Yes. Forty miles on the AT in Shenandoah National Park.Originally Posted by JustaTouron
Forty flat miles in SNP is vastly different than forty miles in the Smokies or forty miles in the Whites.
Getting lost is a way to find yourself.
I'm sure he'll find that out very quickly
"It was on the first of May, in the year 1769, that I resigned my domestic happiness for a time, and left my family and peaceable habitation on the Yadkin River, in North Carolina, to wander through the wilderness of America." - Daniel Boone
We were talking about him last night in Gooch Shelter, look forward to meeting him
Hammock Hanger
Section Hiker
Nature Lover
I figure the blind guy has much better odds, than the dude that wants to do the triple crown plus the NCT in one year or the yahoos that are gonna try to run 100 miles in 24 hours thru ice.
Love people and use things; never the reverse.
Mt. Katahdin would be a lot quicker to climb if its darn access trail didn't start all the way down in Georgia.
There is a vast difference between most recreational GPS units and centimeter accurate units used in commercial surveying. I have access to sub-meter capable units (non post-processed accuracy) that cost about 5k a whack. They chew through battery power pretty quick, and are heavy. Not hiker's tools. They would keep you on the trail except in the deepest ravines (like Mahoosuc Notch) where you can't "see" enough satellites to get a good fix.
This guy is going to have to evolve his techniques and expectations as he goes, like we all did, according to the conditions he finds on the trail. He may find he lacks some necessary capabilities to get it done. He may find he needs to rely on his videographer for safety and occasional direction. So what? Does it say anyting about anyone else's hike, or the AT that he doesn't finish with the same assumptions, methods, etc. as when he began? Hell no. None of us came off the trail the same people, or the same hikers we were when we started.
This is how he thinks he's going to do it now, at this moment, that won't last more than a few days before he finds the need to make adjustments. That's cool.
Andrew "Iceman" Priestley
AT'95, GA>ME
Non nobis Domine, non nobis sed Nomini Tuo da Gloriam
Not for us O Lord, not for us but in Your Name is the Glory
So freaking what how accurate the GPS unit is? The DANG MAPS for the AT are not that accurate.
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
Are you saying if he can make it from Springer to Neels than he is good to go for the entire trail?
He is testing his strategy on that stretch right now! As are a bunch of other hikers who may have arrived at Springer with wrong gear, bad plans, or unrealistic goals.
Love people and use things; never the reverse.
Mt. Katahdin would be a lot quicker to climb if its darn access trail didn't start all the way down in Georgia.
No, but it would be an impressive/incredible accomplishment. Again, without a dog, human companion, or some limited sight, he is not going to make it. His whole shtick is to do it by himself, ain't gonna happen.
He got the cart before the horse. HIS hike, as he saw it, required a ton of money to be allocated AHEAD of time. IMO, he has not tested his strategy adequately by just doing SNP.
These are my opinions. I love his spunk. I just think his "business model" is foolhardy.
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
If a sighted person did the same thing would you be just as critical?
Let say someone posted the following on Whiteblaze:
"Wow. I just went on my first backpacking trip, 40 miles on the AT thru the Shenandoah National Park. I don't think I have ever had some much fun in my life. Now I am thinking of doing the entire AT. I got about $6000 in saving I had planned on using for a trip thru Europe. I don't own any gear (I borrowed a friends for that trip). So I figure I need to invest about $1500 in gear and that will leave me $4500 for expenses. Should I go for it or do I need to test my backpacking on a more difficult section before investing $1500 in gear?"
What would the response be on this board be? I bet it would be 95%+ "Go for it" I doubt many would say, "You need to test your hiking skills in the Whites or the Smokies before you commit to something as challenging as the AT. SNP is a joke of a section when compared to other areas of the trail."
And it is this bias against the seeing impared that this hikers is fighting against and I bet he proves his doubters wrong.
Love people and use things; never the reverse.
Mt. Katahdin would be a lot quicker to climb if its darn access trail didn't start all the way down in Georgia.
This link does not seem to work. It has failed each time I've tried it.
And for what it's worth, in my book as soon as he sets foot on the AT, he's done more than 99% of Americans and thus has already succeeded. A shortened thru-hike is not a failed hike. If that were so, I suppose all my section hikes were failures and for naught.
He already went to law school and passed the bar exam on the first try. I wonder how many keyboard experts can say that. I say more power to him on this endeavor too, just for getting off the couch and trying.
Rain Man
.
[I]ye shall not pollute the land wherein ye are: ... Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit....[/I]. Numbers 35
[url]www.MeetUp.com/NashvilleBackpacker[/url]
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I don't know, maybe he has a chance. At least he isn't going out there completely clueless.
