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When people bleat on about the trail being too crowded, what they mean is that the shelters are too crowded, and this is indubitably sometimes so. The problem, however, is not that there are too many hikers for the shelters but too few shelters for the hikers, Shenandoah National Park has just eight huts, each able to accommodate no more than eight people in comfort, ten at a pinch, in 101 miles of national park. That’s about average for the trail overall. Although the distances between shelters can vary enormously, there is on average an AT shelter, cabin, hut, or lean-to (240 of them altogether) about every ten miles. That means adequate covered sleeping space for just 2,500 hikers over 2,200 miles of trail. When you consider that more than 100 million Americans live within a day’s drive of the Appalachian Trail, it is hardly surprising that 2,500 sleeping spaces is sometimes not enough. Yet, perversely, pressure is growing in some quarters to reduce the number of shelters to discourage what is seen-amazingly to me-as overuse of the trail.
So, as always when the conversation turned to the crowdedness of the trail and the fact that you now sometimes see a dozen people in a day when formerly you would have been lucky to see two, I listened politely and said, “You guys ought to try hiking in England.”
Jim turned to me and said, in a kindly, patient way, “But you see, Bill, we’re not in England.” Perhaps he had a point.
Now here is another reason I am exceptionally fond of Shenandoah National Park, and why I am probably not cut out to be a proper American trail hiker-cheeseburgers. You can get cheeseburgers quite regularly in Shenandoah National Park, and Coca-Cola with ice, and french fries and ice cream, and a good deal else. Although the rampant commercialization I spoke of a moment ago never happened (and thank goodness, of course), something of that esprit de commerce lives on in Shenandoah. The park is liberally sprinkled with public campgrounds and rest stops with restaurants and shops-and the AT, God bless it, pays nearly every one of them a call. It is entirely against the spirit of the AT to have restaurant breaks along the trail, but I never met a hiker who didn’t appreciate it to bits.
Katz, Co
Big Meadows had a campground, a lodge, a restaurant, a gift shop/general store, and lots and lots of people spread around a big su
We said we were.
“And you carry those packs?”
“Until we find someone to carry them for us,” said Katz cheerfully.
“How far you come this morning?”
“Oh, about eight miles.”
“Eight miles! Lord. And how far’ll you go this afternoon?”
“Oh, maybe another eight miles.”
“No kidding! Sixteen miles on foot? With those things on your back? Man -ain’t that a kick.” He called across the lawn: “Bernice, come here a minute. You gotta see this.” He looked at us again. “So whaddaya got in there? Clothes and stuff, I suppose?”
“And food,” said Co
“You carry your own food, huh?”
“Have to.”
“Well, ain’t that a kick.”
Bernice arrived, and he explained to her that we were using our legs to proceed across the landscape. “Ain’t that something? They got all their food and everything in those packs.”
“Is that a fact?” Bernice said with admiration and interest. “So, you’re like walkin’ everywhere?” We nodded. “You walked here? All the way up here?”
“We walk everywhere,” said Katz solemnly.
“You never walked all the way up here!”
“Well, we did,” said Katz, for whom this was becoming one of the proudest moments of his life.
I went off to call home from a pay phone and use the men’s room. When I returned a few minutes later, Katz had accumulated a small, appreciative crowd and was demonstrating the use and theory of various straps and toggles on his backpack. Then, at someone’s behest, he put the pack on and posed for pictures. I had never seen him so happy.
While he was still occupied, Co
With no choice, and desperate not to eat noodles again if we could possibly help it (Co
We stopped for the night at a lovely, secluded spot called Rock Spring Hut, perched on a steep hillside with a long view over the Shenandoah Valley far below. The shelter even had a swing-a two-seater that hung on chains from the shelter overhang, put there in memory of one Theresa Affronti, who had loved the trail, according to a plaque on its back-which I thought was rather splendid. Earlier visitors to the shelter had left behind an assortment of ca
While we were cooking di
Late the next morning, when I realized that I had considerably outstripped Katz and Co