How will Covid-19 affect hiking in 2021?

[LittleRock]

Traveling to the trail is the most dangerous part of the trip. I still wouldn't feel comfortable with a long train or bus ride. I always seem to pick up something along the way as it is and it always hits a week into the hike. Ideally you'd have a friend or relative drive you to the trail head, regardless of distance or added expense (you have to pay for their return trip of course).
Once on the trail it should be reasonably safe. I'd tent just on General Principles, but if your in a bubble with known, safe companions, taking over a shelter or hostel would be safe. At least until strangers wanting to share the space start to show up in numbers.
In town, wear your mask even if the locals give you dirty looks. Don't do sit down meals in restaurants, which you shouldn't be doing right now anyway. Outside is safe, inside is not.
I still think the biggest question to answer is what hostels will still be open and who will be shuttling?

This is excellent advice. In my experience the trail was really only shut down for a few months in spring 2020 while people figured out how the virus worked. Then people adapted and things got mostly back to normal except for the parts where you get back into civilization.
As far as shelters the only real danger is sharing the sleeping space with others. But nearly all of the shelters have plenty of tenting space so it is really a non-issue. Some of the trail clubs even put hand sanitizer in the privies.

The only other advice I'd add is for section hikers to avoid popular areas of the trail on weekends if possible. One of the biggest changes I noticed this year was a HUGE increase in the number of day hikers out on weekends. For example, I saw about 300 day hikers in 3 miles coming down into Delaware Water Gap on a Saturday afternoon.

[Slo-go'en]

The only other advice I'd add is for section hikers to avoid popular areas of the trail on weekends if possible. One of the biggest changes I noticed this year was a HUGE increase in the number of day hikers out on weekends. For example, I saw about 300 day hikers in 3 miles coming down into Delaware Water Gap on a Saturday afternoon.

Yep, the number of day hikers was insane in the Whites this summer and fall. On a Saturday and often on a Sunday, every trailhead for a 4,000 footer had cars spilled out of the parking lots for up to a 1/2 mile along the road! From what I saw locally, I bet over a thousand people climbed Mt Madison this summer. Glad I was able to do all my hikes on a Monday, but even then popular trails had full parking lots.

Wonder if these record crowds will continue next year? Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

[futureatwalker]

Yep, the number of day hikers was insane in the Whites this summer and fall. On a Saturday and often on a Sunday, every trailhead for a 4,000 footer had cars spilled out of the parking lots for up to a 1/2 mile along the road!

We had the same thing here in Scotland. Our mountains are 3,000 footers (called Munros, after Sir Henry Munro, the first person to climb all 200+ of them), and people collect them. Parking lots were jammed. Even smaller, local hills were and remain unusually busy.

I suspect this uptick in interest is a combination of hiking being relatively safe (Covid-19-wise), and other opportunities for travel being limited.

One challenge is how to handle these crowds. Parking is a big issue, as is instances of people not knowing about or following leave no trace behavior.

At the moment, we are about to enter another phase of lockdown, so I'll have to be creative about finding hiking and camping opportunities closer to home.

[colorado_rob]

We had the same thing here in Scotland. Our mountains are 3,000 footers (called Munros, after Sir Henry Munro, the first person to climb all 200+ of them), and people collect them. Parking lots were jammed. Even smaller, local hills were and remain unusually busy.

I suspect this uptick in interest is a combination of hiking being relatively safe (Covid-19-wise), and other opportunities for travel being limited.

One challenge is how to handle these crowds. Parking is a big issue, as is instances of people not knowing about or following leave no trace behavior.

At the moment, we are about to enter another phase of lockdown, so I'll have to be creative about finding hiking and camping opportunities closer to home.

Funny, you're across The Pond and everything you're saying is absolutely identical here in Colorado; parking issues at super-busy trailheads, littering, etc. Our local trails have at least 2X hiker traffic vs. pre-Covid, probably more. But I suppose this is pretty much true everywhere.

One potential silver lining is maybe, just maybe some folks having "discovered" a new hobby (hiking) might stick with it and as a society we'll be just a bit more fit. Of course to a lot of us, more hikers is a bad thing, but we've managed to avoid the crowds with more obscure trails; most of our recent hiking has been in near total solitude.

BTW, I'm intrigued by those Munros, having a good pal who's working on them (he has a sister in Scotland). I've climbed precisely one of them, albeit the Highest. Our Colorado 14ers (59 of them) have been nutso this last summer, crazier then usual, but thankfully my wife and I completed that much smaller list 15 years ago.

[ScareBear]

Yeah, I avoided CO hiking this summer after my friends out there declared it a clusterfook. I wonder how the newbies did trying to bag Long's Peak....or the Four Pass Loop in the Bells.

How ya doing Colorado Rob? Last I heard you were having some knee issues on a thru hike of the AT?

SB

Funny, you're across The Pond and everything you're saying is absolutely identical here in Colorado; parking issues at super-busy trailheads, littering, etc. Our local trails have at least 2X hiker traffic vs. pre-Covid, probably more. But I suppose this is pretty much true everywhere.

One potential silver lining is maybe, just maybe some folks having "discovered" a new hobby (hiking) might stick with it and as a society we'll be just a bit more fit. Of course to a lot of us, more hikers is a bad thing, but we've managed to avoid the crowds with more obscure trails; most of our recent hiking has been in near total solitude.

BTW, I'm intrigued by those Munros, having a good pal who's working on them (he has a sister in Scotland). I've climbed precisely one of them, albeit the Highest. Our Colorado 14ers (59 of them) have been nutso this last summer, crazier then usual, but thankfully my wife and I completed that much smaller list 15 years ago.

[colorado_rob]

Yeah, I avoided CO hiking this summer after my friends out there declared it a clusterfook. I wonder how the newbies did trying to bag Long's Peak....or the Four Pass Loop in the Bells.

How ya doing Colorado Rob? Last I heard you were having some knee issues on a thru hike of the AT?

SB

Sorry for the drift.... Just curious, did we meet on the AT? Knees are doing OK, but O.L.D. is inevitable. BTW, a big group of us did the 4-pass this last summer on a weekday, not too bad, trailhead access was extremely limited due to limited quotas on the shuttle bus. But yeah, Longs? Fugedaboudid. But we hiked ALL OVER CO this summer, completely avoiding crowds. Big state.

[colorado_rob]

Given all the recent vaccine news, I'm fairly optimistic that by mid-spring, the Covid issue will be fading fast.

If this is true, my wife and I will be doing a nice big AT LASH, trying to finish the trail for her (most of VA, then CT/MA/VT) in the late spring/early summer. then, we've got two multi-week European treks planned (UK and Italy).

If Covid is still a huge deal, we'll just wait another year. For us, the social aspects and town visits are a huge part of AT enjoyment, and restrictions of these would be too big of a downer. So in that case we'll just did what we did this year, hike our butts off in Colorado and Wyoming, staying completely away from crowded areas. We're working on the 2nd highest 100 peaks in CO (13,600'-13,800') and knocking 30-40 of those off next summer would be a great consolation prize.

[futureatwalker]

BTW, I'm intrigued by those Munros, having a good pal who's working on them (he has a sister in Scotland). I've climbed precisely one of them, albeit the Highest.

Nice photo of Ben Nevis! It's a touch rainy here in general, so you don't get many days like that shown in your photo!

[BillyGr]

One potential silver lining is maybe, just maybe some folks having "discovered" a new hobby (hiking) might stick with it and as a society we'll be just a bit more fit. Of course to a lot of us, more hikers is a bad thing, but we've managed to avoid the crowds with more obscure trails; most of our recent hiking has been in near total solitude.

We can only hope that some of those who discovered hiking also have funds that they weren't using for those other things they'd normally be doing and help out some of the groups that could use it. That might help to offset the extra hikers.

[Astro]

Yep, the number of day hikers was insane in the Whites this summer and fall. On a Saturday and often on a Sunday, every trailhead for a 4,000 footer had cars spilled out of the parking lots for up to a 1/2 mile along the road! From what I saw locally, I bet over a thousand people climbed Mt Madison this summer. Glad I was able to do all my hikes on a Monday, but even then popular trails had full parking lots.
Wonder if these record crowds will continue next year? Guess we'll just have to wait and see.

Hopefully the local busineses benefited from all of the trail traffic.

[jersey joe]

The only other advice I'd add is for section hikers to avoid popular areas of the trail on weekends if possible. One of the biggest changes I noticed this year was a HUGE increase in the number of day hikers out on weekends. For example, I saw about 300 day hikers in 3 miles coming down into Delaware Water Gap on a Saturday afternoon.

The 4 mile stretch from the Delaware Water Gap to Sunfish Pond in NJ is one of the most, if not THE most, heavily traveled sections of the entire AT. This is true in any year, but especially true in a COVID year.