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Oct 24, 2016 : Animal Accountant Appalachian Trail

Number Crunching my Appalachian Trail Thru-Hike

When most people decide to undertake a thru-hike they consider keeping a journal or writing a blog.

I’m not one of those people.

Being a mathematics major I decided to do something more to the tune of the most insane number-crunching data collection ever on a thru-hike.

Every day I kept and catalogued everything that I did and saw, ranging from the number of people seen, chipmunks, moose scat, showers taken, money spent, miles completed, and much much more. It was very tedious but my end result is now a neatly compiled excel document for your viewing pleasure!

It’s been sitting on my computer for a year now (I thru-hiked in 2015) and I wanted to share it with the community in case any prospective thru-hikers are curious or want a better idea of what to expect.

Here are some of the highlights from this data.  You can see the full day by day spreadsheet breakdown at the bottom of this post.  Enjoy!

Days on Trail

105

Total Miles

2,253

Trail Miles

2,189

Extra Miles

63.9

Average Daily Mileage

21.5

Bald Eagles

1

Bears

8

Bear Poop

11

Days Below Freezing

5

Number of Times Purchased Food

33

Canadian Geese

32

Cats

5

Chipmunks

169

Cows

171

Dead Mice

7

Deer

79

Dogs

144

Ticks Embedded on Body

22

Books Read

15

Foxes

2

Frogs

77

Hawks

20

Hitchhikes

9

Homeless Maniacs

2

Times Doing Laundry

23

Maildrop resupply

13

Moose

2

Moose Poop

264

People

2,653

Porcupines

3

Rabbits

7

Days with Rain

32

Red Efts

151

Resupplies in Town

12

Scorpions

1

Showers

28

Squirrels

181

Nights at Campsites

16

Nights at Hostels

11

Nights at Shelters

45

Nights at Trail Angels

1

Nights at Motels

5

Swans

4

Thunderstorms

6

Toads

148

Trail Magic

37

Turkeys

35

Water Supply

145

Yellow Jacket Stings

7

Check out the full spreadsheet breakdown below.

https://photos.thetrek.co/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/Appalachian-Trail.xlsx

Let me know what you think!

Thanks,

-Robert ‘Butter Bar’ Beaumont

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Animal Accountant
Oct 24th : Animal Accountant
Author Page
Animal Accountant's Bio

AT '15 Interesting facts about my thru-hike: -Never filtered water -Completed the trail while a second lieutenant & platoon leader in the Army reserves -Never slack-packed -Never used any sort of insect repellent

Comments 16

  • TBR : Oct 24th

    That’s a lot of cows … and moose poop

    Reply
  • Randall Fiore : Oct 25th

    scorpions.?

    Reply
  • Lee : Oct 25th

    Am I the only one who’s surprised the LT didn’t get lost despite the well marked trail?

    Good job sir!

    Reply
  • Steve Cohen : Oct 25th

    While most people would think your attention to the numbers is sick. I understand! I am a retired Math Teacher. Great Job of keeping what I am sure was tedious records.

    Reply
  • Laura : Oct 25th

    Your nights only add up to 78. Where did you sleep the other 24?

    Reply
    • Robert 'Butter Bar' Beaumont : Oct 26th

      Just anywhere in the woods that wasn’t a designated camping area. (Stealth camping)

      Reply
  • Robert Sutherland : Oct 26th

    Hi.

    Interesting info.

    With your permission, I’d like to develop this into a story for a different website. You would, of course, get appropriate attribution.

    Lemme know.

    Thanks,

    Robert Sutherland

    Reply
    • Robert A Beaumont : Oct 26th

      That’s fine with me. Send me an email @ robertbeaumont11 at yahoo.

      I’d like to see it before you post it. Also let me know if you need anything from me. You can download the complete data compilation from the bottom of this article
      Thanks

      Reply
  • Scot : Oct 26th

    How about nights you slept east of the trail and nights you slept west of the trail? This is assuming the trail is north south, ignoring the actual orientation sometimes. I once counted it up for my ’99 hike.

    Reply
  • Stretch : Oct 28th

    Dude, that’s so many ticks. Any reason why you may have had that many?

    Reply
    • Butter Bar : Oct 28th

      I’ve generally always gotten a lot of ticks. Probably have had easily 500+ in my life and luckily no Lyme disease (yet!) (I live in New York). I was in Missouri recently for a few months and would routinely find 10-15 ticks on myself after an hour long hike. I spent a month in Kentucky a few years ago and accrued over 50 ticks…

      I’m convinced it’s something genetic

      Reply
  • George : Dec 8th

    When did you start your thru hike?.., month & day?…Tks.

    Reply
    • Robert Beaumont : Dec 8th

      June 30th, 2015

      Reply
  • Jesse McNeil : Jan 31st

    SOBO?

    Reply
    • Robert Beaumont : Jan 31st

      Flip-flop

      Reply

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