Ramble On

A thru-hiker's home away from home

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"Club AT, All you can eat; All the weight you can lose!" If it were an advertisement for a health club or a diet drink, you'd ignore it, right?

But consider an oft-cited master thesis done by thru-hiker Karen Lutz. Her 1982 study of hiker nutrition found that thru-hikers simply can't carry as much food as they burn off—some 4,000 to 6,000 calories per day. No wonder Club AT is such an effective weight-loss plan! The amount of weight hikers lose varies drastically. Interestingly, according to Roland Mueser, heavier hikers tend to lose both more weight and a greater percentage of their body weight than thinner hikers. Another finding: women lose less weight than men, possibly because they build muscle on the trail. Finally, the constant calorie deficit can cause problems for thru-hikers who were at their ideal weight or underweight to begin with: excessive weight loss, loss of muscle mass, and malnutrition.

All of which results in unbounded hiker appetites. Waiters and waitresses, it turns out, can spot a hiker a mile away, as I learned when a friendly waitress in Manchester Center, Vermont, came up to our table and asked,"Are you enjoying your thru-hike?"

The restaurant was filled with hikers, not just Appalachian Trail thru-hikers, but day-hikers and weekenders, too.

"How do you know I'm a thru-hiker?" I asked. I had showered and changed at the local hostel. Truth to tell, I felt positively citified, sporting clean clothes and newly washed hair.

"Oh, that's easy," she said. "You all wear those sports sandals around town. And you eat more than any normal person could. You have bulging leg muscles. And you walk like this." She treated me to a fair imitation of the stiff-legged hobble I'd developed in recent weeks. She was right on all four counts. I liked the part about the muscles.