Anish attempting the AT self-supported record

[Barry Cuthbert]

It looks like Heather "Anish" Anderson, current holder of the PCT self-supported FKT is attempting to break the AT self-supported FKT currently held by Matt Kirk at 58d9h40m.

Announcement here

GO you good thing!

[Dan @ Durston Gear]

Cool! This will be fun to watch.

[Ryan Smith]

I've been trying to keep up with this one, but very few updates so far. She certainly has the ability to do it as long as she plans a good hike. She's starting a few weeks later than normal, we'll see if it slows her down once the days get shorter. Good luck Anish!

Ryan

[Ito Jakuchu]

Anish passed half way. Way to go. (Is it me or was there a ton more data about distance travelled, daily mileages etc etc from the start of Scott's AT record, viz, not as a conspiracy, but also what is put out there by Anish herself?)

[Greg Mihalik]

^^^ From the FKT link above – "I will carry a SPOT beacon, although for safety, its logs will not be publicly available in real time." (She is not the only solo woman expressing this sentiment.)

[Ito Jakuchu]

^yeah I saw that, and is what I meant by her reason not to put out more info. Perhaps my writing or thinking is not so clear. Still a lot less third party coverage, but again, perhaps linked to her deliberate choice of limited shared info. (Edit, yeah the sentence in my earlier post definitely doesn't convey what I meant to say).

[Ryan Smith]

There have been a couple sightings along the way that have allowed people to determine her approximate pace. General consensus is that she is slightly ahead of FKT pace. I think she will break the record by a day or less. Ryan

[Robert Alexander]

As I understand per the AT group on Facebook, she finished today and now holds the record. (Citation needed)

[Barry Cuthbert]

From Anish's facebook page: New Appalachian Trail self-supported speed record: 54:7:48 https://www.facebook.com/AnishHikes Matt Kirk former unsupported record for the Appalachian Trail was 58 days, 9 hours, and 38 minutes, so Anish took more than 4 days off!

[Ito Jakuchu]

Amazing effort, what an athlete.

[Mike M]

congrats! that is quite a feat to be sure

[Vincent Vilcinskas]

Nice article about Anish from backpacker magazine http://www.backpacker.com/news-and-events/news/anish-breaks-appalachian-trail-unsupported-speed-record/

[Allen C]

I've never done anything near this long, but taking 4 days off the FKT seems to me a HUGE accomplishment. Kudos to Anish, she seriously crushed it.

[Ito Jakuchu]

Yeah, amazing. Also, I just can't imagine clocking that many miles per day – 42 on average – and still figuring out where and what to resupply, the timing, getting in/out of town etc.etc.

[Jennifer Mitol]

so am I missing something here… Anish did not do any hitching, carried her own stuff, did her own resupplies, etc etc yet her time is just 8 days less than Jurek's, who carried nothing, slept in a camper, had his food delivered to him, etc etc…. not at all to diminish Jurek's accomplishment, nor to start the whole supported vs unsupported thing, but it seems like if you had to carry all your own stuff, set up your own camps, cook your own food and do your own camp chores, hike to town to get your resupplies, etc etc…those two times should be further apart??? I guess i'm saying that the fact that her record is only 8 days less than Jurek's is SUPER impressive to me……

[Ralph Burgess]

I agree completely. Anish's PCT record is similarly only 7 days longer than the supported record. Although the logistics alone are remarkable, I think it's the mental strength to sustain this effort in solitude over almost TWO MONTHS that's so incredible. I thought Anish's PCT record was the most impressive achievement in the FKT world, and now she has a comparable AT record.

