History of Appalachian Trail in Timeline

1921

The trail was conceived by Benton MacKaye, a forester who wrote his original plan—called "An Appalachian Trail, A Project in Regional Planning" —shortly after his wife's death in 1921. MacKaye's idea detailed a grand trail that would connect a series of farms and wilderness work/study camps for city-dwellers along the Appalachian Mountains from the highest point in the North (Mount Washington in New Hampshire) to the highest in the South (Mount Mitchell in North Carolina). Hiking was an incidental focus of his plan. In 1922, at the suggestion of Major William A. Welch, director of the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, his idea was publicized by Raymond H. Torrey with a story in the New York Evening Post under a large headline reading "A Great Trail from Maine to Georgia"

1921

The trail was first proposed in 1921 and completed in 1937. Improvements and changes have continued since then. It became the Appalachian National Scenic Trail under the National Trails System Act of 1968.

1922

In 1977, the Appalachian Trail Conference honored Paul M. Fink as "the guiding influence" in establishing the Trail in Tennessee and North Carolina in the 1920s. Fink was inducted into the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame in 2019. In 1922, only a year after MacKaye's article proposing an Appalachian Trail was written, Fink began corresponding with hiking leaders in New England about building the Trail. When Avery began planning the Trail's route in the south, Fink was the first person he contacted.

1923

New York's 88.4 mi (142.3 km) of trail contain very little elevation change compared to other states. From south to north, the trail summits many small mountains under 1,400 ft (430 m) in elevation, its highest point in New York being Prospect Rock at 1,433 ft (437 m), and only 3,000 ft (910 m) from the state line with New Jersey. The trail continues north, climbing near Fitzgerald Falls, passing through Sterling Forest, and then entering Harriman State Park and Bear Mountain State Park. The lowest point on the entire Appalachian Trail is in the Bear Mountain Zoo at 124 ft (38 m). It crosses the Hudson River on the Bear Mountain Bridge. It then passes through Fahnestock State Park, and continues northeast and crosses the Metro-North Railroad's Harlem Line. This track crossing is the site of the only train station along the trail's length. It enters Connecticut via the Pawling Nature Reserve. The section of the trail that passes through Harriman and Bear Mountain State Parks is the oldest section of the trail, completed in 1923. A portion of this section was paved by 700 volunteers with 800 granite-slab steps followed by over a mile of walkway supported by stone crib walls with boulders lining the path. The project took four years, cost roughly $1 million, and opened in June 2010. The project was done by the New York–New Jersey Trail Conference, which maintains and updates the Appalachian Trail in New York.

October 07, 1923

On October 7, 1923, the first section of the trail, from Bear Mountain west through Harriman State Park to Arden, New York, was opened. MacKaye then called for a two-day Appalachian Trail conference to be held in March 1925 in Washington, D.C. This meeting inspired the formation of the Appalachian Trail Conference (now called the Appalachian Trail Conservancy) (ATC). Arthur Perkins, a retired judge, and his younger associate Myron Avery took up the cause. In 1929, Perkins, who was also a member of the Connecticut Forest and Park Association and its Blue Blazed Trails committee, found Ned Anderson, a farmer in Sherman, Connecticut, who took on the task of mapping and blazing the Connecticut leg of the trail (1929–1933). It ran from Dog Tail Corners in Webatuck, New York, which borders Kent, Connecticut, at Ashley Falls, 50 miles (80 km) through the northwest corner of the state, up to Bear Mountain at the Massachusetts state line. A portion of the Connecticut trail has since been rerouted (1979–1983) to be more scenic, adhering less to highways and more to wilderness, and includes the Ned K. Anderson Memorial Bridge.

1932

Anderson's efforts helped spark renewed interest in the trail, and Avery, who led the project after Perkins's death in 1932, was able to bring other states on board. Upon taking over the ATC, Avery adopted the goal to build a simple hiking trail. He and MacKaye clashed over the ATC's response to the construction of a road that overlapped part within Shenandoah National Park; MacKaye left the organization, while Avery was willing to reroute the trail. Avery served as Chair of the ATC from 1932 to 1952, the year he died. He was the first to walk the trail end-to-end, though not as a thru-hike, in 1936. In August 1937, the trail was completed to Sugarloaf Mountain in Maine, and the ATC shifted its focus toward protecting the trail lands and mapping the trail for hikers.

