Anyone ever hike the Appalachian Trail?

I have a friend that finished the New York City Marathon twice, but I think that as nothing at all compared to an AT through hike.

In "AWOL" the author sprained his ankle, and walked on it for weeks to stay on the trail. He went without a shower for a couple of weeks at a time, and got used to the way a crowd of people parted like the Red Sea when he came into town from the way he smelled.

This changes you, Bill Bryson talked about rapidly losing weight and starting to feel stronger.

Years ago we were camped on a lake up in western Maine, a couple of miles away from the AT. We decided to do a day hike: a mile and a half from the road up to a peak. This should have been child's play: I do five and six miles just for fun. What I didn't take into account is I don't live in the mountains and I'm not used to these kinds of slopes!

The trail got so steep it had ladders and ropes between trees in places. I brought enough water for a normal day and was through it in half an hour. We did make it to the top, though.

We found out that going down was even worse: at least going up your own momentum wasn't threatening to cause you to plummet to your death!

We got back down to the car and leaned on it breathing like fish dying on a pier.

Then she showed up:

This was August and she was headed for Mount Katahdin, she'd started in Georgia. She had on a full pack and had been walking all day. She stopped and talked for a minute and got on her way. She was breathing normally and had not a drop of sweat on her, and she went up that slope at a pace we'd have been lucky to keep on the flat.

That's what this experience can do for you, but it doesn't come easy!

Bill Bryson talked about that in his first chapter: how the gear is expensive, and seems to breed other expensive gear too (everything ends with some kind of rain cover...)

The gear and even the on-trail living expenses probably aren't the really expensive part though. Your off-trail life continues whether you are hiking or not. If you own a house, you aren't going to sell it for the sake of a few months on the trail (for example). Somehow you need to pay the taxes and the mortgage while you are away, even though you probably won't be pulling in a salary. Then again a lot of people will have a family left behind that will need to get by without their income.

It's probably a good thing for somebody that just graduated from college: They're between two lives and probably don't have a lot to leave behind for a few months.

Bill Bryson basically put himself out there on assignment, it was just another day at the office for him and in the end it paid quite well.

It wouldn't work out the same for most other people.

There is a guy, actually probably several of them, who talk about hiking, and they say that the best thing to do is to minimize your load as much as possible. I read and looked at hiking websites, and saw there are very light expensive tents, but then some people swear by what is basically a glorified lightweight sleeping bag.

I remember a thing AWOL talked about was how in a lot of locations people would just ditch the gear they bought and found to be too heavy or not useful. Seems like the main thing is really good shoes, and lightweight/wicking socks - because you do not want your feet to get wet.

I have not gone on this kind of hike, but I do walk around local parks. I started out thinking big thick socks would be the best, but I always got blisters. Then I discovered these super thin light nylon socks ... used to be made by Gold Toe, but a pair of those is like lubrication between your feet and your shoe, and two pairs is not much thicker. Now the newer socks are made of bamboo, but I've never really given those a whole day's workout, but they feel very similar to the nylon socks.

Here is a YT channel of a guy who has a lot of information to offer about the AT.
His channel name is FlatBrokeOutside .
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyIjwGmnVJooAUEpfe5bwpA/videos

I was just searching for his videos because I watched them about 5 years ago. There are a lot of AT hikers making videos now.