I’m a section hiker, and I do not take my phone on the trail with me, however it is waiting in the car. I usually cannot pick up a signal until I get back to the interstate or a large city.
Kathy
Cell phone service
system
#22
You should be ok with either cingular or verison. I hiked the trail in 2001 and had cingular coverage almost every where except Maine. You will find the coverage poor almost anytime you are in a gap (most of the little towns down south are in gaps) and at many shelters that tend to be in lower areas (that’s where the water can be found) but if you move to higher ground you can usually get a signal. Be careful with discount services like T-Mobile. Their coverage areas tend to be spotty since they usually skim the cream and don’t really care about areas with less user density. To make a point to all those that want to rant about cell phones. I met a fellow thru hiker on Springer and heard him say “the dumbest question anyone ever asked me about thru hiking was whether I was going to carry a cell phone.” I was hiking with this gentleman when he broke his ankle in the smokies and before his butt hit the ground, he asked me to call 911. Didn’t seem so dumb then or when the rangers hauled him out on horse back. It also came in handy in Virginia when we helped EMT’s locate a heart attack victim on the trail. I’m always amazed at those who are so strongly opposed to technology like cell phones but don’t seem to mind using technology like the internet to hammer everyone with their personal opinions about the world. You’ll make me a believer when you start hiking bare foot and sleep on the bare ground under a bear skin sans all the ultralight equipment and gore tex. Never heard any of these folks complain about the shelter built from trees in a spot cleared of trees and of course they all walked to Springer and home from Katahdin so the view wouldn’t be spoiled by things like highways and the air polluted by cars.
Two Step