The Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail (AT) was started in 1923 but wasn’t completed as a continuous marked trail from Georgia to Maine until 1937. The 1938 hurricane in New England damaged major sections of the trail and World War II delayed the trail’s re-completion until 1951. In 1968, the U.S. Congress passed the National Trails System Act which provided for the acquisition of land to ensure the protection of the AT In 1978, the Trail Act amendments authorized the purchase of a narrow corridor of land to protect the Trail, and the resulting boundary of more than 85,000 acres is larger than that of Yellowstone National Park.

Today, the Trail measures 2,174 miles from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park, Maine. Much of the Trail goes through national and state parks and forests, and a federal wildlife refuge. The AT and its shelters are overseen by the National Park Service and the U.S. Forest Service, and maintained by thirty-one volunteer organizations overseen by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy — www.appalachiantrail.org — in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia.