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Just felt like it could be helpful for some future thru-hikers to post my stats for my thru-hike this year. I know looking at some other thru-hikers stat sheets helped me with planning and just general expectations.
Also feel free to add your own or ask questions! Smiles, not miles! :D
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Thank you for posting this. I love looking at spreadsheets of all the different ways people choose to accomplish a thru-hike. I like that you made the zero, nero, slackpack and regular days all different colors to make it easy at a glance to see what you were doing (and noting when bad weather played a role in your hiking decisions was also nice). On my computer, though, the zero and nero days were the same shade of blue while your "key" indicated you intended them to be different colors.
You completed in 126 days -- a relatively quick hike. Did you have a date you needed to be done by or did that just turn out to be your natural pace? Thanks again for sharing this.
I'm a numbers/stats geek and absolutely love this, thanks! I've got a similar sheet I'm building as a template for the trail. (I say "template" since I'm well aware that plans rarely survive longer than the first hour out. :D )
Also curious if there were time pressures or it this was just the way it worked out.
The year before my thru-hike, I did a cyber hike on line. I knew my targeted start date and each day I would look at the weather for that section of the trail and determine based on the trail profile how far I would hike and where I would stay. I also charted the high and low temps and the precipitation for that section. I knew it would not happen that way, but it helped me learn the trail and gave me some idea if my equipment was appropriate. It was a spreadsheet format tool that I still have.
I just checked and my actual arrival date in Vermont was five days later than my cyber hike of the previous year. I did not continue my cyber hike beyond VT, as I knew the trail profile was not a good indicator of what mileage I could expect to do beyond there. I think being off by only five days to VT is pretty close. By the way, the cyber hike was pretty fun since I was on my laptop every night trying to learn more about the trail before I left. The weather check daily was also an eye opener. It's easy to look at average temps, but that isn't what you need to be prepared for.
Well i have a hard finish date of 30 July. so, i could have time to make it back for school. Though i soon found out my own pace i was setting was a lot quicker than expected. i found myself doing a lot of 20's and even a good amount of 30's. Which if you told me i would be doing those miles before i started i would have been laughing my ass off. I didnt feel rushed though. i thoroughly enjoyed myself... except for all that damn rain.
Oventoasted, this is trail magic for us prepping, thank you.
Amazing. I'm a spreadsheet nerd and have been thinking about all the items I want to track on my thru attempt. This is a great layout and includes essential info. Will definitely leverage this when I track my own hike! Thanks for sharing.
I think hiking the trail this fast is a mistake. I was right where many of you are now trying to plan my thru-hike. I was number crunching miles and obsessed with pack weight. On the trail everything is out the window and you just adapt to what your body lets you. I don't recommend hiking more than 8 maybe 10 hours a day tops. I just completed my thru-hike two weeks ago - Started Mar 5th Finished Sept 30th. I took over two months of zero days. I spent close to $16k after my gear costs but I ate and slept well in towns when I got to them. Most of my friends spent half this amount and did just fine. I know some folks are on a time crunch but the trail is much more enjoyable when you can slow it down and enjoy time with the new people you'll meet. Go check out the sites just off the trail like West Point, Manhattan, Asheville, Robert Frost's grave in Bennington etc... tons of great things to see. Just hope with all the effort you put into this that you maximize the enjoyment aspect of the journey. In the end hyoh so embrace what you desire and make it happen. Good luck
how did you track this? Some gadget or what?
My dad built the spread sheet and tracked my progress the whole way. I would just text him start and stop times and the locations. its was pretty surprising i had service the whole AT except two days in the 100 mile.
I couldn't get your spreadsheet to open for me for some reason.
I also created an itinerary spreadsheet prior to my hike. In the beginning, I didn't want to catch myself pounding too many miles. So, I pretty much followed my modest starting itinerary until Damascas (including my 2 planned zero days; I didn't have any other 'planned' zeros after that). After that, I began going faster than my itinerary. So, when I felt like I needed a zero day, I took it. I ended up getting well ahead of my original itinerary. NH & ME slowed me down more than I expected. As it turned out, I summitted on my planned finish date of 8/19.
FYI - My actual hike is in my signature line.