It’s time to talk about two of the biggest issues I saw on the AT: misogyny and the unique challenges women face on the trail, and the lack of diversity among thru-hikers. Yes, I had an overwhelmingly positive time on my thru-hike, but of course it wasn’t all good (and I sincerely hope that I’ve done an okay job in this blog of portraying the negatives along with the positives), and it’s important that I talk about these major issues that pervade the AT and thru-hiking as a whole.
Some of you may be raising your eyebrows – really? You? As a straight, cis, white man, maybe I’m not the best person to discuss these topics – which is fair enough. I do feel a certain hesitance to put this one out there, but I think it IS important for me to address these things, because I definitely noticed them during my thru-hike, and these issues DO affect us all.
Let’s start with misogyny and the unique challenges women face as thru-hikers. I reached out to many of my awesome female trail friends to ask about their experiences, and the response I got was enthusiastic; thanks so much to you all for sharing. Before I get to that, though, I want to relate a few of my own experiences and observations. I spent a whole month at the beginning of the trail hiking with a female partner. I had so much fun hiking with Sophie and I miss her a lot. Hiking with her gave me a close look at a few less-than-savory interactions.
One time, within our first week on the trail, Sophie wanted to sleep in a shelter due to forecasted rain. When we got to the spot, we found the shelter already mostly full of the middle-aged men we happened to be hiking around. Sophie tried to set up in the shelter, but after just a little while, she decided against it and came to set up her tent by mine. The men loudly jeered and booed at her, laughing, just for not wanting to share the shelter with them – and of course, instantly confirming her choice as the right decision. It sickened me. Another time, a trail angel made truly disgusting, misogynistic comments to Sophie and other women while serving them food at trail magic. I didn’t overhear this, but heard about it soon after. The power dynamic at play in this case (and many others), where an older man was providing a service to vulnerable thru-hikers, not to mention having a car right there, etc., lent additional discomfort to the situation.
I didn’t stop witnessing examples of misogyny once I was alone on the trail, either. I’ve already written about that singularly uncomfortable evening in a shelter in Maine, with older men making several misogynistic comments. Even as late as my very last night on trail (foreshadowing), a fellow male hiker made a small, inappropriate joke to me about sharing a shelter with a woman. There was also one extremely odd interaction where a very strange man told me a silly joke (which had nothing to do with gender), and then proceeded to say that women seemed to get the joke later than men??
Ok, enough about me. I’d like to share, with their permission, the perspectives of many of my trail friends about their experiences of thru-hiking as women. Please forgive the lack of organization here; think of it as a constellation of thoughts.
But first, a quick note about demographics. In my experience, I would guess that the population of AT hikers in 2023 was about 70% male, 30% female. Several women independently arrived at the same number; I also heard estimates ranging from 2/3 to 3/4 male. (Note: In 2022, according to the Trek, 56% of thru-hiking *survey respondents* were male, 44% were female. I’ll be interested to see these statistics for 2023 when they are released.) Now onto some testimonials.
“Being a woman on the AT wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be, but that’s partially because I was expecting the worst.”
“I knew there would be more men thru-hiking than women. Sometimes I really felt this gap while other times it was not as noticeable….some nights I would show up to a campsite of a large group of people but I would be the only female….I think it was pretty unheard of for a man to experience being the only male at a site or in a tramily.”
“I…found myself valuing my female friendships on the trail in a special way and craving ‘girl time’ because there were less of us out there and I really appreciated the conversations, openness, and relatableness I experienced with my fellow female thru-hikers. This concept of valuing my female friendships, especially in male-dominated spaces, is not unique to thru-hiking for me.”
“I work in a very male dominated industry… Throughout my education and career, I have found women always pitted against each other for only a handful of diversity spots, especially in STEM fields. On trail – I’ve found other women to be so supportive of each other. For some, the trail can turn into a competition, but what I’ve noticed especially with other women is that we recognize we’re only competing with ourselves, and women are much more supportive of each other on trail than in real life.”
