[pct-l] The HERD on the AT is . . . disappearing!

[Eric Lee (GAMES)]

So upon doing some more reading at http://www.appalachiantrail.org I found something that left me scratching my head.  Here are the numbers of thru-hikers starting in Springer, per year:

2001: 2,375
2002: 1,875
2003: 1,750
2004: 1,535
2005: 1,392
2006: 1,150

Yes, that's over a 50% *DECREASE*, not increase, in the number of north-bound starters between 2001 and 2006.  The number of south-bounders starting in Katahdin is much smaller but is decreasing as well.

(Side note: can you imagine 2,375 hikers starting in two months?  Yikes! An *average* day on the AT in 2001 would have made the herd leaving ADZPCTKOP last year look positively wimpy!)

Can someone explain those numbers to me?  Is the AT (or thru-hiking in general) really getting that less popular?  Are a lot more people starting in the middle and doing flip-flops? Did someone accidentally turn the chart upside down before they posted it on the site?  Am I just reading it wrong and these figure actually represent the number of posts Switchback has sent to pct-l?  <grin>

More to the point, is this a global phenomenon?  Have we seen a similar decrease in the number of PCT hikers?  (I don't think so).  Can we expect to see a decrease soon?  Or is the AT decreasing in part *because* the PCT is increasing in popularity?

I've always feared that the popularity of the PCT will continue to grow until it rivals the AT in scope (with all the attendant changes that kind of impact implies), but if thru-hiking is losing its coolness factor then maybe there's hope for a reprieve.  Maybe.

Eric