[Ryan Smith]

For the AT, I think there are two things at play that might explain some of the relatively small difference in supported and unsupported FKTs. 1) Jurek went NOBO, Anish went SOBO. NOBO is accepted to be a more difficult hike since you're hitting the toughest part of the trail with 2000mi on your legs. Read some of the posts about when Jurek was going through New England and nearly had a meltdown. If he goes SOBO, he possibly achieves his goal of 42 days. 2) With the amount of resupply options on the AT and 40mi days, food is rarely more than 2 days away. So carrying a little less weight for the unsupported folks than you might think. Matt's resupply hikes only added 3-4mi to his overall mileage to give you an idea of how close resupply options are on the AT. None of this is meant to take away from what Anish did. It was a very fast hike and she is one tough lady. I'm just hypothesizing. It's tough to compare the two since logistics play such a huge role in making a fast hike. Ryan

[Adam Kilpatrick]

I'm looking forward to seeing her gear list and post FKT analysis of what did and didn't work :-) Not that it's all about gear. She is made of something else entirely to be able to push 65km a day like that for two months. Phenomenal.

[Dale Wambaugh]

Tough indeed! I heard an interview with her on NPR and noted: She had no "zero" days She was on the trail at 4:30 AM and hiked until 10:00 PM or so She spent only 1-1.5 hours in town for resupply

[Ito Jakuchu]

"… carry all your own stuff, set up your own camps, cook your own food and do your own camp chores, hike to town to get your resupplies, etc etc…those two times should be further apart??? I guess i'm saying that the fact that her record is only 8 days less than Jurek's is SUPER impressive to me……" Absolutely. Time wise, the energy/effort it takes, and just mentally, having people taking care of you, talking you up or not. Super impressive sounds right to me.

[Richard May]

> Jurek went NOBO, Anish went SOBO. NOBO is accepted to be a more difficult hike since you're hitting the toughest part of the trail with 2000mi on your legs. Seems to me she picked the better strategy for breaking the record. I'll bet anyone attempting a new record will follow suit. (shovel of coal to stoke the fire) ;-)

[Ito Jakuchu]

I don't have a stake in this but the small difference Jennifer Mitol was talking about still stands if you ask me. Of course there is the difference with Scott going NOBO, but didn't Jennifer Pharr Davis also go SOBO? Her time is only a bit over 3 hours more than Scott's. Meaning you could still see the difference in the range of 8 days with Anish's time. All their times are incredible if you ask me though. Especially day after day after day.

[Ryan Smith]

I think that line of thought holds up if JPD is the same caliber of athlete as Jurek. Meaning, if Scott went SOBO and planned a similar hike as JPD, would he have still beaten the record by 3 hours or much more? I'm in the much more camp. Maybe not, and the chasm between unsupported and supported just isn't as wide as we think. Who knows! Fun to speculate. We may not know until we start seeing these FKTs consistently reduced by minutes or hours. Ryan

[Jennifer Mitol]

Exactly. I'm super impressed with all of these efforts – i just cannot fathom what it takes to do 40-60 mile days EVERY SINGLE DAY. I mean, i was thrilled when I did my first 20! As you guys know, i'm getting back into distance running and for the first time I'm adding trails (combining my love of hiking with my love of distance running!) so all of these FKTs are so cool to watch! I'll never be fast, but one of the things that I really enjoy reading about is that these guys aren't necessarily FAST per se, but just ridiculously persistent. THAT i can do!

[Eli Zabielski]

The shorter the two records get, the larger the gulf between them becomes. 8 days difference between two hikers on a normal 130-160 day thru hike is nothing. 8 days on an FKT attempt is a yawning chasm it seems to me. It comes out to Scott doing about 6.5 more miles per day (including the extra miles Anish did for resupply). 6.5 miles per day is a massive amount when you're already focused on hiking basically 100% of your waking hours. Everyone will have different limits, but each additional mile per day comes at a seemingly exponential marginal cost. Scott was able to eek out these extra miles due to the supported nature of his FKT. He didn't have to unpack and pack up his sleeping stuff, worry about preparing any food, walk into and out of towns. Since he didn't need overnight gear, he probably walked a bit faster when he walked, and was much more capable of running when he could/needed to. I am glad to see no one (so far) on here has claimed that Scott's effort was somehow trivial in comparison. I heard a lot of that from people who aren't really backpackers or runners, who thought that if you didn't have to carry all your stuff you could magically do 46mpd on the AT. Scott and Anish both pushed themselves well past the ragged edge chasing two different goals. I am equally impressed by both efforts. They were both inspiring to me when I was also running against the setting sun trying to do high miles on the PCT.

[Author]

Posts