Can you thru hike the Appalachian Trail in 2025 after hurricane Helene? Update

I'm out here in Damascus, Virginia. This is October 24th. It is about a month since Helene hit this area and I'm gonna check it out. A lot of the town looks to be open now. So just gonna have to wait to see how the trail is north of here because 58 is still closed. But yeah, Creeper Trail, pretty well destroyed. That's gonna take years to put back. They gotta put back several of the bridges. But the AT sits higher, you know, it's up on the mountain so it should still be there. Just be a matter of blowdowns and I think it'll be a matter of them opening up the roads and priorities. So I think this stretch, I would plan for it to be closed next year or at least in the spring. But I think by next fall, I bet this will be open and it might be open by next spring already. But Damascus itself, it looks like businesses are up and running. Back on the AT. I'm at mile 354 going northbound. This is about a mile north of Indian Grave Gap. I'm walking up to Beauty Spot. Just wanna see how the trail is. Tried to go down to Uncle Johnny's in Irwin but that road was closed and yeah, it looked pretty bad down there. That was where the hospital was like almost underwater and people were standing on the roofs. And that was where that plastics company had what, like seven or eight employees killed in the flooding. So yeah, and the bridge over by Uncle Johnny's that the AT goes over is completely gone. So that area I think will not be hikable next year. But so far up here, it's totally clear. So I will see if I can find any blowdowns and report back. The trail up here looks totally normal at about 4,000 feet. So I wonder probably a lot more water, a lot more saturated down lower elevations. So that might be the trend here. Like the blowdowns will be at lower elevations and up high. Like this doesn't look like anything happened up here. I am at mile 433.3. This is Wilbur Dam Road. The road was closed. Had to walk like a mile and a half up here. I'm about to enter the Big Laurel Branch Wilderness. And this area, nobody's been up here yet. So we shall see how the trail is up here. Half a mile in and not a single blowdown yet. Really beautiful leaves. I'm feeling pretty optimistic about the state of the trail. Carrying one of these little hand saws, super handy. Yeah, the condition of the trail over here is fine. And talking with Jim and them at Boots Off, sounds like going south from Hampton to Laurel Falls is pretty good. The top of Pond Flats apparently, it's like a million blowdowns. But otherwise, trail sounds pretty good. Sounds like they're getting it clear around 19E. So Rhone Mountain, Highlands, those places. So I'm pretty optimistic about the state of the trail for next hiking season. All right, so here's my prediction for the AT in 2025. I think most of the trail is going to be very hikable. So right after Haleen, you were getting reports like a third of the trail is closed. It's definitely not going to be anywhere near that. I think realistically, the spots you're probably going to have to skip on a no bow hike next year might be around Hot Springs to Irwin. I think, I don't think you're going to have to skip much more than that. I think Damascus will be, you know, ready for business. I think that stretch north of Damascus will likely be opened up. And then through there, you're Grayson Highlands. And then you're into kind of the Marion, Bland area, Perispheric and all that area right now. We know Southbound hikers are making it through. So there shouldn't be any issues there. And then everything kind of south of Hot Springs is already open right now as well. So really, the major areas of concern are Hot Springs and Irwin, which comprise a pretty small section of trail. And there's just been such an outpouring of volunteers and people helping out that I think a lot of this stuff is going to get cleared super quick. Like this section I'm on, it would take two people a weekend and it would be totally clear. So I think, you know, there's going to be these little spots where you have a ton of blowdowns and a lot of work to do. But even so, considering like it's not that much, that much work, right? Like even if you got a couple miles of trail, there's just a mess of blowdowns. Well, an eight person crew could do that in a week. So, and there's not that many sections like that. So I think if you wanted to play it safe, you could plan a hike where you start northbound from Damascus, go to Katahdin, flip back down, and then go Sobo. And I think by that time, most of it should be should be pretty good to go. One misconception about the destruction of Hilleen is you have this idea that like everything is gone, right? But really, it's just the low-lying areas, the stuff that's next to the rivers and the creeks, like that's what got hit. So, you know, Uncle Johnny's next to Nolchucky got hit pretty hard. That bridge got washed away. But all the stuff above that hikers need, you know, the Walmart that you resupply from, the restaurants there in Irwin, a lot of the hotels there in Irwin, they're all good to go. They're all got power. They are open for business. So I think around Irwin, you're gonna have to make like a couple mile little detour because there's only one bridge there now and you got to cross the Nolchucky. But other than that, you can still resupply. You can do what you need there. Well, we're here at Butzov Hostel and Campground, mile 428.5 on the Appalachian Trail. Very fortunate. I mean, so many were affected adversely and a lot of people lost everything. So our hearts go out to them. But we were very fortunate because the way we sit on this ridgeline and the way the winds hit, basically our perimeter took a pretty good hit with trees on the upslope side. But as for damage for us, it wasn't bad at all. Areas of the trail, I mean, it's really what's so bad. It's quite small in the scheme of things. Yes, you know, around Uncle Johnny's, the bridge washed away and that's going to be a more challenging reroute. A lot of the areas where there's blowdowns, maybe altering the trail slightly and just cutting a path. Again, it's nothing that a team of sawyers can't handle. And that's happening so fast. There's the Forest Service out there. There's hiking groups like the Eastman Tennessee Hiking Club. There's other stealth sawyers, we should call them, that are out there doing a lot of work. So every day things are opening up and sections are becoming more accessible. We're really just starting to get into leaf season. There's a lot of small section hikes we can do. I mean, you can work around what is down. I would tell people to listen to the hostels. You can look at the Forest Service websites. You can talk to the trail maintaining groups in certain sections and do just a little bit of research. Definitely talk to the hostels and areas as they're communicating with everybody they can. And really, you can do a hike. You can plan things. I would say don't just cast us all aside and that you can't come out here. There's a lot of places that need business and we can't basically create a whole nother issue for the Appalachian community like Damascus and so many others because everybody just thinks they need to stay away. Because by staying away, you're going to lose shuttle drivers. You're going to lose hostels. People cannot afford to operate for too long without income. I'm out and on the trail. That's also my YouTube. I'm doing a fundraiser, which is like a toy drive, but we're collecting more than just toys. We're collecting board games and that sort of stuff too. I can't remember the places we've been. Roe Mountain. Mountain City. Newport, Tennessee. I've been to North Carolina. Headed up to Elks Garden. The ATC just put out something that they opened up all the trail from Elks Garden kind of north for about 100 miles. So I'm gonna go up there and see what the trail looks like up there. So starting from mile 492.5 going north, it's about 24 miles north of Damascus. It's not quite the Grayson Highlands, but this section of trail just reopened yesterday. Everything south to Damascus is still closed. Yeah, you know, this is pretty high up here and there's not that many trees, so I think this trail up here will probably be pretty good. So the crews have been through here. They're marking stuff and they're clearing what they can. It looks like this is very fresh off the trail. So, so far what I've walked on this section is really not bad at all. And if the Forest Service has opened up this whole section, then that must also be their assessment that it is safe and it is passable. Yeah, so that's pretty cool. Gives me a lot of hope for the AT for the future. I think the biggest impediments now will be the bridges that are down. So like around Irwin, and then there's a couple of those trestle bridges on the Creeper Trail north of Damascus that they need to rebuild. So those could cause some reroutes and closed trails. But other than that, you know, there are bad spots, but it's not like 300 miles of blowdowns. It's stuff that a trail crew will be able to clear in a couple of days, you know, and you think they're going to be working on it all winter. Trail clubs will be working on it all winter. I think the trail is going to be fine next year. I really do.