I didn't decide to hike the Appalachian Trail. It's more accurate to say the decision had been forming for decades, and one evening last year it finally surfaced as a fact. I was sitting on my back porch after a long day of work, staring at the tree line, and I realized I was done postponing. Not someday. Not when things slow down. The AT is happening. The only planning left is logistics.
That moment wasn't dramatic. There was no life crisis, no midlife panic. It was quieter than that. I'd been running businesses, building software, staying busy in the way that ambitious people stay busy. And I'd been hiking the whole time. Rucking. Camping. Testing gear obsessively. Completing a large portion of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in North Carolina. All of it was preparation, even when I told myself it was just recreation.
The honest question I had to answer wasn't whether I wanted to do this. It was whether I was willing to accept what doing it at 48 actually requires.
The Body After 45
Here's what nobody tells you about aging and endurance: it's not that you can't do the things you did at 25. It's that the cost changes. A hard 14-mile day at 25 meant sore legs the next morning and a big breakfast. At 48, a hard 14-mile day means two days of recovery if you pushed too fast, stiff joints that take 30 minutes to loosen up at camp, and a new relationship with anti-inflammatory cream that borders on dependency.
My knees started talking to me around 43. Not yelling. Just making their presence known on descents, especially on rocky switchbacks. My ankles need more warmup than they used to. My lower back has opinions about how I sleep on a pad versus a mattress. None of this is injury. It's just the body doing its accounting, and the interest rate goes up every year.
But here's what I've learned from hundreds of miles on the MST: the body adapts if you give it time. The mistake older hikers make is training like they're 25. High mileage, fast pace, insufficient rest. That's how you end up off the trail in week two with a stress fracture or inflamed tendons. The smarter approach is slower ramp-up, consistent stretching, and treating recovery as part of the training rather than an afterthought.
I stretch every morning now. Not yoga-studio stretching, just 15 minutes of mobility work focused on hips, ankles, and shoulders. I do calf raises and single-leg balance work because ankle stability prevents falls, and falls end thru-hikes faster than anything else for hikers over 45. I hike with trekking poles on every outing because the data is clear: poles reduce knee impact by 25 percent on descents. At my age, that's not optional.
The body after 45 is not broken. It just requires honest negotiation instead of blind demands.
Training for a Thru-Hike When You Have a Life
I run multiple businesses. I have responsibilities that don't pause because I want to spend a weekend on a ridge. The fantasy of training for the AT is long months of uninterrupted trail time. The reality is Tuesday evening walks with a weighted pack, Saturday morning hikes that I have to be back from by noon, and the occasional weekend section hike that feels like a vacation from both work and training.
The Mountains-to-Sea Trail has been my training ground. It's right here in North Carolina, it's 1,175 miles of varied terrain, and I can do sections without flying anywhere or taking a week off. Some stretches are flat coastal paths. Others are brutal Appalachian ridge climbs. That variety matters because the AT throws everything at you, and training on a single terrain type leaves gaps.
My weekly routine is simple. Three weekday walks of 3 to 5 miles with a pack weighted to about 25 pounds. One weekend hike of 8 to 12 miles on actual trail. Once a month, I try to string together two or three days on the MST to practice the rhythm of consecutive hiking days, which is completely different from single-day efforts. Your body on day three of continuous hiking behaves nothing like your body on day one. You need to know what that feels like before you're a hundred miles into Georgia.
The hardest part isn't the physical training. It's protecting the training time. There's always a reason to skip the Saturday hike. Always an email that seems urgent, a meeting that could fill that slot, a project that needs attention. I've had to treat training time like a client meeting: it's on the calendar, it doesn't move, and missing it has consequences.
Gear Matters More When You're Older
At 28, I could carry a 40-pound pack and feel fine. The body absorbed it. At 48, every unnecessary ounce compounds over miles and days into joint pain, fatigue, and the kind of cumulative wear that ends hikes early. I've become obsessive about pack weight in a way my younger self would have found absurd.
The calculus is straightforward: lighter pack means less stress on knees and ankles, which means fewer injury days, which means you actually finish. For an older hiker, going ultralight isn't a hobby or a flex. It's a strategy for completion.
