Benton MacKaye Trail Thru-Hike Permit

Only for the part inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Outside the park, on Chattahoochee-Oconee, Cherokee and Nantahala National Forest land (including the Cohutta Wilderness), no permit is required. Once you cross into the park near Fontana Dam, you need a Great Smoky Mountains backcountry permit, booked on Recreation.gov, for every night you camp inside the park boundary.

287.6 miles, from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Big Creek in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, per the Benton MacKaye Trail Association's current official mileage. Most thru-hikers take three to five weeks.

Yes. Both trails start on Springer Mountain and cross each other four times in the first seven miles before splitting at Long Creek Falls. They meet again about 180 miles later near Fontana Dam and largely share the corridor through the Smokies to the BMT's Big Creek terminus near Davenport Gap.

Yes, the trail is hiked in both directions, though the Benton MacKaye Trail Association's own mile markers and trip-planning tables are published northbound (NOBO) from Springer Mountain.

No canister is required, but every backcountry permit holder must hang all food, cookware, toiletries and trash on the park's cable food-storage system at each campsite or shelter -- if you carry a canister anyway, you still have to hang it on the cable.

Recreation.gov opens each night of your itinerary exactly one month before that night's date. There is no lottery; it is a straightforward, site-specific reservation, so you build your GSMNP itinerary a campsite and shelter at a time as your dates come into that window.

Only for large parties. The Forest Service requires a group permit for more than 75 people; anyone hiking as an individual or a normal-size group needs nothing at all.

Mount Sterling, at 5,842 feet, inside Great Smoky Mountains National Park near the trail's northern end -- the Benton MacKaye Trail Association calls it the BMT's highpoint.