“Reports of my demise have been grossly exaggerated.” All in the name of engagement. Photo: Wes Hicks//Unsplash
A TikToker with the handle @tokkingwithstrangers2 posted a video about the conditions of the Appalachian Trail (AT) in the wake of Hurricane Helene. As she transposed herself over an image of a trail map, she declared to her 72,000 followers that “a third of the AT is destroyed.”
“This catastrophic storm is actually going to change the map of North Carolina and Tennessee, the actual topography,” she continued.
The account makes videos about every topic under the sun, rambling about subjects that range from Diddy parties to mattress store conspiracy theories. Occasionally she hits gold with a viral video, which was the case with her AT post. It garnered 237,000 views and counting.
It appears that the video’s assertions stem from a statement made by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC) President and CEO Sandi Marra that claims “more than a third of the Appalachian Trail is currently inaccessible, and we expect sections of the Trail will be closed for some time.”
While the damage caused by Helene is indeed catastrophic, the claim that one-third of the trail is destroyed is sensationalistic according to Outside’s thru-hiking expert Grayson Haver Currin.
@tokkingwithstrangers2 #greenscreen @A.T. Conservancy 🙏🙏🙏🙏 #appalachia #appalachiantrail #fyp #georgia #hurricanehelene #northcarolina ♬ The Song of Angels – Before the Throne
Currin, who has completed the AT himself, called up his contacts around the trail to grasp the true extent of the damage.
“It should be posted that – on four miles of this 2,200-mile trail – there’s a lot of devastation,” said AT expert Warren Doyle. “But that doesn’t mean you close the whole trail down.”
The president of the 286-mile Benton MacKaye Trail association Bob Cowdrick, said, “Nothing out of the ordinary — branches, limbs, and a few blowdowns.”
Joshua Niven, a hiker based out of Hot Springs, North Carolina, echoed this sentiment.
“Saturated trees – that’s always going to be a thing,” Niven told Outside. “But I haven’t seen anything that’s catastrophic that a hiker couldn’t navigate. It might be unpleasant, given how many trees are there. What’s the issue with hiking in woods that have trees down?”
Of course, as communities still begin to comprehend the extent of the damage and begin recovery efforts, maintaining hiking trails is not the top priority.
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy called Helene the “largest natural disaster – in terms of geographic footprint – to impact the Appalachian Trail in its 100-year history.” The destruction left downed trees, impassable roadways, flooded towns, and more than 200 dead.
“While we are eager and anxious to tackle the work necessary to restore sections of the AT impacted by Helene, we ask for patience,” said Marra. “Critical infrastructure – water, electricity, and internet – must be fully restored and roads must be cleared for the ATC and our partners to evaluate the trail’s conditions. Once we can safely access the AT, we will identify the sections and features that need immediate attention and put a call out for volunteers to help restore the trail.”
Currin doesn’t downplay the real damage caused by the storm in his Outside story, but he criticizes social media accounts taking advantage of the situation to chase engagement by spreading false information.
“Misinformation…(makes) a bad situation worse, unnecessarily adding to the weight of a region’s already seismic loss,” said Currin. “The Appalachian Trail is a point of pride for people there, for people in the midst of losing everything; saying it is destroyed based on no data adds insult to inestimable injury.”
