Destinations
The Appalachian Trail, explained
2,197.9 miles of continuous marked footpath from Georgia to Maine, free to walk and open year-round. What the corridor actually crosses, the three honest ways to hike it, and the places along it that ask for a permit or a fee.
The Appalachian Trail is a single continuous line of dirt, rock and bog bridge running 2,197.9 miles from a bronze plaque on Springer Mountain in Georgia to a weathered wooden sign on Katahdin in Maine. Fourteen states, one path. Somebody walked every foot of it to arrive at that number, and somebody repaints the white blazes that mark it, the whole way.
And it costs nothing. The Park Service says the trail is free for all to enjoy, with no fees, memberships or permits required to walk on it. It also crosses roads constantly, at gaps and notches and highway shoulders the length of the range, so the distance between you and a white blaze is usually a drive rather than an expedition.
The six-month version of the story hides that. Around three million people visit the trail in a year, and the overwhelming majority of them are out for a morning. You don't have to be planning a thru-hike to want to know what the corridor is, who keeps it open, and what it asks of you.
The Appalachian Trail by the numbers
- 2,197.9 mi
- Official length in 2026
- 14
- States, Georgia to Maine
- 250+
- Backcountry shelters
- $0
- To walk on the trail
The Conservancy remeasures and republishes it every year
Virginia holds 557.5 of those miles, more than any other
Roughly 8 miles apart, and outside the Smokies you can't book one
No fee, no membership, no permit for the footpath itself
What does the Appalachian Trail actually cross?
The A.T. crosses 14 states between Georgia and Maine, threading through eight national forests and six national parks along the crest of the Appalachian range. Below is that corridor south to north, the direction most people walk it, with every state mileage taken from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's own figures. The character of each stretch changes far more than a map of one long green line suggests.
Georgia
78 miles, and higher than it looks
The trail starts at Springer Mountain, 3,782 feet, and covers 78.3 miles before it reaches North Carolina. Blood Mountain at 4,461 feet is the state high point.
The lowest ground the trail touches in Georgia is over 2,500 feet, higher than any point on the A.T. between northern Virginia and Massachusetts. The southern end isn't the gentle one.
North Carolina and Tennessee
The high ground and the balds
The two states share 217.8 miles of trail along their common border, with another 75 or so inside Tennessee alone. The A.T. reaches its highest elevation here, 6,625 feet in the Great Smoky Mountains just below the summit of Kuwohi.
The other signature of this stretch is the grassy balds: open, treeless summits sitting well below the treeline. The Park Service says research points to grazing animals as the reason, mastodons once, bison and elk later.
Virginia
A quarter of the whole trail
At 557.5 miles, Virginia carries more A.T. than any other state, and it's the most varied stretch on the trail.
The southwest gives you the Grayson Highlands, open meadows above 4,000 feet with a herd of wild ponies grazing beside the footpath. Further north is McAfee Knob, which the Conservancy calls the most photographed spot on the entire trail. Then roughly 100 miles through Shenandoah National Park where the climbs rarely exceed 500 to 1,000 feet.
West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania
The middle, and the rocks
The trail passes through Harpers Ferry, where the Park Service's Appalachian Trail Park Office sits, and hikers treat it as the psychological midpoint even though the true one is further north.
Pennsylvania is 230 miles and the widest swing in character anywhere. The Cumberland Valley in the south is some of the gentlest, smoothest walking on the whole A.T. North of the Susquehanna the ridges turn to loose, ankle-turning rock, which is where the nickname Rocksylvania comes from.
New Jersey, New York and Connecticut
The lowest ground, and the closest
The trail's lowest point on all 2,197.9 miles is 124 feet, in Bear Mountain State Park in New York, where the footpath walks straight through the grounds of the Trailside Museums and Zoo.
Bear Mountain is also where the A.T. began: the first section ever built opened there in 1923. And this is the one part of the corridor with real public transit, including a train station near Pawling with direct service to New York City.
Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire
Where the idea came from, and where it goes above the trees
Massachusetts is 90.2 miles, over and around Mount Greylock, the state's highest at 3,491 feet. Vermont adds 150.8, and the A.T. shares 100 of them with the Long Trail through the south of the state.
That older trail is the reason any of this exists. Benton MacKaye was up a tree on Stratton Mountain in Vermont, looking south, when he thought of extending the idea down the whole range. Vermont also has a formal mud season: many high trails close from April into late May.
Then New Hampshire's 160.9 miles carry 15.2 miles above the treeline, more than any other state, over the Presidential Range and past Mount Washington at 6,288 feet. The A.T. climbs to it on the Crawford Path, built in the 1800s and reckoned the oldest maintained hiking path in the country.
Maine
282 miles and the hardest of them
Maine holds the 100-Mile Wilderness, 21 unbridged stream crossings, and Mahoosuc Notch, a mile-long boulder canyon widely called the hardest mile on the trail and closer to scrambling than walking.
