How to Hike the Great Eastern Trail

The Great Eastern Trail runs from Flagg Mountain, Alabama, to New York through nine states, mostly west of the Appalachian Trail. It isn't one trail. It's a chain of long trails hikers already know by name, among them the Pinhoti, the Cumberland Trail, Pine Mountain, the Allegheny, the Tuscarora and the Mid State, tied together with road walks wherever the trail hasn't been built yet.

Nobody publishes a current GPS track of the whole thing. So we're building one, a state at a time, from the land managers' own maps, and it will be free to anyone.

Want the free Great Eastern track the day it's ready? Sign up free and we'll send it.

Where the free track stands

We're working south to north. Each state's line gets drawn, checked against the land managers' maps and OpenStreetMap, and loaded into Gaia GPS before we move on to the next. When the whole line is done, Tim Hupp, president of the Great Eastern Trail Association, gets it to look over before it goes public.

Each state gets its own short post when it's finished. Follow them on our Great Eastern Trail news page or in the Hiking America Facebook Group.

The trails that make up the Great Eastern

Alabama. The Pinhoti Trail, from the restored fire tower on Flagg Mountain. The Alabama Forestry Commission and the Alabama Trails Foundation dedicated it as the Pinhoti's Mile 0 in October 2025.

Georgia. The rest of the Pinhoti, then a road walk through Lyerly and Menlo to Lookout Mountain.

Tennessee. Through Chattanooga, across the Tennessee River on the Walnut Street Bridge, then the Cumberland Trail along the edge of the Cumberland Plateau to Cumberland Gap. The state park is still building parts of the Cumberland Trail, so road walks fill the stretches that aren't open yet.

Kentucky. The Pine Mountain State Scenic Trail along the Pine Mountain ridge, with road walks linking its built sections.

Virginia and West Virginia. The line follows the border between the two states for long stretches: the TuGuNu section through southern West Virginia, the Allegheny Trail, and the Tuscarora Trail to the Potomac at Hancock, Maryland.

Maryland. The C&O Canal Towpath through the Paw Paw Tunnel, a stretch shared with the Great American Rail-Trail, and Green Ridge State Forest between the Potomac and the Pennsylvania line.

Pennsylvania. The Mid State Trail, the Great Eastern's spine across the state, from the Maryland line to New York.

New York. The Crystal Hills Trail, part of the Finger Lakes Trail system.

Where a trail and a road both go through, we map the main line and add the other as an alternate, so far in Tennessee, Virginia and Pennsylvania.

What to know before you go

From the land managers' and the Great Eastern Trail Association's latest notices, checked November 12, 2026:

• Most Great Eastern markers were taken down along the Cumberland Trail in early 2025. In Tennessee you follow the Cumberland Trail's own blazes.
• The Cumberland Trail between Devils Racetrack and Eagle Bluff, near Caryville, is closed. We're working out the way around it with the state park.
• Daddy's Creek on the Cumberland Trail has no bridge. You wade it at the campsite, so check the water level before you go.
• There's no parking where the Cumberland Trail crosses TN 30 west of Dayton.
• In West Virginia, the Mary Ingles Trail by Bluestone Lake is closed after repeated flooding. For now the Great Eastern follows WV 20 from Hinton to the Bluestone Park Road.

Check with each land manager and the weather forecast before any hike. Conditions change faster than any map.

How long is the Great Eastern Trail?

We'll publish our own measured length when the line is finished in December. Figures quoted elsewhere vary with the route each source follows, and the route keeps changing as new trail opens.

How long does a thru-hike take?

Joanna "Someday" Swanson and Bart "Hillbilly Bart" Houck made the first thru-hike in 2013, leaving Alabama on January 10 and reaching New York on June 18, a little over five months. Kathy Finch walked it southbound in 2016. Tim Hupp tells us the most recent thru-hike was in 2020.

Is the Great Eastern an alternative to the Appalachian Trail?

That's what it was built to be. North of Georgia it runs parallel to the Appalachian Trail, a little to the west, through the same mountains with a small fraction of the people. Swanson and Houck walked the whole thing with nobody but each other. Bernie Krausse sees it as a great choice for hikers who want something beyond the AT, or instead of it.

Bernie Krausse walks it in 2027

Bernie has walked the Appalachian, Pacific Crest and Continental Divide trails twice each. This year he walked from the U.S. Capitol to the Pacific at La Push, Washington, in what's believed to be the first end-to-end thru-hike of the Great American Rail-Trail. In 2027 he walks the Great Eastern northbound from Flagg Mountain, and his weekly dispatches will land here. Catch up on his Great American hike.

Get the free Great Eastern track first. Sign up free:

Hiked part of the Great Eastern?

If you've walked any of it in the last few years, email us at support@hikingamerica.com with what you found: a closure, a reroute, a missing blaze, a road walk you'd skip. Every hiker who sends field data gets credit in the guide.

Hiking America maps long trails for people on foot: the American Discovery Trail, the Great American Rail-Trail and now the Great Eastern. Tim Hupp welcomed the project before we drew a single line. Read how it started.

Hike Your Hike - John. 🥾

Hiking America is an independent navigation resource and is not part of the Great Eastern Trail Association. Learn about GETA at greateasterntrail.net.