“[T]here was an interesting dissonance between the safety I felt on trail and how I felt in a woman’s body upon reentering the real world when we would go to town for resupply etc. I felt like on trail I was in this beautiful community of people who really looked out for each other and that I was surrounded by people who had my back and would protect me if necessary from predators (human). But then when we would go into town, suddenly I had to remember how to exist within a woman’s body in American society and that felt much more dangerous and precarious.”
“Hitchhiking feels a lot scarier as a woman also, but I think at the end of the day it’s important to just trust your gut!”
“I hitchhiked alone multiple times on the AT and had one negative encounter with a man who picked me up in NJ. Long story short, he was persistent about taking me out to lunch and drove me to his house so that he could drop off his groceries before buying lunch, despite me asking him not to. It ended up being fine and I think his intentions were good, but I was freaked out and had my guard up. It made me second guess hitchhiking alone for the remainder of the trail. Besides this one, my hitchhiking experiences were positive.”
“Especially when I started my hike, people were very vocal about their concerns about me hiking alone as a woman. I got a lot of ‘wow, your boyfriend let you do this?’ And ‘your dad must be so worried!’ Things like that.”
“[A] unique experience I had as a woman was the reaction I got from others (family members, people back home, day hikers I met on trail, etc.) when I told them I was solo hiking. I would often get remarks like ‘You’re doing the whole thing alone? Aren’t you scared? I would never do that’ and other questions/comments of that nature. I did not ever see or hear about a solo male hiker getting these remarks. I think that people on the outside find it impressive and brave for a woman to do something like this alone. One one hand, that makes me feel proud of myself because I like feeling brave and I hope to inspire other women. At the same time, it makes me upset that solo thru-hiking as a female has to be this exceptional and surprising thing that many other women would never consider.”
“I don’t think I would have had the courage to begin an AT Thru-Hike as a solo female…Looking back now at how amazing the AT community is, I do believe that hiking solo would be an incredible experience and no woman should let her fear of hiking solo prevent her from Thru-Hiking!”
“I’ve found that the further I’ve gotten on trail, the more respect I get from other hikers (especially men) which makes me feel like I had to earn it? Which is pretty upsetting.”
“I met plenty of other women on the AT like myself who enjoyed hiking alone during the day but it was rare that I met women who enjoyed camping alone at night….I camped alone a handful of times on the trail and didn’t enjoy those nights as much as when I was around other hikers. For me, this comes from feeling vulnerable when I’m totally alone at night….I think for obvious reasons women have more to worry about when they’re alone, so it’s hard to shake that vulnerable feeling. This is frustrating to realize but unfortunately is the reality of our world and it has not/will not stop me from solo adventuring.”
“I stayed in [a] trail-relationship WAY too long, simply out of personal safety precautions. …despite being at constant odds with my hiking partner, I was glad to have my hiking partner around.”
“[R]egardless of whether it is ‘necessary’ or rational, I do think that women (myself included) are generally more hyper-aware of the sheer possibility of having an incident with another hiker than men are.”
“[W]e have to have our guard up when a man on trail starts to ask targeted questions like ‘How far are you hiking today? Where are you staying tonight?’ These could be totally innocent questions but there is unfortunately an added level of uncertainty when those questions are coming from a man.”
“Men are…always asking if you’re scared to be alone in the woods, which I HATED. It’s a terrifying, crazy-ass thing to say to someone. It’s also condescending, like it assumes you’re unaware of how hostile the world is to women? When most women think about that all the time. And the woods aren’t more dangerous than normal life; you’re most likely to get assaulted by people you know.”
“I luckily haven’t had too many creepy interactions with [men], but I (and many other women on the trail) feel that we have to be on guard a lot more with strangers.”
“Most solo female hikers I met carried pepper spray and a satellite phone for emergencies, including me. I also remember to practice awareness and trust my instincts.”
