People complain of over-crowding on the hiking trails of the east but that’s only because they’ve sought out crowded times and places.
It’s actually easy to have miles of woodland trail to yourself in any of the eastern states. I mention the eastern states here because this is what I’m most familiar with and can speak authoritatively on. I expect the same principles apply elsewhere.
I first noticed certain trends while hiking the southern reaches of the Appalachian Trail during my first four month brook trout hike in 2007. I came to notice that everyone was on the AT while almost no-one was on the other trails that I’d use occasionally, even if they were very nearby. I noticed that the weekends got crowded (on the AT) and that there was probably nowhere as crowded as the miles within the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. National forests did not draw people at anything like the rate of national parks.
Since that time, I’ve come to notice that trail reaches within half a mile of a road crossing are, almost uniformly, where all the people are. I’ve noticed that very easy trails, such as rail trails, get used far more heavily than rougher trails. And I noticed that trails that aren’t officially sanctioned, aren’t advertised in brochures and online, get virtually no foot traffic. After the southern Appalachians, I went on to cross Pennsylvania mainly on such unofficial trails and I could count on one hand the other hikers I passed that year.
So, the inference is that it’s actually easy to escape the crowd, find more solitude and more animals if you really want to (and I hope you realize that the appearance of animals generally occurs in inverse proportion to numbers of people). My message here is simple: Go out at times that aren’t weekends, aren’t holidays, find your own creative routes rather than the best-loved trails, stay out of national parks, and get away from roads. Try out old woods roads, mountain bike trails, dirt bike trails, horse trails and cross-country ski trails.
That’s it in a nutshell. But I’ve come to wonder over time if maybe all the people are in the same places because they want to be. Maybe other people really love crowded trail and constant conversation. Maybe solitude is my thing alone.
And here’s my book on walking through the woods from north Georgia to New Brunswick, looking for brook trout:
Woodrise 