AT in New Hampshire - really 5-7 miles a day?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I’ve been looking at various locations on the Appalachian Trail for possible hikes, and several websites say that you should only plan on getting 5-7 miles a day in the White Mountains. However, looking at both pictures and topo maps the terrain seems to be a mix of:

– Clear ridges, which is easier to do more than 5-7 miles than to fail, out of boredom if nothing else.
– Slopes that are so high they are made into stairs, which would definitely limit me to 5-7 miles a day – going upward. I’m not sure about going downward.
– Just regular slopes.

What I haven’t seen so far, and please correct me if I’m wrong:
– Ridges with rubble/scrambling required.
– Boulder fields. I’ve seen pictures of boulder fields on the New England AT, just not in New Hampshire.

From the topo map perspective, they seem to be about the same elevation gain and slope your typical hike up a mountain in the Smokies – i.e. 2000 foot gain or descent in around 5 miles. But that hike in the Smokies gets me to the top of a mountain by lunchtime with many hours to spare.

What could possibly limit you in New Hampshire to 5-7 miles a day, or is that for people who are in slightly less shape than myself?

2

The AMC huts and the shelters along the trails are spaced roughly 7-8 miles apart, which makes it possible to hike just 7-8 miles per day. But long distance hikers nearly always do significantly more than that. The terrain is quite rough in places, especially in the northern Presidentials, but a good hiker can easily cover more distance in a reasonable day.

With a full overnight backpack you’ll be going a bit slower, but even so I regularly do 12-15 mile days, and even 20+ miles for long days (12 hours on the trail). Book time (for estimates in the White Mountain Guide, the bible of hiking in NH) is 2 MPH plus 30 minutes for each 1000’ of elevation gain. Most reasonable hikers can beat book time. On Thursday I covered 14 miles in 7 hours, for example.

If you have specific questions about sections of the AT in NH I’ve hiked them all and can give you advice. The bigger problem is usually finding a place to camp, since the terrain doesn’t lend itself to just setting up a tent in the woods in many places. That’s why the established campsites are fairly important.

3

Just for example if you wanted to a multi-night overnight you could do the following:

Day one - start at Liberty Springs trailhead and go up to Liberty, Franconia Ridge, Garfield and camp at Garfield Ridge Shelter.

Day two - past Galehead hut, over South Twin, Zealand, past Zealand Hut, past Ethan Pond Shelter, then climb up Webster Cliff to Webster, Jackson, and spend the night at Nauman Tentsites next to Mizpah Spring Hut.

Day three - Along the Presidentials to Osgood Ridge Campsite. This is a long day and one that won’t happen in bad weather. You can cut it short at one of the RMC cabins below Mt Adams, but even then you will be above treeline and exposed to potentially awful weather for extended periods. If the weather is really bad (and that can happen any month of the year) you may have to change plans.

Day four - Out to Pinkham, then over the Wildcats, down the Carter Notch, up Carter Dome and all the way out to Imp Shelter. Another long day with few camping options along the way (no flat terrain or water). You can cut that short by camping 1/4 mile away down the Wild River trail from Carter Notch hut.

These are longish days, you’ll be on the trail for 8+ hours. The terrain is tough, the trail surface is rocky and full of roots, and in New England we don’t believe in switchbacks. But they can be done and are often done.

4

I have no idea. But are they talking about a specific timeframe? When we hiked Mount Chocorua during an April after an ice storm it was really slow going because no effort to clear the damaged trees off the path had been made yet - usually boyscouts do that during the summer. It was supposed to be an easier hike than Mount Dickey-Welch, but it wasn’t considering the state of the trails.

5

No, I think they’re referring to the fact that most average backpackers severely underestimate the difficulty in backpacking. A day trip up Chocorua doesn’t really compare to backpacking along the AT with a full pack. 5-7 miles will get you from established campsite to established campsite; which is generally where people stay.

Trail damage is usually cleared off early in the season except for very unusual cases like the ice storm damage. The AT gets early priority because it’s heavily traveled and the AMC and USFS trail crews start there.

6

With a fifty pound pack I could make it three hours on uphill terrain. I was 35 and in average shape. I was beat and slept the night at Chimney pond on Mt. Katadhin. I think one of the small differences is the rocks. They don’t call NH the granite state for nothing! Scrambling over the rocks on the last leg of Mt Washington takes longer then a regular uphill climb on even footing. I remember saying to my son, “Look Ry we are almost to the summit”. This was looking at the boulder desert just below the summit. It took forever that last quarter mile or so.

For me on Mt. Washington’s hardest trail which for me was Huntington’s Ravine took me 5 hours to make the summit with a few breaks. Mt. Chocura is less rocky and takes 4 hours up. Mt. Katadhin which is the most beautiful spot in the world I have seen in full fall foliage is 3 hours up to the base. Then it is another 4 hours to the summit and more then I could do in one day. I carried up supplies weighing 50 pounds and then took a light pack the next morning to the summit doing the Knifes Edge Trail. I think my timing was a bit long because I met a young man in distress. He just gave up and a couple of us kept urging him on as daylight was burning. He was a college kid and underestimated his stamina. He tried doing it all in one day and ran out of gas. It’s good that you are looking into it before trying to take it on.

I have to run but I hope this helps…

7

If you’re in good shape (i.e. have just walked from Georgia), then you can certainly do better than 5 miles a day. But the White Mountains aren’t a piece of cake either. The trails are rockier and often steeper than the Smokies. Going over Mt. Washington is pretty much climbing over boulders the last 2000 vertical feet or so.

So don’t take 7 miles as a limit, but don’t plan on covering the same miles in the Presidentials as you did in Connecticut.

8

My last multi-day hike several years ago, the total poundage I took was about 15, including pack, tent, sleeping bag, camping pad, food, cooking equipment, and miscellaneous (perhaps not including water, but even that wouldn’t push it above 20.) I want to cut it down from even that, because anything over 5 pounds and my arms start to go numb even if I take the weight off my shoulders with a strap. If I go again, I’d take out the cooking gear but if it were in the Presidentials, I’d have to add in some warmer clothes. I would have replaced the pup tent with just a tarp, but thanks everyone for reminding me how bare the peaks are up there, as I wouldn’t be able to find a place to string up a tarp-tent, I’m definitely filing that for future reference.

9

My son and I hiked up the Old Bridle Path to Mount Lafayette two years ago when he was 11 years old. I had a 30 pound pack, and my son had a 24 pound pack. The horizontal distance from the parking lot to Greenleaf Hut is only 2.9 miles, but the elevation change is 2,150 feet with a book time of 2.5 hours. It took my son and I more like 4.5 hours. The last mile to the hut was pretty rugged.

(I remember after hiking for an hour we asked someone coming down the trail what fraction of the distance we’d made to the hut, and didn’t believe them when they estimated “about 20%.” On the way back down the next day, we in turn ran into a family at the half-way point, who asked if they were nearly at the summit. My son seemed to take a lot of pleasure in telling them they were only halfway to the hut, and that the first half was the easy half. At that point, the family’s daughter sat down in the middle of the trail and announced that she wasn’t going any further. ;))

The next day, we summitted Mount Lafeyette (1.1 miles from Greenleaf Hut, elevation increase of ~1,000 feet), then hiked back to Greenleaf, back to the parking lot, and up the other side to Lonesome Lake Hut. The total horizontal distance that day was about 7 miles. By the 6 mile point, my son was pretty spent. I was getting worried about making the hut for dinner, because our breaks were getting longer and longer, when it dawned on me that his blood sugar was probably low. I was right, because some hard candy perked him right up and we made the last mile with no problem.

Regarding packs, my son and I discovered a lot of things in our packs that we didn’t really need. On the way back through the parking lot on the second day, we unloaded just about everything not necessary for survival, like deodorant and spare underwear.

In a few weeks, we’re doing another backpacking trip, this time in the Green Mountains in Vermont. This time we’re not using any huts; instead we’ll be carrying tents, food, and cooking gear. Should be fun–my son is two years older now. Unfortunately, so am I. :slight_smile:

10

Oooo, a timely thread!

We just got back from Gatlinburg, where we “hiked” about 100 yards on the AT. I was thinking about hiking it, and had some questions…

  1. Is it something you could walk/hike, as opposed to hard climbing?
  2. At some point, the AT must hit towns. What’s there? Do you just walk on a trail behind the local 7-11, or is it set apart and marked as the AT?
11

From what I’ve read, a good 75% of the miles is fairly easy hiking, and 95% of it involves no climbing or scrambling. Most of the outlying 25% is in New England or south of the Smokies. (With of course some exceptions such as when the trail dips down into and out of a valley.)

I wonder this, too. My only experience with this is finding where the AT “picks up again” from Damascus, VA. It didn’t seem very well marked (unless you know where it was, in which case it is well marked at the site), but if you have a trail map it should tell you where it picks up on the other side, from what I’ve gathered.

But it might be easier in the other towns the AT hits, because just from the maps, Damascus seems to be one of the bigger towns the AT goes directly through.

Which brings me to another issue. While there are a lot of places on the trail where you’re only a couple miles from a town, there aren’t a whole lot of places that pass directly through, so it will add miles to the hike, plus, in either case, it will usually involve an elevation loss which you will have to make up because the trail usually sticks to the ridges.

Plus, and I have directly experienced this, another major problem is sources of water. Since, again, it sticks to the ridges, there aren’t a lot of streams you can get water from. When they do occur they again will require going down a slope a bit a lot of the time.

12

I’ve hiked (day hiked) bits and pieces of the AT in various portions of the woods. Most memorably (or most recently) in the Shenandoah National Park.

In that area it was generally smooth, flat, and well-maintained enough for my aging Grandmother, who used to be a great hiker but at the time was a little wobbly and tired easily. We’d hike a couple miles, eat lunch, hike a couple more miles, get everyone loaded into a car and go driving along the main road looking for bears.

I have no experience with the AT in towns, but would expect that it is still marked and blazed.

13

I’ve hiked a big chunk of the AT in New England, built a number of miles of trails and shelters, done my share of trail magic (hauled ice cream and beer to summits to hand out to hikers, drove folks to town, trailheads, gave them a place to spend the night) so I have a pretty good idea on the trail.

There’s no climbing on the AT, other than a few scrambles. There are some long days if you want to do the whole thing in a reasonable amount of time, and some long, steep climbs. In the Whites of NH you have rocky rough terrain, and all along the way you’ll find a few difficult stream crossings. But it’s meant to be hiked, it’s just a trail in the woods for the most part.

There are many, many road walks on the AT. In towns, the trail runs right down the sidewalks of streets (blazes are usually on telephone poles). There are a few signs in key places, but once you’re on the trail finding blazes is second nature. You also go on woods roads in places, through farmers fields, along logging roads, etc. It’s not wilderness for large stretches of the trail.

Oh, and before you ask, A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson is a fun read, but has little to do with hiking the AT.

14

That’s one of the things that seems cool about the AT - instead of hiking through the woods, you’re hiking through America, if that makes sense.

15

That makes perfect sense.