AYCE: “All You Can Eat” Restaurants that offer all you can eat buffets are very popular with hungry hikers.
Bald: A low elevation mountain surrounded by forest yet devoid of trees on the crown. Typically covered with meadows, balds can offer great views and are a good place to find wild berries, they also attract much wildlife.
Blazes: Are painted, 2-inch by 6-inch, vertical white rectangles that are placed at eye height on trees and other objects, in both directions, to mark the official route of the Trail. These are generally thought to indicate that: someone went this way before me and they apparently own paint.
Blue Blaze: Spur trails off the AT to bad-weather routes, views, shelters, water sources etc are often marked by AT style blazes painted Blue
Blue-Blazer: A long-distance hiker who substitutes a section of blue-blazed trail for a white-blazed section between two points on the Trail.
Bounce box: A mail-drop type box containing seldom-used necessities that is ‘bounced’ ahead to a town where you think you might need the contents.
Cat Hole: A small hole dug by a hiker for the deposit of human waste
Double Blaze: Two blazes, one above the other as an indication of an imminent turn or intersection in the trail. Offset double blazes, called Garveys, indicate the direction of the turn by the offset of the top blaze.
Flip-Flop: A term used to signify a hiker that starts hiking in one direction then at some point decides to jump ahead and hike back in the opposite direction. Some hikers on the AT will start hiking northbound from Springer Mt. and usually at Harpers Ferry they may decide to go to Katahdin and hike back down to Harpers Ferry, thus completing their thru-hike. This is a good way for someone to still get their hike completed if they are behind and their time is limited due to the oncoming winter.
Giardia: More properly known as giardiasis, an infection of the lower intestines cause by the amoebic cyst, Giardia lamblia. Giardia resides in water so it is wise to always chemically treat or filter your water before drinking. Symptoms include stomach cramps, diarrhea, bloating, loss of appetite and vomiting. Also know as, a backpacker’s worst nightmare.
Hiker box: A cabinet or box at hostels where hikers donate unwanted food for the hikers coming behind them.
Hostel: An establishment along the trail that has bunks, showers, and sometimes cooking and mail drops, for AT hikers.
Hypothermia: Potentially fatal condition caused by insufficient heat and a drop in the body’s core temperature. Classic symptoms are call the ‘umbles’, as the victim stumbles, grumbles, mumbles, and fumbles with confused thoughts.
Katahdin: The AT’s northern terminus is at Baxter Peak on Maine’s Katahdin. Katahdin is a Penobscot Indian word meaning Greatest Mountain.
LNT: ‘Leave No Trace’, a philosophy and skill used to pass as lightly as possible when backpacking.
Hiker Money: Toilet paper.
Mouse Hanger: A 12”-18” length of cord run through a tin can with a small stick tied to the end. Hung from a beam in the shelter, a hiker will hang his/her pack on the stick. Mice, attempting to climb down the rope to get into the pack are deterred by the tin can.
Nero: Almost a Zero …in other words, a very short mileage day.
NoBo: Northbound thru-hiker
Privy: trailside outhouse for solid waste
PUDS: Pointless Ups and Downs Hills and full blown mountains senselessly included in the path of the Appalachian Trail. These features are frequently remote from the most natural trail route requiring exquisite and serpentine contortions in the path to deliver the hiker to the base of targeted monolith.
Register: A log book normally found at a trail shelter or a trail head. The original intent was for hikers to sign in so a searcher needing to find a lost hiker could tell where they last were. Registers are now used for hikers to write information regarding their hike and other information that other hikers nay find useful.
Section Hiker: A person who is attempting to become a 2,000-Miler by doing a series of section hikes over a period of time.
Slackpacking: A thru-hiker without a backpack.
Southbounder or SOBO: A hiker who is hiking the AT from Maine to Georgia. A small minority of hikers actually hike this direction
Stealth: A manner of camping where there is no indication that you are there, and no trace of your being there is left when you’ve left. Sometimes used as a term for camping illegally on public or private land.
Thru-Hiker: Traditionally a person who is attempting to become a 2,000-Miler in a single, continuous journey leaving from one terminus of the Trail, and backpacking to the other terminus.
Trail Angel: Someone who provides unexpected help or food to a hiker
Trail Magic: Unexpected, but welcome, help or food
Trail Name: A nickname adopted by or given to a hiker. This name is used almost exclusively when communicating with others on the trail and in trail register entries.
Vitamin I: Ibuprofin is an over the counter anti-inflammatory drug that many hikers use while backpacking.
Zero: A day in which no miles are hiked, usually because the hiker is stopping in a town to re-supply and/or rest.
2,186 Miles: Rick & Kasey Stratton's Appalachian Trail Journey 