Appalachian Trail turns 75

Associated Press

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va.

Like the people who hike it, the Appalachian Trail is always moving.

Technically, today marks the 75th anniversary of its completion. But the 2,180-mile path stretching across 14 states from Springer Mountain, Ga., to Katahdin, Maine, is never really finished.

It took 15 years for hundreds of volunteers, state and federal partners, trail-maintenance clubs and young workers with the New Deal-era Civilian Conservation Corps to build the original path. In the decades since, nearly 99 percent has been relocated or rebuilt and transferred from private to public ownership.

That means the trail and some 250,000 contiguous acres are better protected than ever from development and suburban sprawl.

It always will be in the same general area, said Mark Wenger, executive director of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harpers Ferry. But as access to waterways or scenic landscapes along the trail becomes available for purchase, it will continue to shift.

“Will it move a little to the left, a little to the right?” he said. “Yes, depending on the physical attributes of the area.

“One of the tenets of the trail is to provide that personal experience of sort of being one with nature. You can’t necessarily do that if you’re walking along a major highway,” Wenger said. “So it’s been relocated to give it some degree of privacy and that sense of the wonder of nature.”

The relocations and reconstruction also make the path itself more sustainable. It originally was routed straight up and down many mountains, exacerbating erosion and making for a difficult hike.

Today’s trail features more scenic vistas than the original route, too, including Roan Mountain, Tenn.; the Mount Rogers High Country and Grayson Highlands in Virginia; the Pochuck Creek swamp in New Jersey and Thundering Falls in Vermont.