I just wonder if his GPS is really accurate enough if the data was taken off of maps. There are a lot of places the trail will suddenly vear off in an unexpected direction and you'd have to know the exact spot that happens, to the inch. Even those of us who can see often have to hunt around to figure out where the heck the trail suddenly went to. Road crossings can be particularly confusing. Maps just don't show this kind of fine detail. Little jogs in the trail are often shown as a straight line. Being accurate to 10 feet just isn't good enough in many places.
Someone would have had to have mapped every foot step of the trail by GPS and he would need nearly constant feedback from the device for this to really work. I suspect he will get a lot of suttle hints from his videographer along the way.
Still, he might make it farther than some wantabe thru hikers.
Follow slogoen on Instagram.
My response to someone who did their first backpacking trip and wants to do the AT?
Sounds awesome! I'd get in some more backpacking trips before you go for the big event. Besides being fun (who doesn't want to go on weekend backpacking trips???), it will let you test out your gear and help you to get a base level of pre-trail fitness. If you have the time and resources, you may want to do a shorter 1-2 week hike this year before going on the AT. Besides being fun and letting you dial in your gear, it will let you discover if long distance hiking is for you or not.
Good luck. Be safe. And have fun!
Come to think of it..that is basically what I do tell everyone!!!
Paul "Mags" Magnanti
http://pmags.com
Twitter: @pmagsco
Facebook: pmagsblog
The true harvest of my life is intangible...a little stardust caught,a portion of the rainbow I have clutched -Thoreau
Bias: "a partiality that prevents objective consideration of an issue or situation."
I'm not seeing bias so much as pragmatism. It's not biased to think he will have a much tougher time navigating than the typical hiker. It's not biased to think it will be a much greater accomplishment if he succeeds.
The March 1 entry at this blog seems to work:
http://backpackbasecamp.blogspot.com/
I wish him well on this adventure. He seems to have some experience in the outdoors and has talked to Bill Irwin and zero-zero. With the wintry weather down south, it's a tough year for anyone to be starting this early.
Did this guy ask for donations to get the 6K? Is this guy trying to make some point of doing something "new"? ANY able-bodied person can hike the AT, that has been proven over and over again. "It's just walkin'"
You don't seem to get it. I'm rooting for the guy. I want him to succeed. I WANT to be wrong.
It is simply MY OPINION that he cannot complete the AT without a dog, human companion, or limited sight. He is expecting WAY too much from his GPS.
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
I'm a mapping professional (PhD + USGS experience), and I used a Garmin 60sx model GPS on my three week section hike from Springer to Hot Springs last year. That's not a professional unit, but it was very useful in finding springs and shelters. I remember walking up to one shelter and watching the GPS count down 30 ft, 20 ft, 10 ft, spot on! However in one case a digit was obviously transposed and the shelter was not where the GPS thought it was, it was 1/4 mile away. But over all I was impressed at the usefulness although I did not really need the thing.
There were some problems, the unit ate batteries like crazy (2 AA/8 hrs), and sometimes it took an hour to lock onto satellites first thing in the morning.
I've also used this unit on ultraruns where you run around a loop course many times, and when you plot the recorded trails afterwards you see that they do not correspond, they wander as much as 100 ft from the previous loop. It all depends on the number of satellites and the size of the math errors from long distance triangulation.
I imagine the high-priced pro units are very good, although there still will be a few bugs for Mike to deal with, and I wouldn't be surprised if at times the GPS simply didn't work at all. Such is the nature of digital gadgets.
RockDoc - What is the accuracy of the map data ON the GPS? I would imagine that if the map data was not collected by one of those high-end GPSs it would be garbage-in, garbage-out with errors similar to what you found on your loops.
If Mike had someone hike the whole AT with a high-end GPS, and then download that data to HIS device, his data would be pretty good. As it is I just don't have that much faith in the actual foot path data. I do have faith in the data for locating most shelters etc.
Fear ridges that are depicted as flat lines on a profile map.
I understand what your saying, but I was under the impression that high quality (expensive) GPS was the gold standard of ground truth these days. I know that for true precision in the cm range you need to do relative GPS from a known datum. What do you use in your professional work?
I had the pleasure of meeting Mike, and Gary his cameraman, at Mountain Crossings/ Neels gap today.
They have (wisely IMHO) postponed starting until Saturday to let the 3' drifts subside some..
Mike knows his stuff and needed little "shaking down"..now Gary...
too much camera gear! I believe he will start with about 15lbs less than he arrived with.
I wish them well.
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