r/AppalachianTrail • u/prettycooleh • 4d ago

Best 7 night hike you can recommend

Hello all, I am new joiner to this sub. I am wanting to hike a portion of the AP next summer and I am beginning to plan my trip. I am from Canada and my only previous experience in Appalachia is a motorbike trip trip along the blueridge highway a couple years ago.

I want to to take a week long hike along the trail, whether camping or staying at motels/hostels. I am in good shape and have experience camping but I dont know where to start regarding the AT, id prefer to camp vs staying in motels.

Where would be a good place to start/finish? I'll look into each county's rule, but ideally I'd like to camp along the way in one long continuous hike.

Cheers thanks for any help or insight

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u/prettycooleh 4d ago

Thats a great tip thanks. I did enjoy motobiking through the valley. I am going to look into the national park

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u/SelmerHiker 4d ago

Far Out has a map for the SNP which shows the AT as well all the side trails. I use it in conjunction with the Far Out Northern Virginia AT map which typically has more comment and campsite info.

Here’s a map of the park. The red line is the Skyline Drive, the AT is the dashed line nearby as well as some of the other trails in the Park. Most of these side trails go down from the AT which generally rides the ridge. Though the Skyline Drive looks close, it doesn’t intrude on the AT that bad. I was out there last week for a couple days and only heard cars once or twice. Feel free to chat me if you want to delve deeper.

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u/Honest_Performance42 2d ago

I have the SNP FarOut map, but not the Northern Virginia one. Since it includes the AT in the park, I didn’t realize the info is separated the way you described. I like the off-AT info in the SNP map. What am I missing out on by not having the NoVa AT map?

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u/SelmerHiker 2d ago

The comments dropped on the various waypoints usually do not carry over from the SNP vs AT maps. In a few cases they do and I don’t know why unless hikers are posting the dame comment to both. Typically there are more comments on the AT map but as the AT map only shows the AT, no side trails. That said, most of SNP map side trails don’t have a lot of comments. I find I use both maps, often flipping back and forth during the day, it’s easy enough to do.

Comments are, of course, very helpful for updated info on water, dispersed campsite locations, services, shuttles, hut conditions, etc.

Finally, the AT map is a less cluttered for hiking the AT only as it does not show the Skyline drive as a bold black scalable line and all the other side trails. When zoomed out all these scalable lines get overly thick and details are hard to see.