakfast, you are hiking, and you’re hiking all day long, and then at the end of the day you’re exhausted, you crash, and you wake up the next day, and you do it again. And time just flies by. So over the course of the day, if you don’t take the time to really remember those small moments, maybe a particularly beautiful flower, or a thought or a lesson that you learned, maybe a hiker that you encountered that really left an impression on you, all these small moments that really make your trail journey special and unique are going to be lost to memory because eventually you’re just going to get home, and life is going to go back to normal, and you’re going to forget a lot of those small encounters that you had.
So finding some sort of meaningful way to blog, or vlog, or journal, or just in general share or commit your thru-hike to memory is going to be so valuable to you when you get off trail, and you can look back on all those memories and remember all the good and the bad.
Now I personally vlogged, and I’m really glad that I did that. It was a lot of work because you are filming every day, you’re on your phone a lot, and then you’re going to get to your tent, and you’re going to edit at the end of the day, and you’re going to get to town, and you’re going to have to upload it to YouTube, so it really is a lot of work, I’m not going to pretend like it’s not.
It’s definitely not for everybody, but I really liked vlogging because I was able to literally record all of these meaningful moments that I had, some of the people that I met, the laughs that I had, beautiful flowers, nature, views, all these amazing things, and I will be able to look back on my hike, actual days of my hike, forever. I’ll be able to go back and choose any day of my thru-hike and say, I remember that day, I remember this person that I met, I remember this view that I saw, and that’s really special. I’m glad I put in that work because now that I’m off trail, I can remember my hike like it happened yesterday.
In 2024, I recorded, edited and published 162 videos to my YouTube channel, @jesshikestrails.
Now I’ll be the first to admit that vlogging is definitely not for everybody, but a lot of people like to journal or to blog about their hikes. So for instance, at the end of the day, you’ll lay down in your tent, and you’ll just write a few lines about what happened that day, the things that you saw, or over the course of the day, you’ll talk into your phone, voice memos about, you know, how you’re feeling in a particular moment, maybe a challenge or a lesson that you’re taking away from a certain part of your hike, and you’ll be able to reflect back on that later. And the cool thing about blogging for The Trek, if that’s what you decide to do, is that you can actually share your trail diaries with folks from all over the world who love hiking, love thru-hiking, and love to read about other hikers’ experiences.
So you also get a built-in audience, and that’s really cool because you have people engaging and giving feedback, and that’s really special. It’s also a really great way to meet people.
Now if you’re interested in blogging for The Trek, if that sounds like something you’d want to do on your thru-hike, you can learn more here.
#3: Don’t obsess over your backpacking gear
My third piece of advice is, do not drive yourself crazy trying to perfect your backpacking kit before you ever even get on trail. I say this for a lot of reasons, because I see folks just obsessing over cutting every ounce possible, and they’re just dumping so much money into their backpacking kit with equipment that they’ve never tried.
And I personally, when I was getting ready for my hike, I was driving myself crazy spending hours on lighterpack.com trying to figure out where I could lose weight here, or I could gain weight here, and it drove me nuts. It was fun, I mean, I like the research component, a lot of people do, but trying to make your backpack weigh less than 15 pounds can be a pretty advanced style of backpacking, and a lot of the ultralighters that you’re going to see on trail have likely been backpacking for, you know, thousands of miles or have a hundred trips under their belt, and they have just refined the heck out of their backpacking kit, or they had a ton of expendable cash that they could just throw at their perfect dream backpacking setup.
Even with all of the time I spent trying to get my pack weight and size down… it was still enormous in The Whites.
So if you’re driving yourself crazy trying to cut ounces, I really recommend just getting to trail, bringing everything that you need to stay dry and stay warm at night if it’s cold. Bring all of those things, but ultimately if you get to trail and you find that you’re missing something or you need to swap something out, there is going to be a lot of outfitters across the trail. You’re also going to be able to just mail home gear and get stuff sent to you if you have stuff in your closet, so don’t stress.
You can always swap out your kit. It’s not like all the stuff you’re carrying when you get to trail is what you have to carry all the way until you finish. Just take a deep breath. You’re going to be out there for a long time. Do your best.
#4: Be adaptable
The fourth thing that I’m going to recommend is to be ready to adapt.
Now, I met an AT alumni in Franklin, North Carolina that taught me this lesson, and it was probably the most valuable piece of advice that I was given over the course of my hike, because the reality is… as much as you plan, you know, if you’re going to tell yourself that you’re going to be in town exactly on this date three months from now, or you plan on getting through this section in exactly this amount of time, you’re going to do this many miles today, this many miles tomorrow, you’re going to leave yourself in a position where you’re feeling really boxed in. You’re going to have no room to pivot and have fun.
