[pct-l] Herd on the AT

[Peter D Hoffman]

Donna is right.  I remember looking at the AT website several years ago when earlier years statistics were still available.   It was the publication of Bryson's book that was mostly responsible for a big spike which has been tapering down.  Bryson's book was published in 1999 and was on the best seller list, maybe number 1 for awhile.  In 2000 there were supposedly over 2900 starters, which was something like double the year before, as I remember.    
   
  I always had trouble with how the estimates were done back then, but at least they were internally consistent.  Some of the folk lore, such as 30% dropped out by Neels Gap and only 10% made it to Katahdin, I thought was just horse pucky and not consistent with what I saw.  I think the more recent data is better done, which may account for some of the apparent drop in starters.  And the completion rate is now 25 - 30%, which is more realistic.
   
  Also, the availability of information via the internet and other sources has undoubtedly helped the completion rate (and generated a set of starters with more realistic expectations and notions of what they are getting into) both on the AT and the PCT.
   
  Pete Hoffman
  "Old Corpus"