What A-Train and some others have said (Wolf, good answer on the freakin’ cell phone topic). I never go anywhere on a hike without a map, it’s just good sense. I definitely knew thrus who wouldn’t/didn’t carry them and yes they loved looking at mine! I even knew a woman who wanted to borrow other’s maps and copy down the profiles. You want the information that badly, you should be carrying them. (same with any other item-like TP-yes I knew so called ultralighters who didn’t carry toilet paper, but were happy to borrow others-that’s not how it works).
No, it’s not a true Wilderness experience, there are lots of roads and towns (and personally if you’re not enjoying the towns in the South then you didn’t get the same thing out of this hike, many of those folks have fought to protect that land we got to walk on on the ridges instead of the roads!!), but it’s still a backcountry experience. It’s not the freeway one might think, it’s quite desolate in some areas and for emergency reasons alone a map is essential. The Cream Team (who only carried the Data Book) found themselves caught out above treeline in the Northern Prezzies, after I warned them leaving Washington that afternoon, but they thought they’d just make do. I knew I had bail out options with the RMC huts (Lakes and Madison Huts had just closed for the season) and my eventual home for that night-Valley Way Tentsite- not just because I knew the area but because of the maps. They however, spent a miserable (and illegal) night somewhere after Jefferson. Trail Yeti and Moonshine used the map to bail out of Gentian Pond when she had the allergic rx I referred to in the bee sting thread, he was a convert to maps after that. Emergencies are just that, you can’t plan on them, they happen at unlikely times.
So, having ranted as well about that, how much else do you have to plan? In reality, not really that much. I hiked with guys that had no scheduled mail drops, it worked just fine. They got things from home by calling from the town before. I like the planning part and did it fairly detailed, but found before my LT hike this last Sept, I couldn’t get up the same excitement (but because of taking my dog I relied on maildrops heavily so I could drop his food to us). There were things I wanted in maildrops on the AT so I had them for various items (the aforementioned maps) and didn’t have to shop around in towns for toiletries. But it’s just as easy on the fly too. Someone told me long before I hiked that Flexibility was the key to doing this hike, I tried to honor that. If nothing else, the Trail teaches you to slow down and not obsess so much over all the dumb details in life.
btw, I carried Wingfoot (in big sections, like 1/3s) and the maps. No ATC guidebooks, no Companion or Data Book. My understanding is Wingfoot now incorporates Data Book like information in the back, which is a great marrying of the two systems.
Bluebearee
thats for me and my porridge alone…
(or maybe i will! who knows…)