The Red Blaze

Red Blaze investigates the accidental deaths that have happened to long-distance section and thru hikers on the Appalachian Trail. The book's concept is a subset of a much larger project to research and document hiking and backpacking fatalities related to the Appalachian Trail for all trail users. That work has been published as an ebook and as a paperback as "Trail's End" by the same author.

The other major departure from the format of the original "Trail's End," aside from the more specific scope related to long-distance backpackers, is that the materials are presented by state and in the order as each story is encountered as if the reader were on a continuous northbound hike along the Appalachian Trail all the way from Georgia to Maine.

In addition to the brief summaries for the known incidents that have occurred out on the trail and a final chapter analyzing and summarizing the predominant accident types for long-distance trail users on the AT, the author also briefly describes each state's section of the trail from his own personal experiences from a 2019 NOBO thru hike and subsequent section hikes over the years since.

This current version of Red Blaze, published in late 2023, summarizes a total of 42 fatal incidents. While the detailed accounts of other types of trail users (day hikers and short-term overnight trail users) are not explicitly included in this material, the statistics and relevant data for what is known about those accidents is presented and discussed in the book's summary chapter by way of comparison to the unique population of Appalachian Trail section and thru hikers.