The Kennebec is the widest unbridged crossing on the A.T., and the Conservancy sponsors a canoe ferry across it during hiking season. There is a white blaze painted on the boat, because the boat is the official route.
Thru-hike, section-hike or day-hike: which one are you doing?
Three ways to walk the same trail, and the choice is mostly about time rather than fitness. Only one of them requires you to rearrange your life.
| Day hike | Section hike | Thru-hike | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Time out | A morning to a long day | A weekend to a few weeks at a stretch | Five to seven months, averaging just under six |
| Distance | A few miles up to twenty | Anything from 30 miles to a whole state | All 2,197.9 miles, inside 12 months |
| What you carry | Water, food, layers, a headlamp | Shelter, sleeping kit and three to five days of food | The same pack, refilled with three to six days of food at a time |
| Where you sleep | At home | Shelters, tent sites, the occasional town bed | Shelters and tent sites, broken by town stops |
| Permits | None for the footpath | None, unless the section crosses the Smokies, Shenandoah or Baxter | A Smokies thru-hiker permit, a Shenandoah permit, and a free Baxter permit at the end |
| Who finishes | Effectively everyone | Most people, eventually | About one in three of those who start |
The Conservancy recognizes anyone who reports walking the whole trail as a 2,000-miler, whether they did it in one push or across a lifetime of sections. Which of the three you pick doesn't change what you get called at the end.
Who maintains the Appalachian Trail?
The A.T. is a unit of the National Park System, but the Park Service doesn't do most of the work. It manages the trail in partnership with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and its 30 affiliated trail-maintaining clubs. More than 5,000 volunteers work under that arrangement and put in nearly 200,000 hours a year of labor.
The corridor those clubs look after is about 270,000 acres, threaded through eight national forests, six national parks and the land agencies of all 14 states. Everyone involved calls it cooperative management, which sounds like paperwork. In practice it means a club in Pennsylvania owns the rock steps on its own stretch the way a village owns its churchyard.
The idea came from Benton MacKaye, a forester and regional planner, in 1921. The first section opened at Bear Mountain in New York two years later, and volunteer hiking clubs built and maintained the rest of it through the 1920s and 1930s. Congress made it a National Scenic Trail with the National Trails System Act of 1968.
More than 5,000 volunteers put in close to 200,000 hours a year. That's who cut the steps you walk up.
What do NOBO, blue-blazing and a zero day mean?
- Blaze
- A rectangle of white paint on a tree, rock or post, repeated the length of the trail. Follow the white blazes and you're on the A.T. Two stacked blazes warn that the route is about to turn.
- Blue blaze
- A side trail off the A.T., painted blue: down to water, over to a shelter, out to a view, or around a hard stretch. Blue-blazing is the term for taking those instead of the white-blazed line.
- NOBO and SOBO
- Northbound and southbound. NOBO starts at Springer Mountain in Georgia and is by far the more popular. SOBO starts at Katahdin in Maine and opens with the most rugged terrain on the trail.
- Flip-flop
- Starting somewhere in the middle, walking to one terminus, then returning to the middle and walking to the other. The Conservancy promotes it because it thins the spring crowd at the southern end.
- Zero day
- A day on which you walk no trail miles, almost always spent in a town. A near-zero, or nearo, is the short day that gets you there.
- Shelter
- A three-sided lean-to with a roof and a wooden floor. There are more than 250 of them along the trail, on average about eight miles apart, and outside the Smokies every one is first come, first served.
- Privy
- The outhouse at a shelter. Where there is one, the Conservancy asks you to use it instead of digging your own hole nearby.
- Register
- The logbook at almost every shelter. Hikers sign in and leave notes for the people behind them, and the entries double as an informal record of who came through and when.
- Trail magic
- Food, drink or a ride given to hikers by somebody under no obligation to give it. Concentrated at road crossings in the spring, when the northbound crowd is moving through.
- 2,000-miler
- The Conservancy's term for anyone who reports having hiked the entire trail, in one continuous push or across decades of separate sections. The recognition is the same either way.
When should you start, and does direction matter?
For a day hike, any month you like: the trail is open year-round. For a thru-hike the calendar decides nearly everything, because you have to be off Katahdin before Baxter State Park closes it for the fall, and you can't begin in Maine until the snow is gone. Those two dates squeeze a six-month walk into the space available, and that's what forces the choice of direction.
Northbound is the popular answer. You leave Springer Mountain in late winter or early spring and chase the season up the range. The Conservancy's own account is that crowding on the southern end runs from the middle of February to the middle of April, and that you should plan to reach Katahdin before October 15.
