Article: AT Hiking Rates, Section by Section

[kolokolo]

This is great information to have. Thanks for all of the time that you put into it. I think that this data is valuable for section hikers as well, at least near the southern end of the AT, where the hikers in the study may have still been getting 'trail tough'.

[TRIP08]

Thanks.

[mtt37849]

Great study, can't believe someone has done this.. Goodjob man.

[Rmatthews]

I would have to say I feel blessed that I found this site; there is so much good information on here. This post is superb and exactly what I am looking for. I am planning a trip on the AT, I want to hike the whole thing but over the span of a few years, I don't have the time to do the whole thing in one trip. I will probably be able to do 2 weeks at a time. I post on the site later about my journeys, thanks again for taking the time to compile all of this information for the rest of us.

[daylaandjasper]

Hi I just stumbled across this- I love it Mapman! I planned a second thruhike in 2010 after 2001 and I sort of did something kind of similar with the stats from my previous hike to plan the 2010 hike's maildrops- and also just breaking it down by sections and calculating an average for each section- used much of the same "natural breaks" where there was a natural terrain change (like Gorham) or where I felt I had a jump in my fitness level (Fontana Dam, Damascus). I got lost in most of the discussion of the stats despite having some statistical background.

Can you tell me if Doodlebug (me) was one of the 7 2001 hikers you used in your analysis- it looks like there are about 10 that looked like they met your criteria (just a cursory glance). I would think it very cool if I was one of the ones used. I'm a dork that way.

[FlyPaper]

This is an excellent resource.

Those of us that section hike can use this to avoid the crowds. Nothing wrong with thru-hikers, but it's a benefit to us all to minimize the chances of overcrowded shelters and shelter sites.

It's also useful to get a rough feel for the difference in difficulty. I'm not sure the low miles in Georgia show it's more difficult though. Just done at a time before most thru-hikers have their trail legs.

[RockDoc]

Rather than showing data as statistics in condensed tabular format, I suggest plotting all actual sample values on an X-Y graph. That would remove the ambiguity some are mentioning, and would also answer lots of different questions. I did not see such a graph on the six pages of discussion, although please let me know if I missed it.

In fact, in my experience with hundreds of sampling programs since the 1970's the first thing we do, since everything is in a spreadsheet anyway, is plot up all the samples so we could see exactly what is going on.

In contrast, a lot of questions arise as soon as you start doing statistics and grouping things into tables. I've even known a few flawed studies that avoided showing defects in their point database by purposely grouping data into data tables (however, I'm not accusing map_man of doing this).

Data points are a holy thing to a true researcher. They are also money in the bank in terms of credibility. Please go ahead and strut your stuff and show us all your data!

For example, for starters you could use miles (or map interval) on the X axis and days on the Y axis, and show a small symbol for each hiker. If possible, use different symbols for men, women, or stratify by age (where available). I stress again, show all data points, not just the mean. This is essential. Then groupings and trends are immediately obvious, as are outliers.

Good job, map_man!

[map man]

I just finished updating "AT Hiking Rates, Section by Section," adding the data for the hiking classes of 2008 through 2010 to that I had already done for 2001 through 2007. Not any earthshaking changes. The mean number of days to complete a NOBO thru-hike changed from 167.7 days to 168.8. Some trail towns got a little more popular to take zero days, some a little less, and this often happened in predictable patterns due to the closing or opening of hostels and shuttle services.

One trend seems worth commenting on. It seems like a lot of hikers are using other social media outlets (Facebook, etc.) rather than trailjouirnals.com for journaling about their hikes. This seems particularly true for younger hikers. It was not unusual for me to see notes in trailjournals.com journals, as I was attempting to mine them for data, saying things like, "I'm getting tired of posting at multiple sites so if you want to keep following my hike here is a link to my blog at..." and then there would be a link to Facebook or some other non-hiker specific site.

Consequently, the number of thorough journals I am able to use for my study has now dropped steadily from a high of 38 back in 2006, to 17 in the class of 2010. It's kind of a shame because it is nice to have one central place to look for trail journals. Anyone else noticing this too?

[Roland]

Let me say, once again, that I am impressed with your work and your dedication to keep the study up-to-date.

Thank you.

[Turkhevn]

Thanks for playing with the numbers. Planning my SOBO beginning soon, I can see how unrealistic my goal of about 32 miles per day is. Hmm. 8 miles every 2 hours beginning at 7:00 a.m. followed by 45 minute breaks at 9:00 a.m., 11:45 a.m., 2:30 p.m. will be too difficult to maintain discipline to have that many miles every day by 4:30 p.m. I can still try it. Maybe I'll need to go on to 8:30 p.m. to get in the milage.

[mreeves]

Map Man,

As someone who is starting the planning process for an AT Thru Hike (fingers crossed on '12), I thank you SO MUCH for saving me about a month of work. I am the type that likes to analyze numbers as well before starting any large project, whether for work or for other activities. I was already planning on following a few journals in order to extract the data that you have done. The fact that you did it on a much larger scale is that much more commendable.

Bravo,

-Mark

[keepinitsimple]

Map Man,

Thank you for your efforts. I read another reply that talked of using this data in a classroom setting. That is a great idea. Teaching middle schoolers elapsed time is a difficult process. One that your real life data might make a little easier to visualize.

Be well.

[Paisley1985]

Wow this is really awesome and super helpful for planning! Big thanks!

[Tinker]

This is the first I've seen of this thread. Congratulations, Mapman, the hard work is appreciated. I'm hoping that the trend of early starts reverses back to the usual thru of the 70s and 80s, when people typically started in April, saw fewer snow (and the necessary) zero days, and, if I'm not imagining things,a higher percentage of completions.

[map man]

You can view the page at http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/cont...ion-by-Section

[johnnybgood]

Great job on crunching the numbers Map Man. I'm glad someone has the patience and meticulous nature to do this , because it sure isn't me. Again great job !

[jeffmeh]

AT Mean Pace.jpgThis is great, and certainly a reasonable rough guide. Here's the miles/day (not per hiking day), by section, restated for the visually inclined.

[Kerosene]

Thanks for the visual representation. What's interesting is that my personal average has been much higher (2-6 mpd) than represented here, at least south of Harpers Ferry. I'm much closer to the stated average through Gorham, where the trail surface tends to be a lot more variable.

[map man]

Hey, thanks for doing this, jeffmeh. You know, if you read the graph like an elevation profile there are some pretty outrageous ups and downs.

[jeffmeh]

Hey, thanks for doing this, jeffmeh. You know, if you read the graph like an elevation profile there are some pretty outrageous ups and downs.

Indeed there are. It is you I should thank for crunching all the stats on this. Throwing it into a spreadsheet and producing some charts was the easy part. FYI, I played around with it a bit more and posted some other charts in another thread. http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/show...ay-in-a-Visual

One of them is the same as what I posted above, but it also shows the cumulative average (miles/day) at each waypoint. The others chart the progress of my son, who is out there with a deadline to finish, so it is not an entirely academic exercise.