“I tend to hike with guys for a stronger subconscious sense of safety”
“I adjusted my pace/schedule to avoid weird men 2-3 times over 6.5 months, and that was more an issue of comfort over safety. (Like, I didn’t think they would hurt me, but I did NOT want to spend time around them)”
“I got a tip from a friend that [a man I had met in TN] was out looking for me in NH, so I stopped signing shelter logs between VT and ME just to be safe. Luckily he never found me…”
“I ran into [one section hiker] a few times over the course of several days. One night we stayed at the same shelter. When I first showed up, he made some inappropriate comments about wanting to sleep in between my female friend and I. Later on when I went to hang my bear bag, he made comments to the other men in the shelter about how hanging a bear bag should be a man’s job because women aren’t as good at it. I didn’t hear about this until the next morning when the other men told me. I was angry but not all that surprised due to his previous behaviors. And I was happy to hear that the other men stood up for me.”
“People are creepy and first impressions are frequently wrong. I met two guys in the Smokies who started a fire in one of the shelters during miserable weather, and they were taking care of everyone as they came in. I decided these guys were probably decent people, but as I spent more time with them, I realized they weren’t… They became very possessive of me, so I started logging bigger and bigger miles to outrun them. Eventually I outran them, but for the rest of the trail, I never hiked alone. I also played off outrunning people as ‘liking bigger mileage’ which is also pretty messed up, ha!”
“There’s some amount of casual discussion about women’s looks, which I resented. Thru-hiking’s a great opportunity to explore gender stuff, not look in mirrors, etcetera! Dudes complaining about people not being hot enough kinda breaks that spell.”
“[M]y male hiking friend and I were stopped at a gas station in Virginia right off the trail to grab snacks. We were on our way out and putting our packs back on when a man filling up his car with gas yelled over to my friend ‘Hey, you should be carrying that backpack for her.’ I yelled back ‘How come?’ and he replied ‘Because it’s the gentleman thing to do’ to which I said ‘I’m totally fine, thank you.’ I’m not sure if I would consider this sexism, some people would probably say No and call it chivalrous, but it angered me because it had this undertone of women not being strong enough to carry heavy things or being too fragile to handle it or whatever. I was pretty riled up walking away from that conversation but again, not all that surprised. Obviously I’m aware that there are loads of people out there who still believe in these traditional gender roles.”
“The absolute worst thing I overheard was this one older guy talking about how hiker culture is a ‘gift’ to men because women are more trusting, more willing to engage in conversation, split hotel rooms, etc.”
“I can’t say that I met a single person on the Trail who raised any alarms of suspicion or fear…I never even for a moment thought that my life was in danger or that anything remotely off-color was going to happen to me. The AT community is both wonderful and immersive, and I personally did not have any interactions with anybody that made me feel unsafe!”
“[T]he process of menstruation was my absolute least favorite part of day-to-day life on the trail. In the Trail environment where staying clean is already hard to do and the stakes of getting an infection are extremely high, having my period had additional stress associated with it….While this particular part of trail life seemed horrible at times, I would say that it also didn’t have a significant impact on my Trail experience. Yes, a few times it seemed overwhelming to deal with, but as a woman this is something you just learn to deal with and move on.”
“During one LONG day of rain in Vermont, my menstrual cup decided to start leaking and I couldn’t get it seated properly no matter what I did, so I spent the entire day hiking in the rain with streaks of blood running down my legs….I would be willing to bet that every woman on the planet has had an issue with bleeding through her menstrual products at least once, and despite it being a normal function there is always some level of shame or embarrassment or at the very least frustration involved…”
“[O]nce I dropped my Diva Cup in the privy…terrible day”
“[T]he biggest thing for me has been men’s affinity for talking at me instead of to me, especially when it comes to hiking/backpacking/anything outdoors related.”
“[T]he best way to stay positive is not to give misogyny too much thought. If an experience stays in your head for too long the two options are reframe with context of where that person is coming from and finding supportive and safe people to surround yourself with”
“99.9% of the time on trail I felt respected and safe as a woman and had extremely positive experiences with all of the different types of people I met on the AT.”
“I personally did not feel at any point on the AT that my gender or sex were problematic or limiting factors to my experience. Thru-Hiking the AT was the best experience of my life so far, and ANYONE who wants to do it should do it.”
