Thanks to a new counting method, we finally know how many people actually use the Appalachian Trail each year

tThe Appalachian Trail had 16.9 million recreational visitors in 2025, including 6.2 million on the portions of the AT that traverse National Park Service (NPS) lands, making it the ninth most visited NPS site last year. This is the first time such an accurate visitor count has been done and the first time the AT will be included in the NPS. annual ranking report.

“We are very proud of our work in partnership with the National Park Service on a methodology that allows us to accurately understand how people use the trail, which sections receive the most visits, and how to best support local communities,” Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) President and CEO Cinda Waldbuesser said in a news release.

The distributed nature of the trail, with hundreds of access points stretching across thousands of miles, has made it difficult to calculate accurate data on visitation in the past. Check out dhjb. To obtain the 2025 figures, ATC and the National Park Service used anonymized and aggregated mobile location data in combination with traditional trail counters and field observations.

The ATC said it worked closely with the NPS Social Sciences Program to ensure its reporting aligned with national standards, which would allow it to be included in the NPS ranking report. The AT came in ninth, just after the George Washington Memorial Parkway and just before the Lake Mead National Recreation Area. Interestingly, the Blue Ridge Parkway, which runs through the same mountains as the AT and which the trail crosses numerous times, was the most visited site overall.

The ATC says its methodology will serve as a model that other national scenic trails could use to better understand the overall number of visitors and where they are most concentrated, guiding management and conservation decisions. The mapped organization what parts of the trail are the most usedwith Virginia being the most visited AT state and Maine the least visited.

Although Pennsylvania regularly ranks among AT hikers’ least favorite trail sections in The Trek’s annual surveys, it was the third most visited state in 2025, according to the ATC, accounting for nearly 15% of total trail use.

“For more than a century, the Appalachian Trail has been a destination for millions of people around the world to experience adventure, solace and community while reconnecting with nature,” said Kurt Speers, chief ranger and acting NPS superintendent of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. «We are grateful for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s dedication and continued collaboration with the AT Maintenance Clubs and the Trail’s many partners as we use this new data to improve the visitor experience.»

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