Boots matter enormously. I've tested enough pairs to know that fit and support outweigh brand loyalty every time. My feet are wide, and I spent years forcing them into standard-width boots before accepting that boots built for wide feet aren't a compromise. They're the correct tool. Blisters and hot spots are annoying at any age, but at 48 they cascade into gait changes that lead to knee problems that lead to time off the trail. Good blister-prevention socks paired with properly fitting boots are the foundation of everything.
Rain gear is another area where I've stopped cutting corners. On the MST, I got caught in a cold spring rain wearing a cheap jacket that wet out after two hours. I was shivering and miserable by the time I made camp, and it took me longer to warm up than it would have a decade ago. Older bodies lose heat faster and regain it slower. A reliable ultralight rain jacket that actually keeps you dry is worth every penny and every gram.
The Mental Game
I've been reading Marcus Aurelius for years. Not the highlight-reel quotes that show up on social media, but the actual Meditations, the private journal of a man trying to govern himself before governing an empire. One line keeps coming back to me when I think about the AT: "The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way."
On a thru-hike, everything is an impediment. Rain. Blisters. A rocky descent that takes three hours when the map suggested one. The desire to quit on day 17 when the novelty has worn off and the remaining months feel impossible. Aurelius would say those aren't obstacles to the hike. They are the hike. The discipline of putting one foot in front of the other when your body and mind are begging you to stop is the entire point.
I've learned patience from hiking that business never taught me. In business, you can optimize, delegate, automate. You can compress timelines and throw resources at problems. On the trail, there's no shortcut. A 15-mile day takes as long as it takes. You can't negotiate with a mountain or delegate a river crossing. You walk, or you don't. That simplicity is both the challenge and the relief.
The older I get, the more I understand that the mental game matters more than the physical one. I've met hikers in their 60s who finished the AT on knees worse than mine. They didn't have better bodies. They had better resolve. They'd developed the ability to separate discomfort from danger, to keep walking through the part where quitting seems reasonable, to trust that tomorrow's miles will feel different from today's.
That's a skill. And like any skill, it has to be practiced. Every long day on the MST is practice. Every cold morning where I'd rather stay in the sleeping bag is practice. Every mile past the point where I want to turn around is practice.
What I'm Packing for the AT
I've spent years testing gear through this site. Writing reviews, comparing products, wearing things out on actual trails. The loadout I'm planning for the AT isn't theoretical. Every item on this list has been carried, used, and verified on the MST.
This is the gear list as it stands today. It will probably change ten more times before I start, but the philosophy won't: light, reliable, and proven.
Footwear and Lower Body
- Waterproof boots (wide fit) with aftermarket insoles for arch support
- Merino wool hiking socks, three pairs in rotation
- Carbon trekking poles with cork grips
Clothing and Protection
- Ultralight rain jacket, sub-8 ounces
- Merino base layers for temperature regulation
- Lightweight down puffy for camp warmth
Hydration and Nutrition
- Hydration pack with 3-liter capacity
- Portable water filter as primary, chemical purifier as backup
- Ultralight camp stove for hot meals, because morale matters
Navigation and Safety
- GPS watch for tracking mileage and elevation
- Headlamp with red-light mode for camp
- First aid kit customized with extra anti-inflammatory meds and blister care
- Multitool for repairs and miscellaneous tasks
Every item on this list has a review on this site if you want the full breakdown of why I chose it. I've tested alternatives for most of these categories and landed on what works for my body, my hiking style, and my age.
The Real Preparation
People ask me when I'm starting the AT. I tell them I don't have an exact date yet. That's true, but it's also true that I've been starting for years. Every mile on the MST was a step toward Springer Mountain. Every gear test, every cold night in a tent, every morning I woke up stiff and kept walking was preparation.
The world has a story it likes to tell people approaching 50. Slow down. Be careful. Maybe this isn't for you anymore. I've heard that story. I've even believed it on hard days when my body was making a convincing argument for the couch.
But then I go back to the trail. I put the pack on. I walk until the stiffness fades and the rhythm takes over and I remember why I've been doing this for decades. The trail doesn't care about your age. It only cares whether you show up.
I'm showing up.
Brian