Here’s What to Expect Hiking Southbound on the Appalachian Trail

Come March, the campsites along the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail swell with starry-eyed hikers intent on walking 2,180 miles north to Mount Katahdin, Maine. Some 3,600 hikers begin their trek at Springer Mountain, Georgia and move in packs northward on their way to Maine. With this number of hikers, the northbound thru-hiking experience on the trail is fundamentally social. This is not the case for those hikers that start in Maine and hike southward. In fact, there’s a lot of differences between a northbound and southbound thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail.