Karl Meltzer Sets New Supported Appalachian Trail Speed Record

There’s a new FKT to beat on the Appalachian Trail.  Earlier this morning, Karl Meltzer set a new AT supported speed record, with a time of 45 days, 22 hours, and 38 minutes, besting the previous record held by Scott Jurek by just under 10 hours.  This year’s distance on the AT (it changes every year) is 2,189.1 miles, meaning Meltzer averaged over 47.5 miles per day to establish the new fastest known time.

Earlier this week, we reported that Meltzer was on pace to break the record, and with a final, sleepless stretch of 83-miles over a 48 hour span, Meltzer was able to put nearly a half day between his time and the previous best.  He arrived to Springer Mountain, the Trail’s southern terminus, at 3:38am.

This was Karl Meltzer’s third and final attempt at breaking the record, with his two previous tries in 2008 and 2014 coming up short.

You can get more of the day to day details from Meltzer’s record setting hike on his Red Bull athlete page.

lead image courtesy: Karl Meltzer’s Facebook Page

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Comments 5

  • TicTac : Sep 19th

    Ho hummmmm

    Reply
  • Karma : Sep 20th

    I’m much more impressed with unsupported thru hikes.

    Reply
  • fusion : Sep 23rd

    Awesome, hopefully its so statistically impossible to beat that people will stop attempting it and just get back to walking and sleeping in the woods.

    But still…tremendous effort, good on him.

    Reply

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