My American Discovery Trail 2024-2026(?) Thru Hike By The Numbers | Delaware to San Francisco On Foot
- Updated: May 29, 2025
- Post By: Matthew Hengst
On March 27th, 2024 I set out from Cape Henlopen, Delaware along the American Discovery Trail in an attempt to walk to San Francisco.
The American Discovery Trail gets quoted as being 6,800 miles long but that is counting the section in the middle where north and south options exist. From my research the southern route is the default and generally considered better by people who have done both and that's the way I went. This makes the trail 5,000 miles long though few people stick to the actual route as countless shorter road walks can easily cut a coast to coast hike down to only 3,000 miles. Anecdotally I found a number of folks who went coast to coast in around 3,200 miles.
I tried to set an aggressive but manageable pace sticking to the actual route and everything went relatively smoothly until I reached Colorado at which point I caught the flu which apparently led to me developing some pretty severe planar fasciitis when I got back on trail. I also managed to break a rib through a random fall walking along a road in Utah requiring more time off trail to rehab.
Eventually I was forced to the season on October 25th, 2024 after 3,592 miles in Moab, Utah. This was after fighting severe foot pain for the last 600 miles. I ended there because the next sections involved remote areas with long food and water hauls and any exit or return would be a lot more complicated.
Due to medical issues by plan to return in 2025 had to be delayed for a year. I hope to return to Moab in fall of 2026 to complete the remaining miles.
4 comments
Hi Matt thank you for your informative videos, could you explain your ADT gear and the workflow for gpx export to your navigation device, and those beautiful maps at the start of each YouTube
ReplyDeleteI'd recommend just buying the HikingAmerica maps instead of messing around with any gpx loading. It has more information than the official maps and if you have a subscription to Gaia GPS that's everything you need for offline navigation on trail. The maps at the start of the video are made by a friend using ArcGIS / QGIS. Before he was making those for me I made do with screenshots from GaiaGPS / CalTopo. Oh, and I am working on a more involved article on all my gear. It's basically just my thru hiking kit pared down a bit and adding a sun umbrella
ReplyDeletegreat looking forward to any advice, really hoping your back out there soon, looking at an enlighten equipment 20 degree bag, might be that sweet spot between your 30 and 10 bags
DeleteOne size fits all gear tends to have tradeoffs. A 20 degree bag might work but would likely be too warm for the middle where you're dealing with pretty extreme heat. You'd just be carrying additional weight you didn't need.
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