NEW LONDON, N.H. – Though piles of snow outside his home still stubbornly refuse to melt, Dan Allen has closed the book on a winter that, for him, lasted 10 years.

Last month, he reached the summit of Springer Mountain in Georgia, apparently becoming the first person to hike the 2,167-mile Appalachian Trail during winter months only, Dec. 21 to March 20.

“It was a relief,” he said. “When you start out 10 years earlier, you wonder if you are going to live long enough to finish.”

The Appalachian Trail Conference in Harpers Ferry, W.Va., maintains records of those who hike the entire trail and submit a report of their journey.

Last year, 565 people finished and wrote in, said Brian King, a conference spokesman.

Ninety-five percent of those who hike through start in the South in late winter or early spring and tromp north, hoping to end at Mount Katahdin in Maine before the cold of a Northeast winter clamps down, he said.

Though the conference has no record of anyone matching Allen’s feat, a minority do hike from fall into spring, and at least one person has reported hiking all sections except Maine in winter, King said.

Allen, 68, began his trek in Maine on Feb. 9, 1991, nine weeks after he had broken his ankle. He says his journey mirrors his lifelong fascination with winter hiking, his determination to snowshoe for miles and his confidence in his ability to follow a trail buried in drifts.

“I really felt this was nothing more than a logical extension of what I was doing,” he said.

That doesn’t mean he didn’t put a lot of work, mentally and physically, into the trip. He mapped out his schedule months in advance and stuck to it, getting up at 5 a.m. so he could reach shelters before sundown.

He whittled the weight in his pack from 65 pounds to 45, and measured his food by the ounce.

For one-third of the trail, he hiked alone. While in the Northeast, he hiked during the week and returned home on weekends. As he moved south, his wife, Natalie, often accompanied him.

His hiking companions praise his dedication.

“Dan doesn’t come across as a driven personality. He is much more reserved than that,” said Bob Dangel, who has been hiking with Allen since the 1970s. “But he has a tremendous amount of determination.”

As Allen put it: “I can’t say I always stopped to smell the flowers.”

Neal Anderson, another fellow hiker, called Allen a Renaissance man.

Allen holds an undergraduate degree in architecture and master’s degrees in education, physics and environmental engineering. He taught at Proctor Academy and New England College and worked for the state as an environmental engineer before retiring in 1991.

Allen might have finished his trip a year earlier if back pain hadn’t forced him to stop in North Carolina last February. Back home, he learned the pain signaled nerve damage, and despite surgery, he would no longer be able to flex his right foot.

Nevertheless, he returned to the trail a year later, and finished the trek March 10.

“I was looking for a stunt,” he said. “A challenge.”