The great Appalachian Trail is an adventure I haven’t tried yet, but would like to one day. The trail goes from Georgia to Maine and the entire journey would be about 2,175 miles for any hiker that wants to give it a try some day. Most people just do the hike in sections and will take years to cover the entire Appalachian Trail and these people are NOT truly walking the Appalachian Trail. To really receive credit for completing the trail, you need to walk it all at once. They are cities that you come in contact with along the trail and hikers have the chance to eat hot meals at restaurants and get a good night’s sleep at a hotel. All of these things are fine and stopping at a hotel for the night and then restarting your journey the next morning still qualifies you for the “thru-hiker” award. If you leave the trail for several days and experience the use of modern conveniences that a hotel could offer; then your not really giving true justice to your accomplishment.

The fastest time is 47 days for completing the entire trip and this is the time that the trail-runner left from either Maine or Georgia and arrived at the other location. I believe 47 days is a long time and I can see this record being broke someday. It’s hard to know just how much of a strain it would be when you factor in the hills along the way and any blisters on your feet or injuries that you may receive during your journey. I have examined the entire Appalachian Trail and I believe I could accomplish the entire hike in 46 days. The actual non official time is broke down into days, minutes, and seconds. So finishing the trip in 47 days would still leave you some room for breaking the record that is non-official, but maybe the new person to break the record could get their time official. Not only getting your time listed as official, but beating the non-official record would leave no doubts to who did the Appalachian Trail hike the fastest. I don’t have any special athletic abilities, but I was a good marathon runner when I was a teenager. Now that I am in my 30′s, it would be tougher and I do need to get in shape before the journey. I believe I could beat the record, because I think I would need less time to sleep and rest than the other person needed. So for the endurance and speed that I lack from the record holder, I would make up with fewer breaks during the day and covering a lot of ground at night time. Does anyone else feel like they could break this record? Do a search on the Appalachian Trail and see if your marathon, hiking, or endurance skills could complete the trail in 47 days or less. If you think you have what it takes, please reply to this post and let me know. Perhaps we could team up and make history together, by crossing the finish line at the same time and everyone in our group could be the new record holders of the fastest time for completing the Appalachian Trail hike.

You only live once and my time is running out, as I get older, on completing a hike on the Appalachian Trail. 47 days is just too much time and taking the approach of the turtle with his famous race against the rabbit (hare), by just constantly moving toward the finish line would have us reaching our goal in record time. We would make stops daily to recharge our batteries, rest, catch our breath; but we would spend less time on our breaks than the current record holder did. Please reply if you want to take the Appalachian Trail Challenge and maybe we can make history in 2009, 2010, or even 3 years from now.

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