"Did I enjoy it? Yes. It didn't detract from what I was doing. "

Hear Hear. I suggest that folks try it before knocking it. Increasing the daily mileage isn't for everyone, but people can and do enjoy the scenery, get in touch with their surroundings, etc, without having to drop down to some low daily mileage to be able to do so. In fact, being in great shape and spending a lot more continuous time in the outdoors can allow a person to better appreciate this stuff, though of course there's a trade-off in how time gets spent.

I'm also doing the AT this year; I had done about 2/3 (1400 miles or so) as of a week ago but now I'm temporarily home fighting off some, I think, giardia-like cooties that are taking an annoyingly long time to deal with. A couple of older friends and I did a 30+ mile day just to do it in Pennsylvania, but the AT is overall fairly difficult trail (more ups and downs, lower quality trail surface) than the PCT and some other trails I've been on, so 30 there was plenty. But I'm over 50, my friends around 60 years old, and after getting up to speed on the trail and getting through the snow and blowdowns of the early parts our typical day has been in the low 20's.

This is not superhuman stuff, this is just figuring things out, losing weight and getting stronger in the early weeks, getting up early, not (having to) take a lot of breaks. And enjoying the trail and surroundings while walking through it.

I'd also say that some significant parts of any trail (and certainly the AT !) don't have a lot of really scenic or otherwise "I want to hang around here" places. So for a lot of days if a thru-hiker just keeps walking, it's in part because that's about all there is to do. At least some folks certainly do stop and smell the roses when roses there are to smell. On the PCT that's things like doing a side trip to climb Mt. Whitney --- at a point when you're in the best shape of your life to do that. On the AT it's a bit more varied, it might be walking 5 minutes off trail to see the monument to where Audie Murphy's plane crashed or to look at the original Washington Monument. Some places on the AT indeed have too much to look at for a thru-hiker; that's fine by me. I figure it's a kind of a survey, where I can note places I'd like to come back to --- Harper's Ferry historic town, for example.

Bottom line is that if you are willing and able to hike for months on end, you get into good enough shape and figure (or tough) out various things such that the experience is significantly different than for a section or weekend hiker. Sometimes section hikers make comments about how "amazing" thru-hikers are and I'm serious when I tell them that I think that what they're doing is in many ways harder: just when they start to get into shape and get mentally and "process" oriented to the trail, their trip is over, plus they have transportation logistics to worry about for each section.

I do admit to the "fidgeting" part though, I'm fidgeting a lot at home just now, knowing that folks I know are continuing to move north while I'm stopped here waiting to get my strength back!