1936

In 1936, a 121-day Maine to Georgia veteran's group funded and supported thru-hike was reported to have been completed, with all but three miles of the new trail cleared and blazed, by six Boy Scouts from New York City and their guides. The thru-hike was much later recorded and accepted by the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association. In 1938, the trail sustained major damage from a hurricane that went through the New England area. This was soon before the start of World War II, and many of the people working on the trail were called to active duty.

1937

Many of the trail's present highlights were not part of the trail in 1937: Roan Mountain, North Carolina and Tennessee; the Mount Rogers high country, including Grayson Highlands, Virginia; the Pochuck Creek swamp, New Jersey; Nuclear Lake, New York; Thundering Falls, Vermont; and Saddleback Mountain, Maine. Except for places where the Civilian Conservation Corps was brought in (mostly in Shenandoah National Park, the Great Smoky Mountains, and Maine), the original trail often climbed straight up and down mountains, creating rough hiking conditions and a treadway prone to severe erosion. The ATC's trail crews and volunteer trail-maintaining clubs have relocated or rehabilitated miles of trail since then.

1948

In 1948, Earl Shaffer of York, Pennsylvania, brought a great deal of attention to the project by publicizing the first claimed thru-hike. The claim was later criticized for the hike's omission of significant portions due to shortcuts and car rides. Shaffer later claimed the first north-to-south thru-hike, the first to claim to do so in each direction. Chester Dziengielewski was later named the first southbound thru-hiker. In 1998, Shaffer, nearly 80 years old, hiked the trail, making him the oldest person to claim a completed thru-hike. The first woman to walk the trail in a single season was Peace Pilgrim in 1952, while the first solo woman to complete the hike was 67-year-old Emma Gatewood, who did it northbound in 1955, taking 146 days. She repeated the achievement two years later, and then section-hiked it in 1964.

1958

The 8.8-mile (14.2 km) Appalachian Approach Trail in Georgia begins at Amicalola Falls State Park's visitor center and ends at Springer Mountain. Because Springer Mountain is in a remote area, the Approach Trail is often the beginning of North bound thru-hike attempts. Much of the Approach Trail was originally built as part of the Appalachian Trail, before the southern terminus was relocated from Mount Oglethorpe to Springer Mountain in 1958.

1974

Violent crime is rare but has occurred in a few instances. The first reported homicide on the trail was in 1974 in Georgia. In 1981, the issue of violence on the Appalachian Trail received national attention when Robert Mountford, Jr. and Laura Susan Ramsay, both social workers in Ellsworth, Maine, were murdered by Randall Lee Smith. In 1991, Molly LaRue and Geoff Hood were murdered by Paul David Crews in a trail overnight shelter on Cove Mountain in Pennsylvania. Another homicide occurred in May 1996, when two women were abducted, bound and murdered near the trail in Shenandoah National Park. The primary suspect was later discovered harassing a female cyclist in the vicinity, but charges against him were dropped and the case remained unsolved until 2024.

1993

Many animals live around the trail, with bears, snakes, and wild boars posing the greatest threat to human safety. Several rodent- and bug-borne illnesses are also a potential hazard. In scattered instances, foxes, raccoons, and other small animals may bite hikers, posing risk of rabies and other diseases. There has been one reported case (in 1993) of hantavirus (HPS), a rare but dangerous rodent-borne disease affecting the lungs. The affected hiker recovered and hiked the trail the following year. The section of the trail that runs through the Mid-Atlantic and New England states has a very high population of deer ticks carrying Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, and corresponds to the highest density of reported Lyme disease in the country.

2001

New Jersey is home to 72.2 mi (116.2 km) of the trail. The trail enters New Jersey from the south on a pedestrian walkway along the Interstate 80 bridge over the Delaware River, ascends from the Delaware Water Gap to the top of Kittatinny Mountain in Worthington State Forest, passes Sunfish Pond (right), continues north through the Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area and Stokes State Forest and eventually reaches High Point State Park, the highest peak in New Jersey (a side trail is required to reach the actual peak). It then turns in a southeastern direction along the New York state line for about 30 mi (48 km), passing over long sections of boardwalk bridges over marshy land, then entering Wawayanda State Park and then the Abram S. Hewitt State Forest just before entering New York near Greenwood Lake. In New Jersey the New York - New Jersey Trail Conference maintains and updates the Appalachian Trail. Black bear activity along the trail in New Jersey increased rapidly starting in 2001. Hence, metal bear-proof food storage boxes are in place at all New Jersey shelters.