(If anyone is curious, when asking folks for their thoughts, if they asked for any sort of prompt, what I said was “What have you noticed in your trail experience that you feel like is unique to women? How has your experience w/ all the men on trail or whatever been similar or different to your expectations?”)
Once again, thank you so much to all of my amazing trail friends who contributed their perspectives. I’m so proud of you all!!
We move on to the other big issue that I wanted to talk about: the lack of diversity on the AT. Yes, I met many wonderful people from all different backgrounds and all walks of life – but they were almost all white people.
The AT was overwhelmingly white. From my experience on trail in 2023, I’d guess that the thru-hiking community is more than 95% white, which would make it the most homogenous community I’ve ever been a part of – which is saying something, considering my privileged upbringing in the vast-majority-white suburbs of Sudbury, MA, and Pittsford, NY. (Note: according to the Trek, in 2022, 93% of long-distance AT hiking survey respondents were white. This “compare[d] similarly to previous years.”)
I admit that I subconsciously got accustomed to this dynamic. I’m sort of ashamed that I really noticed at the rare points when I was surrounded by more people of color. I specifically remember feeling this way in Shenandoah NP on Memorial Day weekend and at Bear Mountain State Park in NY. It was a pleasant surprise and kind of relieving to see a more representative, diverse sample of hikers on the trail in these areas. On the flip side, this only makes the homogenous status quo of the AT more depressing. I firmly believe that the outdoors are for everyone, and the AT community, and thru-hiking at large, would be better off for everyone if it were more diverse.
I wish I also had first-hand accounts from hikers of color discussing their experiences on the AT. But the fact is, I just didn’t meet that many. I can count on one hand the number of people of color that I even saw more than once. I have included primary sources about thru-hiking as POC, both on the AT and elsewhere, below.
Now we get to the sketchy part where I speculate as a total non-expert about the big question: why? Why is the AT so white, and what can we do about it?
Ultimately, I think the skewed demographics of thru-hikers is unfortunately yet another symptom of the systemic inequality that continues to pervade our country. Thru-hiking is a very expensive hobby. Not only is there the significant capital investment of acquiring the gear you’ll need for the trail before even starting your hike, but there are the recurring costs of food, town stays, and transportation along the way. Meanwhile, you’re still paying various costs from your normal, off-trail life as you go. And perhaps more importantly than all of this, there are the opportunity costs that come with a long thru-hike, such as not earning an income for six months in most cases. Economic inequality and the wealth gap, affecting Black people and other POC for generation after generation, make it harder on average for POC to bear the costs of a thru-hike. This is the biggest factor in explaining the overall whiteness of the AT, but it isn’t the only one.
A similar factor stems from backpacking and hiking often being intergenerational passions. Seeing and learning from one’s parents’ and grandparents’ love for the outdoors, hiking, and/or backpacking can be a major catalyst in cultivating one’s own passions for these things – it certainly was for me. In generations past, when racial inequities were even worse and the outdoors were even less accessible to POC, this may have made it harder for these passions to pass down through the generations, and have led to perhaps less widespread interest in thru-hiking among POC communities.
Others suggest that the horrific legacy of “sundown towns” and lynchings “out in the woods” could be a deterrent to Black hikers seeking out overnight backpacking trips like a thru-hike. Disheartening, scary anecdotes of “backpacking while Black” can act as another deterrent. For the AT in particular, the actual or perceived danger of traversing through the historic South could play a role as well. Unfortunately, many of the various organizations responsible for the AT have had explicitly exclusionary practices in the past that enforced the whiteness of the AT, too. I highly recommend reading about all of these topics at the links below, and elsewhere.
So, what do we do about all this? I don’t have the answer; I don’t think there are any easy answers. The best I can say is that we need to continue to fight for a truly equitable society, to lift up women and people of color, and encourage everyone to get outside. This is the way towards a better AT of tomorrow.
Selected resources:
https://thetrek.co/appalachian-trail/whats-in-a-trail-name-2/
https://www.garagegrowngear.com/blogs/trends-top-10/financial-barriers-black-hikers
Out There 
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