Southbound inverts the difficulty. You start at Katahdin once Baxter opens for the season, which means beginning with Maine: the 100-Mile Wilderness, the unbridged crossings, Mahoosuc Notch, and few places to resupply, all at the point where you're least trail-fit. Fewer people choose it, which is part of the appeal.
A flip-flop is the Conservancy's own suggestion, and on paper it's the one I'd plan. Start in the middle, commonly at Harpers Ferry, walk to one end, come back and walk to the other. It buys more flexibility, fewer crowds, milder weather and easier terrain in the early weeks, and it takes your footprints out of the spring bubble in Georgia.
What is an Appalachian Trail shelter?
An A.T. shelter is a three-sided wooden lean-to, open along one long side, with a roof and a raised sleeping platform. There are more than 250 of them between Georgia and Maine, on average about eight miles apart, though the real gaps run from five miles to fifteen and occasionally as much as thirty. They're how most people sleep on this trail, and they're less than most first-timers picture.
What you get
- A roof, a wooden floor and three walls. Most are sited near water, and many have a privy a short walk away.
- A register to sign and read. Almost every shelter has one, and it's how hikers keep loose track of each other along the corridor.
- Food storage at about half of them, as bear boxes, cables or poles. Where they exist, the Conservancy asks you to use them.
- Company, which on a wet night in March turns out to be most of the point.
What you don't get
- A reservation. Outside Great Smoky Mountains National Park, every A.T. shelter is first come, first served, with no way to book one in advance.
- A guarantee of space. Carry a tent or a tarp and treat the shelter as a bonus, never as the plan.
- A fourth wall. Nothing stands between you and whatever the weather does to the open side.
- Room for a group. Large parties are asked to tent, and the trail's own regulations cap overnight groups at ten people.
Where on the Appalachian Trail do you need a permit?
Three places on the whole trail require a permit: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Shenandoah National Park and Baxter State Park in Maine. The footpath itself is free everywhere, and those three are about where you sleep or park, plus the free permit you need to climb Katahdin. Fees move every season, so these were the published figures in 2026 and the manager's own page is the one to check before you go.
Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Tennessee and North Carolina
- A dedicated A.T. thru-hiker permit, $44.50 in 2026.Booked through Recreation.gov as of the end of April 2026.
- Everyone else camping in the backcountry pays $8 per person per night plus a $6 transaction fee, up to 30 days ahead.
- Thru-hikers are required to sleep in the shelters where there's space, and may only tent beside one once it is full.
- A separate parking tag if you leave a car: $5 a day, $15 a week, $40 a year.
Shenandoah National Park, Virginia
- A backcountry camping permit through Recreation.gov, $9 per person plus a $6 reservation fee, bookable up to 90 days ahead.
- Park entry is separate: $30 per vehicle, or $15 per person arriving on foot.
- The park's huts are open to long-distance hikers as space allows.Defined as hikers spending at least three consecutive nights in the park.
White Mountain National Forest, New Hampshire and southern Maine
- No permit and no reservation required, but the Appalachian Mountain Club charges at the caretaker sites it maintains: $15 a night per person in 2026.
- The club's thru-hiker pass cuts that to $10 for the first night and $5 for each one after, for fourteen days.It covers the club's shelters and campsites. Hut stays run on work-for-stay or the member rate.
Baxter State Park, Maine
- A free Long Distance Hiker Permit, collected in person at the Katahdin Stream Campground ranger station before you climb.Valid for seven days from the date it is issued.
- The Birches, the long-distance hikers' site, fits 12 hikers, is first come first served, costs $10, and is one night only.For northbound hikers who have walked the 100-Mile Wilderness from Monson without leaving the trail corridor. The park takes cash only and has no ATMs.
- The park caps groups at 12 and recommends summiting Katahdin by October 15, before the shoulder-season closures.
- Day hikers driving in need a Katahdin Trailhead Pass to park at the mountain's trailheads, $10 in 2026.One pass covers a carload. Driving in also costs a $20 entrance fee if the vehicle isn't a Maine resident's.
Everywhere else along the trail
- No permit at all, though the Green Mountain Club collects a fee at some high-use campsites on the A.T. in Vermont.
- Groups are capped at ten people overnight and 25 on a day hike, under the trail's own superintendent's regulations.
- Camping is limited to two consecutive nights in any one place.
- Smoking is prohibited at every shelter on federal land, and bicycles and horses are prohibited on the footpath with narrow exceptions.
Is the Appalachian Trail too crowded?
In one place, at one time of year. The Conservancy's own description of Georgia in March and early April is that campsites can be very crowded, with thru-hikers starting for Maine and students on spring break arriving in the same few weeks. Across the other 2,100 miles and the other ten months of the year, the A.T. is a quiet trail.
The concentration is a calendar problem rather than a popularity problem. Katahdin effectively closes in mid-October, a thru-hike takes close to six months, and so everybody who wants to walk northbound has to leave Springer Mountain inside the same short window. Thousands of pairs of boots then move up the same 78 miles of Georgia together.
