Tara Dower Breaks Appalachian Trail Record

[boingboing]

Originally published at: Tara Dower Breaks Appalachian Trail Record - Boing Boing

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[Otherbrother]

So that’s a real thing that people do? Not just a euphemism or cover story for when you disappear for a while to visit your lover in Buenos Aires? Huh.

[Bunbain]

@boingboing

now 40 days, … has 465,000 feet of elevation gain.

So well over 10000 ft climbed per day on average. It’d be like going up to the top floor of the Empire State Building 9 times a day everyday for 40 days

[mick129]

From Jennifer Sandlin

[generic_name]

I’ve done some long distance hiking (never more than a month at a time) and once you get your “trail legs” it’s not that hard to do 20 miles a day particularly if you’re not carrying a heavy pack. Certain sections of the A.T. are very easy because there’s not much change in elevation (MA and CT.) The changes in elevation in NH and southern Maine are brutal.

Elevation Profiles

Trail running bothers me just because you’re asking to twist an ankle miles from a road, the trails are criss-crossed by lots of tree roots slick from thousands of boots.

[sdmikev]

@generic_name

Trail running bothers me just because you’re asking to twist an ankle miles from a road, the trails are criss-crossed by lots of tree roots slick from thousands of boots.

Even relatively close I worried about that. Once I took a good tumble but was OK, I stopped running on trails.
The longest hike we’ve ever done in one go was on accident. Took a left when we should have taken a right at a fork (or maybe the other way around) and we wound up doing 14 miles instead of 8 while in a state park east of here.
We had plenty of water and all that, but still…
In 2014 we did a ranger-guided thing in Yosemite to different High Sierra camps. I believe the total miles for the trip was 45 in one big loop over 5 days at altitude. My dogs were barkin’ after that.

[Ceschuby]

Yup. I thru hiked about 70% of the AT (& finished it the following year) 10ish years ago, can confirm–it becomes more of a mental challenge than a physical one after the first couple of weeks, though physical problems can certainly still crop up (bronchitis is what ended my first attempt). It’s a great adventure with its own quirky subculture, highly recommend if it’s on anyone’s bucket list! And yeah, Maine is beautiful but indeed brutal. I ended Maine with less muscle mass than I started with…

[Ceschuby]

Most folks take about 6 months to do it, to put the record in context. I haven’t read the whole story yet, but “supported” generally means she wasn’t carrying a pack and a support crew met her at the trailheads with food and shelter, etc. A super impressive feat for sure but also very different than the experience of most AT hikers.

[Bunbain]

Thank you for the context. Still impressive, but so is walking around a running track 10000 times.
Surely it must be nice to see the whole trail in 40 days. 6 months is a chunk of time.

[PPK]

Whenever I hear the name Appalachian Trail, the first thing that comes to mind is the hilarious

A Walk in the Woods (book)

The moment of realisation that his hiking companion had thrown away all the heavy food - and most of their water - as it was too heavy, is just spot on.

I can’t even imaging doing this in 40 days, even supported - can I take 40 weeks instead?

[anon29537550]

@boingboing

She covered an average of almost 55 miles a day

I am seriously struggling to make this make sense. This is running essentially 2 marathons a day for 40 days. Holy fucking shit! The human body truly is a fascinating machine, honed by long evolution for endurance and persistence. All she needed was to club that antelope at the end!

[generic_name]

@Ceschuby

it becomes more of a mental challenge than a physical one after the first couple of weeks,

Part of the subculture is that there’s a snobby tendency for end-to-enders to dismiss section-hikers, which is odd because if you hike a section for a month every year, by the time you get your trail legs the month is almost over-- so in that sense it’s actually a bit harder to section hike than do the whole thing at once.

I’ve talked with thru-hikers who have this post-hike depression too. Six months of carefree living in the beautiful outdoors, then back to reality. I can’t blame them.

@Ceschuby

Maine is beautiful but indeed brutal.

The 100-Mile Wilderness is a treasure, and mostly not hard (you just have bring enough food for the entire trip, which can be heavy.)

(Full disclosure: I’ve never thru-hiked, just random long hikes in the northeast as my schedule permitted. At this point I could start south from NY and do the rest of the A.T. but my other obligations kind of rule it out.)