A Glossary of AT Hiker Terms

Here's a picture of a NOBO through-hiker as she heads out north from Newfound Gap. 

In our posts on this blog, our various social media pages, and on Erin's blog at Appalachian Trials, we often use some terms and slang that are common to the AT hiking community, but can be pretty confusing to everyone else. For example:

"Going NOBO across Newfound Gap, I yogied a couple of weekenders for a Snickers and a Coke. Glad I did, I was feeling the hiker hunger real bad, thanks to that green blazing I did."

Ten Lessons Learned in Ten days on the Trail

Me at Neel Gap. 

1. It's as Hard as Advertised
Those who have said the trail is tough are correct. It's often steep, full of ankle turning roots and knee hating rocks. It's possible in a single day that you can worry about hypothermia and heat stroke. You spend all day beating up your body, just to get up the next morning and do it all over again. The uphill climbs seem to go on forever, and the downhill climbs aren't any better, particularly for a hiker with a high center of gravity. It's often not very fun and can really feel like work.

Announcing our 2015 Hike of the Appalachian Trail

We started this blog back in November of 2010 with the intention of it being one part of a journey towards walking the Appalachian Trail. As you can gather from our domain name (walkwithnature2012.com), our original goal was doing it in 2012. Unfortunately, an inability to get our schedules and responsibilities in line to make the six month trip resulted in that not happening. It also didn't happen in 2013, and it won't be happening this year. But next year? That's a different case.