50 Fun Facts About Appalachian Trail

The lowest point on the Appalachian Trail, just 124 feet above sea level, lies inside what kind of attraction?

A zoo at Bear Mountain in New York holds the trail's low point, right in front of the bear enclosure. The zoo itself began as a single bear den in 1926.

A full walk of the Appalachian Trail involves climbing equal to scaling which mountain about 16 times over?

Everest, 16 times: that is the total ascent the trail's conservancy counts along the route's endless ups and downs. Yet the highest summit on the path is less than a quarter of Everest's height.

Hikers reaching the Appalachian Trail's midpoint at Pine Grove Furnace traditionally try to eat a half-gallon of what?

Ice cream by the half-gallon is the midpoint ritual at the park's general store, and finishers win a commemorative wooden spoon. The official halfway marker stands just east of the park.

In 2009, which governor's staff said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail while he was really visiting Argentina?

Mark Sanford of South Carolina had flown to see his mistress, and a reporter met him at Atlanta's airport on the way back. He admitted the affair at a news conference hours later.

Hikers crossing Grayson Highlands on the Appalachian Trail often meet which animals, introduced in the 1970s?

Wild ponies graze the open ridges there and are so used to people that they rarely stop eating as hikers pass. The herd is rounded up each year, and surplus colts are sold at auction.

The International Appalachian Trail now has branches in Europe and which African country, once joined to North America?

Morocco's Anti-Atlas range rose in the same ancient collision as the Appalachians, before the supercontinent Pangaea broke up and carried the pieces apart. The trail's planners follow that old mountain belt overseas.

Appalachian Trail shelters have upturned tuna cans threaded on hanging cords to keep which animals out of food bags?

Mice cannot climb past the can, so a food bag tied below it stays safe overnight. Hikers call the contraptions mouse trapezes.

The Appalachian Trail crosses five of New England's six states on its way north; which one does it miss?

Rhode Island sits too far east of the mountain chain, so the route runs through Connecticut and Massachusetts instead. In all, the trail touches 14 states.

Which travel writer turned an Appalachian Trail attempt with an out-of-shape old friend into A Walk in the Woods?

Bill Bryson set out in 1996 with a companion he called Stephen Katz, a pseudonym for his friend Matt Angerer. Katz had already appeared in one of the author's earlier books, about travelling in Europe.

Painted rectangles two inches wide and six inches tall mark the whole Appalachian Trail in which color?

White blazes mark the official route, while blue ones of the same shape point the way to shelters and viewpoints. Hikers who never skip a single blaze are known as purists.

Which state holds about a quarter of the entire Appalachian Trail, far more miles than any other?

Virginia is where northbound hikers often meet the spring thaw and heavy rain. Long stretches run beside Skyline Drive and the Blue Ridge Parkway.

Which Maine peak, whose Penobscot name means Great Mountain, marks the northern end of the Appalachian Trail?

Mount Katahdin is the highest point in Maine, and Henry David Thoreau wrote about climbing it in the 1840s. Northbound hikers have to arrive before the summit path closes in mid-October.

Which Georgia peak has been the southern end of the Appalachian Trail since the terminus moved in 1958?

Springer Mountain was picked for its remoteness after building crept up on the old endpoint. Many hikers reach it by an approach path nearly nine miles long.

Which forester proposed the Appalachian Trail in 1921 as a chain of work camps and farms for city dwellers?

Benton MacKaye treated hiking as a side benefit of his plan for mountain communities. He wrote the proposal shortly after his wife's death.

Which 67-year-old Ohio grandmother walked the whole Appalachian Trail alone in 1955 wearing canvas sneakers?

Emma Gatewood carried no tent or sleeping bag, just a shower curtain to keep the rain off, after a magazine article convinced her the walk would be easy. She completed the route twice more.

In the 2015 film A Walk in the Woods, who stars opposite Nick Nolte as a writer attempting the Appalachian Trail?

Robert Redford had wanted Paul Newman as his co-star and shelved the project for a time after his old friend died. Emma Thompson plays the writer's wife.

Which state's stretch of the Appalachian Trail is so rocky that hikers say it is where boots go to die?

Pennsylvania's ridges are strewn with jagged stones left exposed as the soil eroded away, which slows hikers and shreds footwear. The other nickname is Rocksylvania.

Which town, the site of John Brown's 1859 raid, houses the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy?

Harpers Ferry is treated as the trail's psychological midpoint, though the true halfway mark lies about 75 miles farther north. The path crosses the Potomac there on a footbridge.

Which Great Smoky Mountains summit, officially renamed Kuwohi in 2024, is the highest point on the Appalachian Trail?

Clingmans Dome stands 6,643 feet high on the Tennessee and North Carolina line, and the trail passes just below its top. The restored Cherokee name means 'mulberry place'.

On the Appalachian Trail, what do hikers mean by the term trail magic?

Kindness from strangers can mean gifts, encouragement or a hot meal cooked at a campsite. More than 50 places along the route hold the conservancy's official trail community status.

Which army veteran with no tent or stove claimed the first one-season hike of the whole Appalachian Trail in 1948?

Earl Shaffer took 124 days, and trail officials at first assumed his claim was a fraud. He walked the route again in the opposite direction in 1965, and once more when he was nearly 80.

Roughly how long is the Appalachian Trail, which takes most thru-hikers five to seven months to walk?

2,200 miles is the round figure, though the exact length shifts a little each year as parts of the path are rerouted. The official count for 2024 was 2,197.4.

Which New Hampshire peak, notorious for a 231 mph wind gust in 1934, is crossed by the Appalachian Trail?

Mount Washington is the trail's highest point north of Tennessee, at 6,288 feet. Around it the path stays above the treeline for about 13 miles.

What name is given to the Appalachian Trail's most isolated stretch, running through Maine from the town of Monson?

The Hundred-Mile Wilderness ends near Abol Bridge, just short of the park that holds the trail's final summit. For northbound hikers it is the last big test.

Which Maine waterway is the only crossing on the Appalachian Trail where hikers must be carried over by boat?

The Kennebec River stands out because Maine's part of the trail has dozens of other fords, all of which hikers simply wade.

Hikers who finish the Appalachian Trail and two great western routes are said to have won which title?

The Triple Crown adds the Pacific Crest and Continental Divide trails, for about 7,900 miles in all. Eric Ryback is credited as the first to complete the set, in 1972.

The Appalachian Trail runs through Hanover, New Hampshire, home of which school whose outing club maintains the path?

Dartmouth College is home to the oldest collegiate outing club in the country, founded in 1909. The club's own hiking path was absorbed into the trail in the 1920s.

What name is given to people who complete the Appalachian Trail in separate trips over months or years?

Section hikers get the same recognition from the trail's conservancy as people who walk it in one go, however many years the trips take.

A typical Appalachian Trail shelter, known in some states as a lean-to, lacks which part of an ordinary cabin?

A fourth wall is left off, so most shelters stand open on one side above a wooden floor. More than 250 shelters and campsites line the route, usually a day's walk or less apart.

Which president signed the 1968 law that made the Appalachian Trail one of America's first national scenic trails?

Lyndon B. Johnson had called for public trails to serve what he termed the forgotten outdoorsmen of the day. The same law gave the Pacific Crest route its official status.

Which New Deal jobs program built much of the original Appalachian Trail in the Smokies and Maine?

The Civilian Conservation Corps crews were the exception: elsewhere the early trail often ran straight up and down the mountains and eroded badly.

The Appalachian Trail stops in Georgia, but the mountains themselves run on to Flagg Mountain in which state?

Alabama's Pinhoti route was linked to the trail's southern end in 2008, and supporters want it made part of the official path. That would take an act of Congress.

Which waterway does the Appalachian Trail cross on the Bear Mountain Bridge, once the world's longest suspension span?

The Hudson River bridge opened in 1924 and held the suspension record for only 19 months. Hikers share it with two lanes of road traffic.

