Date: 2015-04-01
From: Moonachie, NJ

To: hope to get to Hoyt Rd Ct.
Miles today: 10.0

April 1, 2015. Well the "light snow" they predicted turned out to be much more than forecasted. The place where we were doing trail work just last Sunday and was brown and dry then, this morning, it is white and covered with snow. Sure looked like mother nature was playing an April fools joke on me.   I had mentioned before that I really don¢t want to hike in snow unless I really have too, and today I don¢t have to, but it didn¢t look like enough snow to bother me so at 8:45 am, I felt great and off I went. Because I had used the Appalachian Trail Commission¢s own website to study the trails northbound path, I saw that when I got to my first road crossing, Pershing Memorial Drive, I was to turn left, go up the road a bit and then turn right, into the woods then up the hill. As I started my hike and going up the very first hill I was only half heartedly checking for blazes since the worn trail seemed oblivious, even with the snow. I followed what I thought was the Appalachian Trail all the way to Pershing Memorial Drive. When I got there, I turned left onto the road and followed the blazes up the hill. As I hiked up the hill, I did notice the blazes where not well maintained but thought very little of it since the path on my phone app and the path I remembered from studying the map on the AT website, both reassured me I was still on the Appalachian Trail. After turning into the woods I became concerned that something was wrong and maybe I did miss a turn because I saw very few blazes, and the ones I did see were in very poor condition. This is not at all what I have come to expect from NY/NJ TC maintainers of the Appalachian Trail. I felt something was wrong. I went a little further into the woods and finally came across a familiar white blaze in decent condition, again confirming to me I was on the right path. (but I really wasn¢t) By now I was on the north side of the mountain and the snow was a lot deeper and getting deeper the further up the hill I hiked. I had already put on my micro-spikes but within 30 minutes they broke and were useless. The snow was deep, halfway to my knee, I was not having fun and I was getting nowhere fast. Finally getting to the top of the hill I came across an AT white blaze in great condition, all nice white & bright. Looking around I saw many other white blazes in the same great condition but they went in a different direction than the one I just came from. Umm something¢s definitely up. I decided to follow these great white blazes in what I hoped was a northerly direction. It was but there was still plenty of snow and ice on the trail and without my micro-spikes, difficult comes to mind. Reaching the Pershing Monument I decided I did not want to continue hiking in the snow, not really safe and I felt there was something wrong with the AT website and my AT mapping app. I called Gerrie and she picked me up at the Bear Mountain bridge. It was 12 noon. Not really much of a hike, unless you want to count the fabulous stepped trail down the mountain, over 800 steps Wow. Yes that¢s a workout! After arriving home I sent the LDTC leader, Chris, and the NYNJTC regional project coordinator, Sona, an email mentioning my hike and the poor condition of the blazes etc. They responded that for a large portion of my hike I was not on the current Appalachian Trail but was most likely on an abandoned section of the AT that was relocated in 2009! 2009! then why was the AT website¢s interactive map, and my AT app., showing me that it was still the correct way to go? Had I checked the NYNJTC paper map, which by the way was right in my pack, duh, I would have seen that when I got to Pershing Memorial Drive the trail now goes to the right not to the left. The blazes I saw were old blazes that were not thoroughly removed. Those blazes along with my app and the AT website map, had me believing I was going the right way. Here is a great teaching point¢¦ALWAYS CHECK A CURRENT NYNJTC MAP BEFORE ANY HIKE. You might ask when I got to Pershing Memorial Drive, why didn¢t I follow the blazes instead of my app. Well as it happened, I got "off trail" just before Pershing Memorial Drive and came out onto the road about 50¢ up from where the AT currently crosses. I got "off trail" at a poorly marked turn just before the road crossing. Not realizing I was already "off trail", when I got to Pershing Memorial Drive I automatically turned left not right remembering what I saw on the AT map, and what my app was showing. If I had not missed the turn before the road, I would have hiked out onto the road where there were plenty of bright white blazes leading me along the correct path. Even though I had it in my mind to go left, I would have followed the bright white AT blazes, because as we all know, it¢s the 2¢x6" white blazes that guide us along the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine and not a map online nor an app on a phone. After speaking to Chris and Sona, it was decided we would all go out ASAP, which turned out to be Sunday Easter morning, and investigate how I got off trail, correct it and just what blazes I followed, and remove them. We will be contacting the ATC with hopes of correcting their web site interactive map. OK big lesson learned today... Always check a current paper map before you hike, don¢t just have it, look at it.   but I still didn¢t want to hike in the snow and being a lot of my hike was at higher elevations, that meant the possibility of snow and ice, It was OK to stop, I can wait a week or two.So I¢m back in Moonachie with only 10 AT miles hiked so far. I¢ll be back out next week after another weekend of trail work. More then... ../Nite All.,...PITA..,,,