As someone who has also hiked the Appalachian Trail, I genuinely can’t comprehend how a 91 year old man could accomplish this.
Truly, this is utterly remarkable in every possible way. The AT is not easy. It’s grueling, physically demanding, mentally exhausting, and fucking long. It takes a hell of a lot out of you.
To do all of that at 91 years old is just mind blowing. What an incredible accomplishment.
When my aunt was through hiking it, she came into town to resuply and learned that there was a serial killer who had murdered several people in a lean to she had slept in a couple days later. She noped the fuck out and never finished.
I know exactly who you’re talking about. That happened a couple of years ago. They caught the guy, but he killed two people on the AT. His trail name was “Sovereign.”
That guy had been acting crazy for weeks. Everyone on the trail knew something was very, very wrong. And then one night he attacked people in their tents and butchered two of them with a knife. He’s in prison now.
I’m pretty experienced in the backcountry and have done a lot of serious hiking in my life. Whenever people ask me what the scariest thing on the trail is, my answer is always the same……other humans. Not bears, not mountain lions, not coyotes. Other humans. Always.
You are about 100 times more likely to be a victim of assault off the trail, in any random place in America, then you are on the trail. The AT is a remarkably safe, to state that other people are the scariest things says more about you than it does the trail. Source, I through hiked the AT in 2001 and Google.
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u/ignatious__reilly 18h ago edited 18h ago
As someone who has also hiked the Appalachian Trail, I genuinely can’t comprehend how a 91 year old man could accomplish this.
Truly, this is utterly remarkable in every possible way. The AT is not easy. It’s grueling, physically demanding, mentally exhausting, and fucking long. It takes a hell of a lot out of you.
To do all of that at 91 years old is just mind blowing. What an incredible accomplishment.