Deer ticks on the Appalachian Trail carry which illness, reported more densely there than anywhere else in America?

Lyme disease is densest from the Mid-Atlantic states up through New England, exactly the ground the trail covers. Ticks, mosquitos and black flies are the pests hikers complain about most.

Hikers on the Eastern Continental Trail can walk from the Appalachian Trail all the way south to which Florida city?

Key West is the southern tip of a network of paths that runs about 4,400 miles north to Newfoundland. The long-distance hiker known as Nimblewill Nomad gave it its name.

On the Appalachian Trail, a yellow blazer, nicknamed after road stripes, skips parts of the route by doing what?

Hitchhiking earns the mostly scornful label, while blue blazers trim distance by taking side paths. Purists insist on passing every official marker.

Which former Maine governor bought the land around the Appalachian Trail's northern end and gave it to the state?

Percival Baxter spent 32 years buying more than 200,000 acres with his own money after his bill for a public park failed. He gave the first parcel on condition that it stay wild forever.

The Long Trail, the older footpath that inspired the Appalachian Trail, shares about 100 miles with it in which state?

Vermont's Long Trail was built between 1910 and 1930 and is the oldest long-distance hiking path in the country. The two routes part company at a spot called Maine Junction.

The Appalachian Trail crosses the top of which North Carolina structure, the tallest of its kind in the eastern US?

Fontana Dam rises 480 feet, and the hiker shelter beside it is nicknamed a Hilton for comforts such as flushing toilets. The national park in the Smokies begins on the far side.

Which ledge above the Catawba Valley is known as the most photographed spot on the Appalachian Trail?

McAfee Knob juts out over a 270-degree panorama near Roanoke. Dragon's Tooth, another favorite day hike, is close by.

Which Maine-born lawyer became the first person to walk every part of the Appalachian Trail, finishing in 1936?

Myron Avery walked it end to end in stages, not as one continuous hike. He chaired the trail's governing conference until his death in 1952.

Which Georgia peak was the Appalachian Trail's original southern end, from the route's completion until 1958?

Mount Oglethorpe lost the honor to over-development on its slopes, and the terminus shifted about 13 miles to the northeast.

Which boulder-filled ravine in Maine is nicknamed the toughest stretch of the whole Appalachian Trail?

Mahoosuc Notch makes hikers climb over and sometimes under its boulders, with ten-foot drops and gaps so tight that packs have to come off.

Which town calls itself Trail Town USA and hosts the Trail Days festival for Appalachian Trail hikers each May?

Damascus sits where five scenic trails meet, and the mid-May festival draws more than 20,000 visitors to the small mountain town.

Which ultramarathoner, seven-time winner of the Western States 100, broke the Appalachian Trail speed record in 2015?

Scott Jurek beat Jennifer Pharr Davis's 2011 time by about three hours, then collected three citations from park rangers over his celebration at the finish.

Which Wisconsin senator, the founder of Earth Day, offered legislation to protect the Appalachian Trail in the 1960s?

Gaylord Nelson's effort helped pave the way for the 1968 act that made the route a national scenic trail. He had been Wisconsin's governor before he reached the Senate.

The 1921 article that first proposed the Appalachian Trail was published in a journal for which profession?

Architects saw it first because the idea was framed as a project in regional planning, not as a hiking route. Sixteen years of trail building followed.

Which Georgia waterfall, the state's highest, marks the start of the approach path to the Appalachian Trail?

Amicalola Falls takes its name from a Cherokee word said to mean 'tumbling waters'. A lodge in the park around it serves as a starting point for hikers.

What do Appalachian Trail hikers call a thru-hike that starts mid-route and changes direction partway through?

A flip-flop means fewer crowds and easier ground early on, and it gives hikers the widest window of good weather.

Near Pawling, New York, the Appalachian Trail has the only one of which facility along its entire length?

A train station was built there in 1990 in just three months, for $10,000. Trains call only on weekends and holidays.