The Conservancy has two answers, and both are voluntary. Register your hike on ATCamp, its own registration platform, which exists to help you find a less crowded start date, or plan a flip-flop instead of a northbound start. Neither is a permit and neither is required. Both take pressure off the stretch of trail that carries the most of it.
The gear that decides how an A.T. section goes
We rank these separately, and none of it is required to walk the trail. But a pack that doesn't fit and a jacket that wets out are the two things I'd get right before a section hike, and you'll want to treat your water on the A.T. either way.
Appalachian Trail questions people actually ask
How long is the Appalachian Trail?
The official length is 2,197.9 miles in 2026. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy announces a figure every year, because relocations keep changing it: the trail gained half a mile for 2026 when the War Spur relocation in Virginia's Mountain Lake Wilderness replaced a steep, eroding stretch with a more sustainable grade. Temporary detours are left out of that number, so check the Conservancy's Trail Updates page for what is closed or rerouted this season.
What states does the Appalachian Trail go through?
Fourteen, south to north: Georgia, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine. Virginia carries the most trail at 557.5 miles; West Virginia and Maryland carry the least.
Do you need a permit to hike the Appalachian Trail?
No. There's no entrance fee and no permit for the footpath itself, and it's open year-round. The Conservancy names three places that do require one: Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Shenandoah National Park and Baxter State Park at the northern end. Some White Mountain campsites charge a fee without asking for a permit.
How long does it take to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail?
Most thru-hikers finish in five to seven months, with the average landing just under six. The Conservancy's definition of a thru-hike is walking the entire trail within 12 months, so a slower schedule still counts as long as it fits inside a year.
What percentage of people finish a thru-hike?
About one in three of the people who set out to thru-hike the A.T. complete the whole trail, according to the Conservancy. More than 20,000 completed thru-hikes have been reported since the trail was finished, across every hiking style and pace.
What are the highest and lowest points on the Appalachian Trail?
The trail tops out at 6,625 feet in the Great Smoky Mountains, just below the summit of Kuwohi, the peak that carried the name Clingmans Dome until 2024. Its lowest point is 124 feet, in Bear Mountain State Park in New York, where the footpath passes through the Trailside Museums and Zoo.
Can you day hike the Appalachian Trail?
Yes, and that's what almost everybody does. The trail draws roughly three million visitors a year and only a few thousand of them are attempting the whole thing. Because it crosses roads constantly, most good stretches are reachable car-to-car in a day. We have a separate piece on five of the best of them, Georgia to Maine.
Where does the Appalachian Trail start and end?
Springer Mountain in Georgia at the southern end, at 3,782 feet, and Katahdin in Maine at the northern end, inside Baxter State Park. Katahdin is sacred to the Penobscot Nation and other Indigenous people, and Baxter manages it under stricter rules than anywhere else on the trail.
Sources
Facts on this page were checked against these. Conditions, fees and rules change — check the official page before you go.
- Appalachian National Scenic Trail — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Basic Information — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Fees & Passes — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Superintendent's Compendium — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Natural Resource Monitoring along the Appalachian NST — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- National Park Getaway: Appalachian National Scenic Trail — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Kuwohi name restored to the highest peak in the Smokies — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Gregory Bald — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Backcountry Camping - Backpacking, Great Smoky Mountains National Park — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Fees & Passes, Great Smoky Mountains National Park — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Backcountry Camping, Shenandoah National Park — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Backcountry Permit & Regulations, Shenandoah National Park — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Fees & Passes, Shenandoah National Park — National Park Service · checked September 4, 2026
- Appalachian Trail Basics — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Appalachian Trail Becomes a Half Mile Longer in 2026 — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Thru-Hiking the Appalachian Trail — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Permits, Fees and Regulations — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Camping & Shelters — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Clubs & Partners — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- A.T. Hiker's Guide to Katahdin & Baxter State Park — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- 2,000-Milers — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Equipment & Food Resupply — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Trail Updates — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: Georgia — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: North Carolina — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: Tennessee — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: Virginia — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: Pennsylvania — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: New York — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: Massachusetts — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: Vermont — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: New Hampshire — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- Explore by State: Maine — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- The Appalachian Trail Conservancy Welcomes You to ATCamp! — Appalachian Trail Conservancy · checked September 4, 2026
- The AT — Baxter State Park · checked September 4, 2026
- Hiking — Baxter State Park · checked September 4, 2026
- Fees and Refund Policy — Baxter State Park · checked September 4, 2026
- Thru-Hiking the White Mountains — Appalachian Mountain Club · checked September 4, 2026
- Grayson Highlands State Park — Virginia Department of Conservation and Recreation · checked September 4, 2026
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