In March 2020, America began to feel the first impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, which would upend almost every aspect of our daily lives. Eight months later, COVID-19 infection rates continue to rise and a widely distributed vaccine or treatment is still not available. We also find ourselves adapting to a constantly shifting political, social, and economic landscape. The world, in short, is characterized by uncertainty, and planning for the future is near impossible.

This uncertainty extends to the 2021 Appalachian Trail (A.T.) hiking season. Mandatory or voluntary quarantines are active in several A.T. states. Local, state, or federal closures and/or restrictions across the A.T. remain possible next year. And, the operations of Trailside businesses and service providers in 2021 remain uncertain.

Hiking the A.T. in 2021 will likely remain a logistical challenge underscored by health and safety risks. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) urges all hikers to stay local and exercise caution while so much uncertainty around the COVID-19 pandemic exists.

However, they know that many are planning long-distance journeys on the A.T. in 2021. To ensure hiker safety and health while on the A.T., they ask hikers to plan, prepare, and stay informed by undertaking the following:

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  A volunteer physician family serving in the Northern African country of Chad took a seven-month break to hike the Appalachian Trail with their four children — their 4-year-old girl is believed to be the youngest to complete the iconic 2,193-mile hike from Georgia to Maine.

Doctors Olen and Danae Netteburg, Loma Linda University School of Medicine graduates (Olen 2007, Danae 2006), have been working as Deferred Mission Appointees — medical missionaries — in Chad at Bere Adventist Hospital since 2010. The 100-bed facility is an Adventist Health International partner site and is nearly 25 miles away from the nearest paved road.

Mother Danae, says their youngest, 4-year-old Juniper — whose trail name is “Beast” — completed the entire hike on her own two feet.

Her trail name rang true during a steep-hilly homestretch. Juniper sat down at the base of one of the hills and began to cry. She wouldn’t tell her parents why until finally she said, “Mommy is carrying my backpack, but I want to carry it!” She took the backpack and sprinted to the top.

The Netteburgs say Juniper would often be waiting for the rest of the family to catch up — sitting patiently on a rock or fallen tree.

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Statistically the trail is one of the safest places in the U.S., but when a tent is all that separates you from a potential predator, the danger becomes terrifyingly real.

As a 30-year-old nurse who works with terminally ill patients, Julia (who prefers to remain anonymous) asked herself one day what she would be proud of doing if she too were given a diagnosis of only six months to live. Shortly after, she left Pittsburgh to start hiking the 2,190-mile Appalachian Trail—a highly coveted peacock feather in the cap of outdoor adventurers. But this epic odyssey from Georgia to Maine proved to be far more challenging for Julia because of one factor. Being female.

The Appalachian Trail is a microcosm of American culture but with far higher stakes. Statistically, women are way safer on the trail than on college campuses or in even their own homes. There’s only one rape reported every few years on the trail and the chance of getting murdered there is 1,000 times less than in America as a whole. And yet, the absence of deadbolts to lock oneself behind or of multiple witnesses around to deter violent men from attacking means the occasional trail creeper can be a million times scarier and more dangerous.

The only thing protecting a woman alone in a tent from that sketchy stranger she previously encountered on the trail or the seemingly cool one she’s been hiking with for weeks is a thin piece of nylon. “I physically ran into a bear,” says Julia, “and I’d take that over running into a crazy drunk dude any day.”

“Despite having overwhelmingly great experiences with trail men, all of the other women I spoke with encountered men, especially older white ones, who either made sexist, condescending comments or made them feel unsafe. I even got ‘smile more,’” Julia says. “It’s exhausting.”

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While she’s been captivated by the Appalachian Trail since she was young, Elizabeth Anjos, who ran cross country at Greeneville College, mostly sticks to road racing.

