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Appalachian Trail Parking Guide

Parking at an AT Trail Head

Although most of the people who hike the Appalachian Trail are section hikers, you won’t find many trail guides designed for them available from the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, which is kind of a shame if you think about it too much.

But there is an unofficial Appalachian Trail Parking Guide that you should know about if section hiking or slackpacking is your thing. I use it all of the time to find places to park along the trail, trailhead intel, and excellent photos that show what different sections of the trail look like.

It’s hosted and maintained by Cyndi and David Rohland, who started collecting this information in their home state of Pennsylvania, and then expanded it to include the entire Appalachian Trail. The information it contains is based on volunteer submissions from other hikers up and down the trail. If you have information that can help the Rohlands keep this valuable resource up to date, please think about submitting it.

Every parking record in this data source has a section mile marker, cross-road, directions, comments, the number of vehicles that can be parked at the location, and other information including Google maps, section photos, and contact information about the local clubs that maintain the trail section.

Here’s an example of a section I hiked last spring in New Hampshire, from NH25A to Lyme-Dorchester Road.  As you can see, there is a tremendous amount of information available here, that’s relevant to anyone hiking the area, including thru-hikers.

In addition to this guide, there are a few other things you should know about parking along the AT. If you’re parking along an unpaved road, make sure that all four of your wheels are off of it. Some states like New Hampshire will ticket or tow otherwise. Vandalism is also a potential issue, so make sure not to leave anything valuable in your car or in view through the windows. If possible, park in a highly visible area with lots of passing traffic or speak to a local resident abutting the area and ask them to keep an eye out for your car. Some people will even offer to let you park on their property.

Updated 2016.

17 comments

  1. I’ve been a regular user of your parking guide, which is great. I wanted to report that the website appears to be unreachable. I waited for a few weeks and tried from different locations to make sure it was not a temporary issue or one on my end.

    Brian

  2. I used the Rohland website in 2014, but it seems to be down again in August of 2015

    • They had a lighting strike a month or so ago that fried their server. They have a temporary fix until they can get the insurance settled and the new server in place. So right now they are indeed up and down but in general the site is very reliable. They are trying to work out the problems with the current set-up.

  3. Clearly it still isn’t fixed. Getting ready to take some boy scouts on some training hikes through Maryland and VA and am looking for good drop off and car locations for pick ups at the end of the weekend hikes. Suggestions welcomed.

  4. While it is down right now I use it regularly, as recently as last week. I suspect the issue is only temporary. It’s a great resource to me!

  5. It’s still down.

  6. The site is working fine for me, and what a resource it is. I’m full of thanks. I have one question: Is Overnight parking allowed at all the parking areas on the map? Or is this something I should do further research into?

  7. Cant get on the site to find a parking area near Davenport Gap any info would be helpful.

  8. AT Parking/Access Database

    Editor Needed
    PLEASE READ

    The Appalachian Trail Parking website is in dire need of an editor. With the death of our website editor, David Cullen, we’re having a huge problem keeping our website afloat. If you’ve been on our website recently, I’m sure you’ve noticed that a lot of our posts are getting really old. We need someone that is familiar with a good bit of the trail and willing to research into areas that are unfamiliar to her/him. We need someone that is willing to validate all submissions to our website: parking, safety and pictures. Of course, we will be assisting you and guiding you through all of the steps we take in the process of editing. We are an all-volunteer website so we are unable to compensate you for your time and knowledge so we need someone that also has a love of the trail and is willing to give back to the AT community.

    Besides us, we have one occasional editor that will also help out. We’d love to have more section editors but with all of our pleas for help, this just hasn’t panned out. If you have any interest in only working on a section of the trail we’d also welcome you with open arms.

    Life has changed here at the AT Parking website. When we first started in this endeavor, we were able to devote the majority of our time to programming and editing. Now with all of the nasties in the world, security has become an almost full-time job for us.

    Over the years, we’ve had a good many offers from commercial websites to take over our website but we’d really not like to do that unless we have no alternative. We view the trail as one of the great free treasures in our country and would like to continue doing our part to support the AT as long as we can.

    Please contact us if you should have any interest in helping out. We really need you!

    Please feel free to pass on this message to anyone who you think might be able to help us.

    The Rohlands
    AT @ rohland.org
    https://AppalachianTrail.rohland.org

  9. The site seams to be down I was on it 2 days ago and it was fine