HARRISBURG (TNS) — The Appalachian Trail, which runs through 14 eastern states, is 1.2 miles longer for 2022, including a half-mile increase in Pennsylvania.
Hikers completing the entire trail this year will have trekked 2,194.3 miles on the trail that traces the Appalachian Mountains, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
The increased Pennsylvania mileage is the result of a major rerouting of the AT at Palmerton in eastern Pennsylvania.
“The AT has returned to its original route along the North Trail near Palmerton,” noted the ATC. “The Keystone Trails Association and the ATC converted the North Trail’s blue blazes to AT white blazes.”
While the AT is marked with 6-by-2-inch white paint marks on trees, known as white blazes, side or spur trails and other trails that connect with the AT generally are marked with 6-by-2-inch blue blazes.
Although part of the original AT route, the North Trail has been a spur trail since a rerouting of the AT several decades back to accommodate Superfund remediation of the mountainside “moonscape” that had been created by pollution from zinc plants in Palmerton.
What was the white-blazed AT since that rerouting has been reblazed blue and will serve as an alternate route.
But, along the new section of official AT “hikers will once again be able to take in the incredible views of Lehigh Gorge,” according to the ATC.
Noting that “the total length of the AT typically changes slightly each year due to footpath relocations and more precise measurement techniques,” the ATC pointed out that “the 1.2-mile increase for 2022 was due to 3 significant relocations in West Virginia, Pennsylvania and on the Connecticut/New York border.”
The Connecticut/New York border relocation on Schaghticoke Mountain added 0.4 of a mile, while the Loudoun Heights, West Virginia, reroute added 0.3 of a mile.
With its midpoint near Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Cumberland County, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world.
It runs nearly 230 miles through Pennsylvania, which users of the trail often refer to as “Rocksylvania” because of the rocky, mountaintop terrain it traverses in much of the state.