But in 2015 when Scott Jurek broke the AT record, she started thinking more seriously about going for the record for the 2,190 miles stretching from Georgia to Maine, most recently set by Belgian dentist Karel Sabbe, who did it in 41 days, 7 hours, and 39 minutes. She had ideas between that mark and Jennifer Pharr Davis’ 2011 record, which still stands as the women’s record, of 46 days, 11 hours, and 20 minutes.

“Before 2015, my only experience with multi-day hikes was when I was a kid,” Anjos said. “It took years of planning, and it wasn’t until summer of 2019 that I started to get out for more multi-day efforts like days on sections of the Appalachian Trail or a six-day hike in November.”

Anjos, who gave herself the nickname “Mercury” after the wing-footed greek god and a classical piece by Gustav Holtz, decided to pick a year (2020) and give the record a shot. She was coached and mentored by Warren Doyle, who has hiked the trail 18 times and set the first official speed record in 1973. He also would crew her the entire way from Georgia to Maine.

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Heading north from Springer Mountain in Georgia, the Appalachian Trail class would have to walk 670 miles before reaching the first county that did not vote for Donald Trump. The average percentage of voters who did vote for Trump—a xenophobic candidate who was supported by David Duke—in those miles? Seventy-six. Approximately 30 miles farther away, they’d come to a hiker ­hostel that proudly flies a Confederate flag.

Later they would reach the Lewis Mountain campground in Shenandoah National Park—created in Virginia in 1935, dur­ing the Jim Crow era—and read plaques acknowledging its former history as the segregated Lewis Mountain Negro Area. The campground was swarming with RVs flying Confederate flags. This flag would haunt the hikers all the way to Mount Katahdin, the trail’s end point, in northern Maine. They would see it in every state, feeling the tendrils of hatred that rooted it to the land they walked upon.

AT hikers are unaware of the clear division that exists between what hikers of color experience on the trail (generally positive) and in town (not so much). While fellow through-hikers and trail angels are some of the kindest and most generous people you’ll ever encounter, many trail towns have no idea what to make of people who look different. They say they don’t see much of “your kind” around here and leave the rest hanging in the air.

The rule is you don’t talk about politics on the trail. The truth is you can’t talk about diversity in the outdoors without talking about politics, since politics is a big reason why the outdoors look the way they do.

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Ruling against environmentalists, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that the federal government has the authority to allow a proposed $7.5 billion natural gas pipeline to cross under the popular Appalachian Trail in rural Virginia.

The 7-2 ruling was a victory for Dominion Energy Inc. and the Trump administration, both of which appealed a lower court ruling that halted construction of the 600-mile Atlantic Coast Pipeline, which would run from West Virginia to North Carolina.

Environmental groups including the Sierra Club and Southern Environmental Law Center had sued to stop the pipeline after the U.S. Forest Service gave the green light for the project to run through the George Washington National Forest. After a protracted application process involving multiple federal agencies, the Forest Service granted the right of way under the trail in 2018.

The Richmond-based 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found in 2018 that the Forest Service lacked the authority to grant a right of way for the pipeline where it crosses the Appalachian Trail in the national forest land because the trail was overseen by the National Park Service. The Supreme Court overruled that decision.

The Supreme Court’s ruling will also affect the proposed 300-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline, which would run from West Virginia to southern Virginia and crosses the trail in the Jefferson National Forest.

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Back in mid-March, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail started shutting down sections and services to hikers of all ambitions. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), which oversees the 2,193-mile route, implored day hikers and “thru-hikers” to temporarily hang up their hiking boots. Last month, the organization revised its message and released guidelines that coincide with the steady reopening of the trail.

The ATC, which is based in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., teamed up with trail management partners and experts in the outdoor recreation and medical fields to assemble tips for day and overnight hikers. The group is still urging thru-hikers — adventurers who complete the months-long 14-state trek in one go —to hold off on plans for now.

“Day hikers can mitigate exposure,” said Sandra Marra, the ATC’s president and chief executive, “but thru-hikers have greater challenges because they are coming into contact with people from all over and then going in and out of trailside communities.”

