What’s a decent budget to hit by March 1st for the trail? I’m going for a thru hike northbound

Alright. I am not an AT hiker, but there is a lot circulating about the death in Shenandoah NP, near the AT.

The story runs deep: disclaimer that this is just all the available info I could find. No official notices have confirmed much in the way of details. Information was found via various social media posts and comments, SNP press releases, and local news coverage of the incident. TLDR: take it with a grain of salt. Not trying to fear-monger; delete the post if you feel I am doing so. I find some trail social media outlets are fanning the flame of serial killer conspiracies, but the evidence and the response points to a provoked bear attack, imo.

There were reports on FarOut that a not-so-friendly black bear was in the area around that same time she was found. Some on Reddit claim she was seeking to connect with the bears. Some comments are kind, others say she was “on some Timothy Treadwell shit” — Treadwell was a famous bear enthusiast that often did not take safety precautions. He later died of an attack. She was camped in the park from skyline drive. The areas closed to visitors and backcountry camping nearly two weeks after she/pieces of her body were found—guessing after the FBI got involved. They found the last picture on her phone was a bear. My best guesstimate is that she was curious in an unsafe way. A tragedy occurred. Immediate response was to contain the bear, but communication should have been more transparent and forthcoming about the aggressive bear.

The DOI no longer publicly reports deaths in national parks as of last year. Seems like FarOut is a good app to have on your phone. Other hikers saw a posting in a shelter close-by of an aggressive bear in the area. Check your shelters, folks.

It’s almost peak foliage time in Shenandoah, too. Sounds like employees of the park received written communication not to share anything publicly or on social media about the death. Do with this info what you will as nothing official has come out, but they are context clues.

My dad hikes the AT about 2 times a year and has been for almost 20 years. He has packing down to a science, but his birthday is coming up and I want to get him something really neat that you’d never think of. Anyone recommendations?

I have a window next year to take a real breather for my mental health and take a break from burnout while I figure out what I want the next chapter of my life to look like. When this window opened up, my first thought was to do a thru hike. I've always loved hiking and I cut my teeth on some AT hikes a number of years ago. So a chance to do a thru sounded to good to be true.

Well, this may be sacrilege to the thru hiking community, but now that I've had a couple of months to start planning this thing, especially in the greater context of me doing this for my physical and mental health I'm starting to wonder if I really need to do the whole thing. I'm wondering if I really need to be on the trail for 6 months or if three would be enough. So I'm contemplating starting a "flip flop" from Harper's Ferry in April. Say I hike to Katahdin, and when I get there, I ask myself "okay, do I need to hike the rest of this thing?"

Obviously, this is a question that only I can answer for myself, and obviously there are alot of personal pros and cons that I won't bore you guys with. But I'd be curious to hear from anybody who only did half of the trail (whether intentionally or unintentionally). Was it enough for you? Do you find yourself wondering "what if"? I would love to hear some thoughts/experiences.