North Carolina Woman Becomes Fastest Person Ever to Hike Appalachian Trail

On July 31, Jennifer Pharr Davis completed the fastest ever thru hike of the Appalachian Trail.  She finished all 2,181 miles in 46 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes.
 
Let’s put that in perspective.  The average thru hike of the Appalachian Trail takes four to six months.  Davis hiked the trail in less than two months, at a rate of 46.93 miles per day.  That’s more than 1.5 marathons a day.  Davis was also the first woman ever to set the overall record.
 

Davis did a supported hike, meaning that she did not need to carry a heavy pack when she hiked the trail.  Instead, she would meet her husband at the places where the trail crosses the road to restock food, change clothes or stop for the night.
 
It was not an easy journey.  Though it was Davis’s third time hiking the entire trail, there were still unexpected problems and obstacles that arose throughout.  Davis struggled with terrible shin splints, stomach problems and hypothermia, while also battling bad weather and less-than-ideal conditions along the trail.  At one point she briefly brought up quitting, but her husband quickly talked her out of it.
 
“I felt completely weak, completely empty, I had horrible shin splints and I was sick,” she said.  “So that was my lowest point on the trail, and it was the only time that I talked to my husband about quitting.  And at that point he was able to talk me out of it, he believed.”
 
After that, Davis said, there was no looking back.  They finished the trail and are thrilled to have accomplished such a huge goal.
 
“In my opinion there’s no bigger trail record out there,” she said.  “So this to me is the biggest one.  You know in this world of trail records, which is an underground sport, this is the biggest title.”
 
Davis said she and her husband will probably not be as involved in setting speed records in the future, though they will always love and continue to participate in hiking and backpacking.
 
After the hike, Davis said, life has basically returned to normal, though she is physically spent from her time on the trail.
 
“I feel good, but pretty wiped out, pretty exhausted,” she said. “I look down and I have a peeling callous on my feet, and my feet on the bottoms my feet are still very tender, and if I stand up too quickly I get completely lightheaded, which is just the result of being exhausted from the trail.  So I think physically it will take several months before I fully recover.  But it’s just the best feeling to have accomplished something that a lot of people thought was impossible.”
 
Davis runs her own hiking company, Blue Ridge Hiking Co., in her home state of North Carolina.  She speaks publicly about her hiking adventures, writes magazine articles and guidebooks, runs workshops and does some guiding.  She also wrote a book about her first thru hike of the Appalachian Trail, Becoming Odyssa.
 
To collegiettes™ with aspirations that are a little out of the ordinary, Davis has words of inspiration.
 
“This summer we had so many people that told us, we couldn’t do it, we shouldn’t do it, it was impossible,” she said. “There were some people who believe that we didn’t actually do it! So you have to be confident in your own path and the direction that you’re going.”
 
Stay tuned for a review of Jennifer Pharr Davis’s book, Becoming Odyssa!