Although the majority of the trail is back, many of the facilities and services overnight and long-distance hikers use are still shuttered. As of early June, the majority of overnight shelters and privies remain closed, with the number exceeding 200.

“Treat your hike like a true backcountry experience that is not reliant on A.T. facilities you would otherwise use,” the ATC states in its guidelines.

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With nine thru-hikes and nine section hikes of the Appalachian Trail under his belt, Warren Doyle, 70, is a legend in the trail community. When he set the first known speed record of 66.3 days on the AT in 1973, he did it wearing blue jeans.

The 38,000-miler has even been arrested for civil disobedience, an incident that occurred on Mount Katahdin in the late 1970s when he climbed the Maine peak to protest a rule that prohibited summitting it during rainy weather (at the time, it was the only American mountain with such a policy). He chose to spend a night in jail rather than pay a fine, but it was worth it: Baxter State Park eventually changed the rule.

However, Doyle’s accomplishments don’t end where his footsteps do. In 1983, he founded the American Long Distance Hikers Association. And in 1989, he created the Appalachian Trail Institute (ATI), which offers courses to prepare thru-hikers.

Doyle has worked tirelessly to bring others to his sanctuary, to give back to the trail by inspiring generations of thru-hikers and leading others into the mountains. And even with the thru-hiking season on hold, the trail icon’s message continues to resonate.

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Due to the coronavirus pandemic that has dislodged the United States’ social order and crippled its economy, the question of whether or not to attempt a thru-hike has become an actual life-or-death conundrum—and a question of what it means to put strangers before yourself.

A week ago, concerns about the coronavirus and thru-hiking centered mostly on supplies. With Americans making runs on cleaning wares and foods with long shelf lives, vendors like Mountain House and Good To-Go were running out of meals. In north Georgia, Mountain Crossings — a hostel famous for helping hikers pick through their gear and drop unnecessary pack weight — stowed bottles of hand sanitizer in back rooms to reserve them for future thru-hikers. Those needs now seem quaint.

More recently, the administrative organizations of the Appalachian Trail, Pacific Crest Trail, and Continental Divide Trail have issued increasingly urgent guidelines and edicts for the pandemic. Just days after reminding people to wash their hands, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) urged hikers to “postpone your section or thru-hike” altogether.

But what none of these organizations can do, of course, is legally or logistically close trails that run the length of the United States. That limitation and its implications have ripped the thru-hiking community into subdivisions, whose differing views are reflected on message boards and along the trails themselves. As sports leagues have cancelled entire seasons and restaurants have laid off staff, the urgent question for thru-hiking in 2020 has become an ethical litmus test: Just because you can get on trail, should you?

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Warren Doyle, of Mountain City, Tennessee, has hiked the entire 2,180-mile Appalachian Trail 18 times, including nine thru-hikes. He also led eight group thru-hikes of the AT, seven of which saw a 100 percent completion rate among the hikers.

But there’s so much more on Doyle’s resume that has earned him a spot among the Appalachian Trail Museum’s 10th class of inductees into the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame.

The class, which will be formally inducted on Saturday, May 2, 2020, during the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame Banquet at the Army Heritage and Education Center in Carlisle, PA, also will include Chris Brunton, of Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; the late Thurston Griggs, of Baltimore, Maryland; and the late Jim Stoltz of Helena, Montana.

Doyle also played a leading role in founding the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association in 1983 to encourage long-distance hiking and promote hiking interests.

Through his Appalachian Trail Institute, Doyle educates prospective hikers on the proper strategies to successfully hike the AT and other long distance trails. His program covers not only the physical conditioning needed and proper gear, but also emphasizes the emotional and psychological aspects necessary for a successful thru-hike. Scores of thru-hikers credit Warren with inspiring and guiding them to complete their lifelong goal.

His doctoral thesis was on the sociology of a group long distance hike.

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