100 Years of the Appalachian Trail

Find out fun facts about the beloved scenic trail, like how long it is and how long it takes to hike

McAfee Knob is the most photographed site along the Appalachain Trail

The Appalachian Trail is marking its 100th anniversary in March 2025. Here, McAfee Knob in Virginia provides nearly a 270-degree panoramic view of the mountains and valleys along the trail.

Brent McGuirt Photography/Visit Virginia's Blue Ridge

Doug Schnitzspahn,

AARP

Published February 12, 2025

In 1921, forester Benton MacKaye had a vision: to build and connect existing trails, creating a footpath that would traverse the extent of the Appalachian Mountains. March 1925 is considered the official birth of the Appalachian Trail, with the founding of what is now called the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC). This made MacKaye’s dream into a 2,200-mile reality while protecting it for future generations. The Appalachian Trail now attracts close to 4 million visitors annually. Here’s a look at a century of natural bliss:

It’s gone through changes.

The Appalachian Trail was initially completed in 1937, but the current route is different from the original. The southern terminus is now about a dozen miles northeast of its original location on Mount Oglethorpe, Georgia. And many famous sections, including the Grayson Highlands in Virginia and Saddleback Mountain in Maine, were not part of the original route.

And more changes.

Though it now stretches from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine, smaller sections of the trail are regularly being rebuilt, rerouted and improved. That means the exact length between the southern and northern terminus can be slightly longer one year or slightly shorter the next. In 2023, the trail measured 2,198.4 miles; in 2024, it was 2,197.4 miles.

Thru-hiking took some time.

The first hiker to complete an end-to-end hike was Earl Shaffer, in 1948. It took him 124 days. “Peace Pilgrim” Mildred Norman Ryder became the first woman to pull off the feat, in 1952. Emma Gatewood, a 67-year-old grandmother, became the first woman to solo-hike it, in 1955.

“Peace Pilgrim” Mildred Norman Ryder became the first woman to complete an end-to-end hike of the trail in 1952.

Courtesy Friends of Peace Pilgrim

But thru-hiking is getting more popular. In 1970, 10 people completed the entire Appalachian Trail, with an additional 783 making the claim by the end of the decade. In the 1980s, 1,438 people became “2,000-milers,” ticking off the whole thing. Between 2010 and 2019, 9,946 people did it.

The oldest person to complete the trail was 83.

Veteran thru-hiker M.J. Eberhart, known on the trail as the “Nimblewill Nomad,” set the age record in 2021.The youngest recorded person to complete the trail is 4-year-old Juniper Netteburg (trail name “Beast”) who hiked it in 2020 with her family.

Thru-hiker M.J. Eberhart, center, was the oldest person to complete the Appalachian Trail in 2021. He was 83.

Robert F. Bukaty/AP Photo

It’s steep.

The Appalachians might not be tall for mountains, but they are rugged. All the ups and downs over the length of the trail add up to roughly 464,500 vertical feet. That’s about the equivalent of climbing the stairs of the Empire State Building 370 times or hiking Mount Everest 40 times from Base Camp.

It may break your pedometer.

Completing the trail requires about 5 million steps. It takes the average hiker five to seven months, walking up to 14 miles per day. Hikers may burn up to 6,000 calories a day.

It’s hard.

Only 1 in 4 people who set out to do the whole thing complete it.

Toenails can be a hindrance.

Ultrarunner Tara Dower set the speed record for the trail in 2024, knocking the whole thing off in 40 days, eight hours and six minutes — averaging about 54 miles per day. She beat the previous record, set in 2018, by 13 hours. Since she anticipated damage to her toenails from all that pounding the dirt, she had four of them surgically removed before her trek.

You can do it in sections.

Not everyone who completes the AT does it in one go. It’s also OK to knock it off in smaller sections over several years. Or just hike whatever bit of it pleases you. There is no rule when it comes to how you want to hike the trail.

The trail is federally protected.

The AT crosses land managed by a range of public agencies, but the entire length was declared a national scenic trail by the National Trails System Act of 1968.

It’s maintained by volunteers.

With 30,000 members and over 600,000 supporters, the nonprofit ATC works with government agencies and coordinates the efforts of 31 volunteer clubs that put in over 240,000 hours a year keeping the trail open.

Bill Bryson didn’t hike the whole thing.

The AT may be best known in popular culture via Bryson’s 1998 humorous book A Walk in the Woods, later turned into a film starring Robert Redford. But Bryson never completed the trail. He and his cantankerous companion, “Stephen Katz,” could only muster about 870 miles (still not bad; about the distance from New York to Chicago).

The Appalachian Trail may be best known in popular culture for Bill Bryson’s 1998 book “A Walk in the Woods.” The book was turned into a film starring Robert Redford, left, as Bryson, and Nick Nolte.

Alamy Stock Photo

You can treat yourself at the halfway point.

Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania’s Cumberland Valley marks the midpoint. It’s tradition for thru-hikers to try to eat a half-gallon of ice cream at the Pine Grove Furnace General Store, located near the Appalachian Trail Museum. Pro tip: You don’t have to hike the trail to enjoy the ice cream.

Virginia is for AT lovers.

The trail crosses 14 states in its passage across the country, but it spends the most time in the Old Dominion with 557 miles there, nearly a quarter of the route. The AT barely touches West Virginia, with just 2.4 miles of trail solely in the state—and yet the ATC is headquartered at Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia.

History abounds.

Indigenous people have used footpaths along the now-Appalachian Trail for countless generations. And sections of the trail in Maryland were part of the Underground Railroad.

Hurricane Helene hurt.

While last fall’s massive storm did not wipe out the AT, it did inflict damage to the trail and Southern communities along one-third of its length. The ATC created the Appalachian Trail Resiliency Fund to help rebuild and restore the trail and local communities.

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Doug Schnitzspahn is the editor of Elevation Outdoors magazine and worked building trails for the U.S. Forest Service. He has also written for National Geographic, Men’s Journal and Outside.

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