Maybe you’re going to meet some folks that want to stay in town for an extra day, so you decide to say, “screw it, instead of hiking 27 miles tomorrow, I’m just going to take a zero, and I’m going to hang out with these really, really cool people that I never would have met had I not left for trail, and I may never meet again.”
Plus, when you leave yourself such a rigid schedule to adhere to, you’re not accounting for bad weather, you’re not accounting for injuries, rest days where you’re just exhausted and you need a town day, you’re not accounting for days that just beat the crap out of you and your morale is low and you need a day in town. You just don’t leave yourself a lot of room to recover when you have such a rigid schedule.
My advice to you is: be ready to adapt, but also be open to adapting. There are a lot of things out of your control that can change your hiking plans, but also if you’re in a position to change your hiking plans and have some fun today or some fun tomorrow, do that. When is the next time you’re going to hike the AT? Most of us are lucky enough to hike at once, so you may never see these people again or you may never be in this beautiful town again.
So just take advantage of spontaneity, don’t be afraid to switch it up, and ultimately if you find yourself super stressed out, maybe you’re not having a ton of fun, it’s because you’re holding yourself to this crazy expectation, too many miles, too many deadlines, too much pressure on yourself. So just be willing to switch it up. I promise that you will have way more fun.
From left to right: Rifle, Sassafras, Soap, Mountain Goat, Blessings, Gadget. One of my most memorable days on trail… and it was a totally random side quest that none of us could have possibly planned for!
#5: Never quit on a bad day
Now, the fifth piece of advice that I have for you, and it is a cliche one and you’re going to hear it a lot, but I really do mean it… never quit on a bad day.
This is a popular piece of advice for a reason, because you’re going to have a lot of bad days on trail. You might have one bad day, you might have two back to back, you might have a bad week, you might have a bad couple of weeks. And when you’re having a really bad day, you cannot think clearly.
My two most viewed YouTube videos were about two very bad days on trail…
All you can think about is how rainy it is, how hungry you are, how much pain that you’re in, how much you miss home. You might even think about how pointless it is to be thru-hiking, because there were definitely moments that I was out there and I was walking and I was having a terrible day and I was like, “what’s even the point of this?”
So fact of the matter is, if you’re having a bad day and you’re like, “I should quit”… do not quit. Because while on a bad day you may be thinking about how much you miss your friends and your family, your dog, your bed… on a good day, you’re going to be thinking about how beautiful the weather is, how lucky you are to be out there, how beautiful a flower is you’ve never seen before, maybe an interaction with another hiker you’ve never met, how special that was.
So on a good day you’re going to be thinking about all of the good things, and you’re probably not going to be thinking about all of the bad things… because on a bad day, you may be thinking about how much you miss your friends and your family and how soft your bed is at home and how much you miss your dog, but on a good day on trail you’ll be thinking about how beautiful it is outside, how lucky you are to be so strong and have legs and feet that carry you such long distances, how lucky you are to love the things that you love, to love hiking, to be meeting people you never would have met had you not taken a risk and put yourself out there.
From left to right: Sassafras, Lumberjack, Soap, Gadget and Rifle. All wonderful people I never would have gotten close with if I had quit when the going got tough!
You’re just going to be thinking about all of the really wonderful things about thru-hiking and you’re not going to be thinking about all the bad things that you were thinking about on a bad day. It’s a perspective shift that your nervous system needs in order to feel calm and safe again, because chances are if you’ve been having bad days over and over again or you had one really really bad day your system is probably so overwhelmed, you’re probably in fight or flight, so it’s better to just let yourself have a few good days again and then remember why you’re out there.
So if the situation is in your control, meaning that you’re not injured or you don’t have some sort of emergency obligation at home that you need to take care of, if the situation is in your control and you’ve just had a few bad days and you’re like screw it, I want to throw in the towel, head to town, take a zero, maybe go see a movie, get a good meal, maybe call somebody at home and talk to them and journal on it and at the end of the day after a few days if you really want to go home… you can.
But when’s the next time you’re going to get the chance to come out and hike the AT again?
Trust all the good reasons that you came out to trail in the first place, honor those reasons, and if you really really want to quit you can always quit, but you can’t always come back to trail.
Conclusion
Summit of Mt. Katahdin, August 19th 2024.
Now that is all the advice that I would give to a thru-hiker whether they are already on trail or they’re dreaming about the trail or they’re hiking it next year. These are all the things that I wish I would have known before I stepped foot on trail.
If you’re a thru-hiker yourself, I would love to know what advice you would pass on to the next class of thru-hikers… or maybe you can talk about your biggest anxiety from when you hiked, and what fear you had to overcome once you got to trail, or maybe share what your biggest anxieties or your biggest fears are around getting to trail.
Tell me in the comment section below. Anyway, that’s it. My name is Sassafras.
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