Appalachian Trail surge

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy and NPS built the count using a three-step model that combined trail counters, field observations and aggregated, de‑identified mobile-location data provided by Placer.ai. (appalachiantrail.org) About one-third of the Trail runs on NPS-managed lands and those sections accounted for roughly 36% of statewide counts, a figure the ATC says translates to the A.T. appearing in the NPS Annual Park Ranking Report. (appalachiantrail.org) Virginia led all states with 4,306,369 recreation visits — 23.7% of the Trail’s state-by-state total — followed by New Hampshire at 2,879,020 (15.8%) and Pennsylvania at 2,702,091 (14.9%). (appalachiantrail.org) New York reported 1,604,469 visits and North Carolina 1,523,824, while Massachusetts and New Jersey each exceeded one million recreation visits at 1,075,575 and 1,037,730 respectively. (appalachiantrail.org) The ATC notes the state totals can exceed the Trailwide sum because a single hiker can be counted in more than one state in a single day — for example, border-crossing routes that register a visit in each state. (appalachiantrail.org) ATC leadership said the new dataset will inform Trail management and conservation decisions and serve as a methodological model for other National Scenic and Historic Trails, a recalibration the NPS and ATC developed in partnership. (appalachiantrail.org)