2001

The Appalachian Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, and the Pacific Crest Trail form what is known as the Triple Crown of long-distance hiking in the United States. In 2001, Brian Robinson became the first one to complete all three trails in a year. In 2018, Heather Anderson (trail name "Anish") became the first woman to complete the three Triple Crown trails in a calendar year.

2007

The Appalachian Trail has been a resource for researchers in a variety of disciplines. Portions of the trail in Tennessee were used on a study on trail maintenance for the trail's "uniform environmental conditions and design attributes and substantial gradient in visitor use." Beginning in 2007, various organizations, including the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and the American Hiking Society, began a study to monitor environmental changes that have resulted from higher ozone levels, acid rain, smog, and other air quality factors. Such research has been supported by the National Park Service, U.S. Forest Service, Cornell University, the National Geographic Society, and Aveda Corporation.

2008

Although the Appalachian Trail ends in Georgia, the Appalachian Mountains continue south to Flagg Mountain in Alabama. In 2008, the Pinhoti National Recreation Trail in Alabama and Georgia, which terminates at Flagg Mountain, was connected to the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail via the Benton MacKaye Trail. Promoters of the Southern extension refer to MacKaye's statement at the 1925 conference that the Georgia to New Hampshire trail should, in the future, extend to Katahdin, and "then to Birmingham, Alabama". As of March 2015 , The Pinhoti Trail terminates at the base of Flagg Mountain, near Weogufka in Coosa County, 50 miles (80 km) east of Birmingham. In 2010, the Alabama state legislature formed the Alabama Appalachian Mountain Trail Commission to provide state resources for trail improvements, although officially designating Pinhoti as part of the Appalachian Trail would require an act of the United States Congress.

July 2013

Human error can lead to casualties as well. In July 2013, 66-year-old lone hiker Geraldine Largay disappeared on the trail in Maine. Largay became lost and survived 26 days before dying. Her remains were found two years later in October 2015. In October 2015, a hiker visiting from England was killed on the trail by falling while taking photos at the Annapolis Rocks overlook in Maryland.

March 2015

The weather is a major consideration for hikers. Hiking season of the trail generally starts in mid-to-late spring, when conditions are much more favorable in the South. However, this time may also be characterized by extreme heat, sometimes in excess of 100 °F (38 °C). Farther north and at higher elevations, the weather can be characterized by low temperatures, strong winds, hail or snow storms and reduced visibility. Prolonged rain, though not typically life-threatening, can undermine stamina and ruin supplies. In March 2015, a hiker was killed on the trail in Maryland when a large tree blew over and fell onto him.

2017

Thru-hikers walk the entire trail in a single season. The number of thru-hikes per year has increased steadily since 2010, with 715 northbound and 133 southbound thru-hikes reported in 2017. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy estimates there are over 3,000 attempts to traverse the entire trail each year, about 25% of which succeed. Many books, documentaries, and websites are dedicated to the pursuit. Some hike from one end to the other, then turn around and thru-hike the other way, a "yo-yo".

2018

Behavioral studies have also been conducted on hikers themselves. A 2007 study on hikers found that most persons hike the trail "for fun and enjoyment of life and for warm relationships with others" and that "environmental awareness, physical challenge, camaraderie, exercise, and solitude" were chief results among hikers. Since the highest single demographic of thru-hikers are males between the ages of 18 and 29, one informal study sought to find the correlation between this group and male college drop-outs. A study in 2018 found that around 95 percent of thru-hikers identified their race or ethnicity as white.

May 2019

In May 2019, Oklahoman Ronald S. Sanchez Jr., 43 years old, was murdered at a campsite near Mount Rogers National Recreation Area in western Virginia Jefferson National Forest. A female hiker who has not been identified was also injured by an assailant there. James L. Jordan, 30, of West Yarmouth, Massachusetts was found not guilty of the crimes by reason of insanity.

December 21, 2019

A CSX train derailment on December 21, 2019, damaged the pedestrian footbridge over the Potomac River at Harpers Ferry, severing the trail between West Virginia and Maryland. The foot crossing reopened in July 2020.

October 13, 2020

On October 13, 2020, Juniper Netteburg is believed to be the youngest person to hike the entire Appalachian Trail under her own power at age 4.

2021

The 2020 COVID-19 pandemic prompted the Appalachian Trail Conservancy to discourage use of the trail and the National Park Service to close all AT-managed hiking shelters from Virginia to Maine. The withdrawal of volunteers and trail-maintenance crews left the trail unprepared for the influx of users escaping home isolation. In 2021, the conservancy suspended issuing hang tags for through-hikers for a period during the continuing pandemic.