Steepest sections of the AT & PCT

[Scubahhh]

Here's a pretty cool blog post from Guthook... A couple surprises?

http://www.guthookhikes.com/2015/01/what-are-the-steepest-climbs-on-the-at-and-pct.html

 

[sdways01]

I've thought for a while the climb up towards Wildcat D was just a cruel joke to the AT hikers. Couldn't they have found a way to make the trail go to the hut up 19 Mile Brook Trail? I know that they couldn't without some cutting and a bridge.

 

[peakbagger]

There are plenty of "cruel jokes" for AT hikers south and north of Wildcat Ridge Trail. Down south they call them PUDS (Pointless ups and downs), In northern new England they should call them BUDS (Brutal Ups and Downs). I think Guthooks observations lend credence to this as the vast majority of the steepest AT sections are in NH and Maine.

More than a few folks have expressed displeasure with the Wildcat Ridge Trail. It is a popular starting point for sometimes overambitious backpackers and section hikers who are loaded with 3 or 4 days of sometimes way to much gear. Apparently 30 years ago it was far more difficult as there was some extensive ( and controversial) rock work done on the ledges to make them easier to traverse. I believe the hut to hut runners go straight from Carter Notch Hut down 19 Mile Brook Trail, up RT 16 to the Great Gulf Trail and then in via the Osgood trail to Madison and skip the Wildcats. Of course on a sunny day, the views from the ledges of the wildcat ridge trail and the top of the ski area at the west side of Washington are hard to beat. Heck I have met some folks who have taken Pine Link down from Madison and then the Pine Mountain trail to Gorham and skip the entire Carter Moriah range. AT hikers who deliberately skip a section of the AT are generally referred to derisively by other thru hikers as "blue blazers" (skip parts of the trail using generally easier routes) or far worse "yellow blazers" (hitchhike around parts of the trail)

Unfortunately the "rules" are to thru hike the AT a hiker needs to follow the white blazes unless the trail is officially closed or conditions are such that a hiker could get injured following the blazes (generally due to short term weather issues or fires). There is no option for skipping a section as its "too hard". Although there have been significant efforts in the south to rebuild the trail to make it easier by extensive side hilling and switchbacks, the major goal in Me and NH is try to stabilize the trail bed from erosion. I don't see it changing anytime soon.

 

[Tom Rankin]

IMHO, the entire AT is a huge series of PUDS!

 

[Guthook]

Heheh. I've been pretty amused by the reaction to that post so far. I thought I'd get a few "lols" from it, but I guess it's generating more discussion than I would have guessed. For a the original post with a lot more detail on the AT, here's the longer list from Whiteblaze. I'm sure some folks will get a kick out of the numbers there-- out of the top 75 on the AT, ME and NH get 48!

Although there have been significant efforts in the south to rebuild the trail to make it easier by extensive side hilling and switchbacks, the major goal in Me and NH is try to stabilize the trail bed from erosion.

I don't think the stated purpose of either type of maintenance is to make the trail easier-- isn't it always to make it more sustainable and resistant to erosion?

 

[peakbagger]

My observations down south where the trail were moved off a ridgeline onto a dug in sideslope that appeared to be laid out with a transit for miles at a time sure looked like it was done to make it an easy grade. Luckily the southern soils seem to be far better drained or a different composition so the trail bed seems to be more durable. On one of my sections down south, there was a hurricane that has washed out one of the sidehill sections and the trail was relocated back to the original routing on the ridgecrest. The old route was nice but decidedly more up and down while the new trail was practically a side walk cut on contour line. I seem to remember a long section of the AT south of Interstate 77 Bland VA that looked like it was rebuilt to make it darn close to wheelchair accessible (but its been 12 plus years).

 

[Daniel Eagan]

I don't think the stated purpose of either type of maintenance is to make the trail easier-- isn't it always to make it more sustainable and resistant to erosion?

For the Bear Mountain section, the New York–New Jersey Trail Conference responded to thru hiker complaints by building what is essentially a staircase up the south side of the mountain. They also put gravel on the summit trail and by-passed a steep section on the north slopes with a lot of pointless switchbacks. The excuse they used was that they wanted to make this section more handicap accessible.

South of Bear Mountain, the AT used to descend West Mountain straight down east off the ridge, steep but still manageable. Now it continues north almost until the ridge meets the base, adding a lot of unnecessary distance.

Officials will give their own explanations, but these changes clearly seemed geared toward making the trail easier for thru-hikers. The new sections of trail offer no lookouts or viewpoints, for example.

 

[TJ aka Teej]

I stopped reading that WB thread when someone said the Abol Slide was the steepest part of the AT.

 

[KRobi]

I will qualify this by saying i am not a trail builder so am only making an observation. This past summer we hiked in Switzerland (Berner Oberland area). For our first week they had very heavy rain. Makes for spectacular waterfalls, but also lots of water for erosion. The trails there are very "switchbacked". These trails did not erode and stayed in excellent shape even with this heavy rain. Granted the substrate is different, but my point is that switchbacks seemed less susceptible to erosion then the very steep trails we build here.
Guthook, fun to try to guess the trails for your list. nice job.

