A friend of mine is thinking about hiking the trail with just a compass and a Delorme Road Atlas, with the belief that the trail is sort of like a blank canvas where you paint you’re own route.
I’m a bit concerned that it sounds a bit over the top even though my friend is well versed in navigation and not in any hurry to complete the trail in one fell swoop.
This is a serious question, and I’m looking for the experienced crowd to respond.
Thanks,
F.o.a.F
Friend of a Friend
I envy people with your friend’s approach. He’ll probably be OK doing that, and he’ll definitely hike his own hike. The shame of it would be that he’d probably miss nice sections of trail tread and walk on ranch, mining and logging roads instead.
The Delorme pages are a good tool to have along, definitely, but I think it would be crazy to pass up Jonothan Ley’s maps available for a contribution at http://www.phlumf.com/travels/cdt/cdtmaps.shtml. They’re easy to print and carry. A good navigator will not get lost with those maps and a compass.
I’m trying to think of areas where your friend would die if he got off trail, but the fact is that there are people, ranches and towns out there. He might go thirsty and hungry, but it’s unlikely to be fatal. Think of the stories.
Garlic
I love Delorme maps for arm-chair backpacking–dreaming about the route, planning re-supplies, overall schedules. They’re also great for “bail out” maps while on the trail. You know, emergency comes up, gotta leave the trail, flip-flop, or whatever. To rely on them for day-to-day pathfinding? Not a good idea.
bowlegs
There are CDT hikers who have decided to “follow the Divide” rather than the trails. Aside from the increased difficulty, there are issues with water (i.e. southern NM and Wyoming have few natural water sources, and even in MT you frequently go to wells for water) and private land ownership - ranches, Indian reservations, Spanish land grant areas, mines etc. - that aren’t friendly to trespassers. By insisting on crossing private land, your friend may end up creating bad PR for future hikers. He may find himself greeted by a gun or a sheriff instead of an offer of help. (It has happened in the past.)
The Delorme is helpful for those times you want to follow roads - but the scale is not great for cross-country routes and finding hiking trails. And most of us would rather follow a two-track in the mountains than a road through the valley whenever possible. Your friend can create his own route, but he needs to be careful about land ownership issues. Delorme doesn’t tell which land is federal and which private. BLM maps do give that information (though the info is often out of date.) And if you use National Forest maps you will know which areas are public use and which not.
Ginny
The DeLorme atlases in many cases do show land ownership, but it’s true that the scale would probably be insufficient to know exactly how the boundaries relate to your on-the-ground position.
As far as painting the blank canvas analogy goes, in spirit I like it, but of course it’ll depend on how well he can paint within the bounds of a canvas that inevitably has holes in it.
blisterfree
Thanks for all your input.
My friend is not a fence jumper and would most certainly respect all posted property, to the point of turning back.
The Ley maps sound like a good idea, I’ll pass along that info.
I couldn’t imagine staring down the barrel of a gun, can you elaborate on what kind of circumstances this happened under?
F.o.a.F.
One guy who hiked in the CDT '99 went up to a ranch house near the border in southern Arizona to ask for water. He was greeted by a hostile rancher. The hiker asked politely for a drink of water but was told in no uncertain terms to move on. Much earlier - late '80’s I think, Stephen Pern wrote about a store owner in Idaho who threatened him with a gun. He reported the threat but was told something along the lines of “Yeah, we know he’s crazy, don’t worry about it.” We had border patrol called and sent after us in 2006 when we approached too near a ranch on the new route. No problem, but the response was remarkably fast.
Ginny
“One guy who hiked in '99” - Was this Willis Whoa, who I believe started in the Cabeza Prieta?
I had a rifle fired, specifically for my benefit, while skirting private land in one of Arizona’s Sky Island ranges. In fact the rancher shot directly across a wash at my last known location. (I was hiding behind boulders about 100 yards away, trying to contain my heart in my chest. He then spent a while driving slowly alongside the wash, presumably trying to find me.)
This sort of thing is definitely the exception and not the rule, though the odds go up near the border with Mexico and also the farther off-route you go, where landowners are less familiar with innocent-meaning hiker types.
blisterfree
Vocal and I hiked down the wrong side of Mangus Mountain, and camped when we found water. Continued following the road the next morning, but we both knew that we were heading in the wrong direction. I kept looking to the west for a way to bushwack through.
Thankfully I listened to Vocal and we stayed on the road, because minutes later three cowboys approached us on horses. They were armed and jokingly said they thought we were drug runners from Mexico.
I apologized that we were misplaced and if we were on their property is was by mistake, and we had seen an posted signs or hopped any fences. They told us we where fine as long as we stayed on the road, which lead further and further away from Pie Town. Still it was an uncomfortable situation.
Flippy