For most people, hiking means hitting a local trail on a weekend afternoon to enjoy a couple hours of scenic cardio, fresh air and perhaps solitude. But others crave a more all-consuming experience: a physically and mentally demanding – yet immensely rewarding – long-distance hike that takes them hundreds or thousands of miles through untamed wilderness and arduous terrain.
The best-known long-distance trails in the U.S. are the Appalachian Trail, which runs 2,180 miles from Georgia’s Springer Mountain to Mount Katahdin in Maine, and the Pacific Crest Trail, which snakes 2,650 miles from Mexico to Canada through the desert, deep forests and high peaks of California, Oregon and Washington. Scattered throughout the country are many other long trails, weaving through the Ozarks, running along the spine of the Rockies and linking some of the country’s most scenic national parks.
If you’ve ever thought of hiking a long trail – a really long trail – you may have pictured yourself free of work and social obligations, spending your afternoons communing with nature, earning breathtaking mountaintop vistas and getting fitter by the minute. Trails like the AT, PCT and Continental Divide Trail certainly offer these rewards – and more – but they are hard-earned. The failure rate is high.
Pounding the trail day after day can take a toll on your body, causing blisters, stress fractures and shin splints. Muscle soreness is a given, but with proper training, you can prevent some injuries that could force you off the trail.
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I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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