 

[Guthook]

For the Bear Mountain section, the New York–New Jersey Trail Conference responded to thru hiker complaints by building what is essentially a staircase up the south side of the mountain. They also put gravel on the summit trail and by-passed a steep section on the north slopes with a lot of pointless switchbacks. The excuse they used was that they wanted to make this section more handicap accessible.

South of Bear Mountain, the AT used to descend West Mountain straight down east off the ridge, steep but still manageable. Now it continues north almost until the ridge meets the base, adding a lot of unnecessary distance.

Officials will give their own explanations, but these changes clearly seemed geared toward making the trail easier for thru-hikers. The new sections of trail offer no lookouts or viewpoints, for example.

I'm just using my experience at the Green Mountain Club for my responses here, so the individual maintainers for other organizations may have different views, but this is what I see in these examples:

Bear Mountain sees *maybe* 1500 through-hikers a year, but can easily get that many day-hikers in a slow week. There's no way any maintainer would have put that massive staircase in there (which is an incredibly impressive structure, by the way) in order to make the trail easier for that tiny minority of people. Bear Mountain would certainly need erosion control because of the THOUSANDS of day hikers that go there each summer. Much of the summit IS wheelchair accessible, so that is definitely a change that was made for ease of use, but let's remember one very important fact about the entire AT-- through-hikers make up less than 1% of the number of people who access the trail. When you have a mountain with a road to the top, which is only an hour from Manhattan, through-hikers are probably the last people in the mind of the person in charge of making trail decisions.

And Peakbagger-- I know what you mean about the extensive side-hilling in the south. I can't speak with the same level of certainty about the reasoning because we don't do a lot of side-hill in the north, but my impression is that side-hill trail is much more sustainable and erosion resistant than ridge-walking or any kind of steep trail. I think a side-hill trail is much easier maintain than what we have up here in the northeast, where fixing a problem often involves lots of rock work and frequent water-bar upkeep.

I think it's pretty common for through-hikers to assume that everything on the trail is done for their benefit (or to make their lives harder), but the numbers just don't make sense.

 

[Daniel Eagan]

I think it's pretty common for through-hikers to assume that everything on the trail is done for their benefit (or to make their lives harder), but the numbers just don't make sense.

I was responding to a post stating that maintenance and relocation were to prevent erosion and not to make trails easier.

Almost all of the relocated trails on the Bear Mountain section were on solid rock and in no danger of further erosion. When my wife and I spoke to trail maintainers and their students they told us that hikers complained the original trails were too steep. They also said they wanted to make the summit area more accessible.

It doesn't matter what percentage of Bear Mountain hikers are thru-hikers. What matters are the motives behind changing the trails, which was the point of my comment.

 

[Guthook]

I was responding to a post stating that maintenance and relocation were to prevent erosion and not to make trails easier.

Almost all of the relocated trails on the Bear Mountain section were on solid rock and in no danger of further erosion. When my wife and I spoke to trail maintainers and their students they told us that hikers complained the original trails were too steep. They also said they wanted to make the summit area more accessible.

It doesn't matter what percentage of Bear Mountain hikers are thru-hikers. What matters are the motives behind changing the trails, which was the point of my comment.

Ooh, okay. I must have missed that. So when the maintainers said hikers complained about the steep trails, did they say "hikers" or "through-hikers"? Either way, I'd still probably want to hear it from the maintainer's boss (or whoever made the call to change the location) before I believed it was done for through-hikers instead of the average joe hiker. Every maintaining organization I've ever worked with has basically said outright that their first priority is the day-hiker, and the through-hiker is much further down. A certain trail supervisor who I won't name, when I told him about a remote area that needed some serious drainage responded with a shrug and "only through-hikers go there, anyway".

Also, Bear Mountain is kind of an extreme case since it's so popular with day-hikers and wheeled visitors. There are other parts of Harriman where I've seen trail maintenance a few years ago that kept the wicked steep trails, but hardened them with stairs or better drainage structures. That seems more normal for up this way. I think when you're talking about a mountain with a road on it, or huge crowds like Monadnock, the decision-making process is quite different from a normal trail in the same kind of area.

 

[Daniel Eagan]

Don't mean to seem argumentative. I think on the whole the NYNJTC is a great organization, we are lifetime members, but I have doubts about choices they have made on Harriman and Hudson Highlands trails.

New England Hiker is a great app, very impressed with all your work.

 

[Guthook]

Don't mean to seem argumentative. I think on the whole the NYNJTC is a great organization, we are lifetime members, but I have doubts about choices they have made on Harriman and Hudson Highlands trails.

New England Hiker is a great app, very impressed with all your work.

I'm not trying to be argumentative, either. Just trying to give a different perspective. I think everyone on the internet sounds like they're being argumentative in general, which is why this is the only forum I ever post in anymore-- people are generally better here ;-)

As far as the NYNJTC goes, I don't know the organization super well, but I looooove their maps-- printed on Tyvek and very nicely designed.