Trail trivia

A unit of the National Park Service, it was completed as a continuous, marked trail in 1937;
At 2,175 miles, it is the nation's longest footpath and the first designated national scenic trail;
It runs through parts of 14 states, including a 550-mile stretch (one-fourth of the entire trail) through Virginia, 200 miles along the North Carolina-Tennessee border and a mere four-mile segment in West Virginia;
The trail crosses six national parks and eight national forests, and it is crossed by hundreds of roads;
One of the most isolated parts is a 100-mile section in eastern Maine far from towns or paved roads; by contrast, another portion runs through the college town of Hanover, N.H.;
Elevations along the trail range from 124 feet to 6,625 feet;
About 9,000 hikers have traveled the length of the trail. From 1936-69, only 61 completions were recorded. The numbers soared to 743 in the 1970s, 1,408 in the 1980s and 3,269 in the 1990s. Slightly more than 3,500 completions have been reported since 2000; and
The trail is maintained by individual trail clubs and partnerships, working with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, [www.appalachiantrail.org].

Source: Appalachian Trail Conservancy