Date: 2006-10-07
To: Trail data and planning 
Miles today: 0.0

I used the Thru-Hikers Handbook written by Dan ¢Wingfoot¢ Bruce as my source of information while hiking the Appalachian Trail. I chose this book over the Appalachian Trail Thru-Hikers Companion and Appalachian Trail Data Book because the Handbook data goes from Springer Mountain, Georgia (south) to Mount Katahdin, Maine (north) the same direction (northbound) I would be hiking the trail. The Appalachian Trail Data Book and Appalachian Trail Thru-Hikers Companion data goes north to south (southbound), the exact opposite direction I was hiking. Another feature of the Wingfoot book is it tallies the mileage as total mileage from Springer in one margin and Katahdin in the other, the Data book does not tally total mileage. I liked this book and figured it would be easier to use because it was written for a hiker going northbound. I suspect the rationale of the Data Book and Companion are to stay in line with the other ATC materials which refer to the AT going from Maine to Georgia. Incidentally the maps also flow from north to south, they are also numbered with the northern most maps having the lower number. I assume the information books can rationalize their direction orientation by saying they are printed to compliment the maps. No matter what the reason they should be written from south to north.I¢m not sure why they stick to the traditional direction, north to south; the northbound thru-hikers represent 65% of the 2000 milers who have hiked the entire AT. The remaining 35% is made up of section hikers, 20%, southbound hikers 10%, and flip-floppers (portions of their thru-hike going both north and south) 5%. These statistics were taken from the ATC website ¢2,000-Miler Facts and Statistics¢ page. With the statistics showing the majority of the thru-hikers hike northbound I don¢t understand why these ATC resources are not tailored to the majority rather than the minority. Okay enough of my soapbox speech on which direction the ATC materials should be written to accommodate. I did find my Handbook to be very helpful the majority of the time. I¢m not sure what resources Wingfoot uses to keep his book up to date but I found some errors that need to be attended to. In one case a bridge had been washed out in 2004 and there was no mention of it in the book. The local hiking club that maintains that section placed signs that recommending hikers use the high water blue blaze trail for safety. When we talked about this at the next shelter a number of hikers mentioned Wingfoot¢s philosophy is to hike every white blaze and not take blue blazes. They felt he might have not mentioned this detour because it doesn¢t align with him; he is a very opinionated individual and makes no bones about it. In all fairness to him he might not have known about this situation before the 2006 publication date. Either way future hikers should use every resource available and common sense when they hike, his book needs some updating.   Sue and I discovered we used our Thru-Hikers Handbooks differently. I looked for the places where the water sources were, the trail crossed roads, and major features were mentioned as well as shelter location. These items helped me determine my hourly and daily progress; it also gave me a heads up on what was coming up. On the other hand Sue used her handbook to follow my progress from shelter to shelter only, the in between items were useless to her. When we looked in our Handbooks, we¢d each focus on different information, sometimes we would not see what the other was seeing. When I planned my itinerary I too used the distance between shelter information as one of the factors. I planned short-term goals based around my food resupply schedule. One of the most important pieces of the shelter information was the water source at the shelter. I had to be concerned with this because some of the shelters did not have a water source, and some had their water a great distance away or down steep hills. I didn¢t want to do any extra walking after hiking all day so I chose shelters with easily accessible water. I made my shelter decision by distance first, water source second, and where did it set me up at the coming up days. Incidentally my wife Sue, my son Chris, my daughter Cindy, and my friends Dean and Brenda each had a copy of the Handbook to follow my progress. Sue used the mileage from Springer to compute my daily mileage for the Trailjournals entries. She would double check her math by ensuring the total mileage agrees with the Handbook mileage.   If you are reading this than you¢ve found Trailjournals, an excellent source of Appalachian Trail information. I read numerous journals over the last few years to prepare for my hike. I then chose a few hikers I thought would be similar to me. I used their data to get a feel what I would be capable of doing and made a preliminary plan of what I thought my progress would be. I also read Whiteblaze at www.whiteblaze.net ; there are a number of articles which I found helpful. The one I liked most was written by Baltimore Jack titled Re-supply along the AT, its written in five parts and very helpful. The other articles are very helpful not to mention the online advice given by experienced hikers.