Total length of the trail

imported
#1

After reading the post ref. elevation change, I was reminded of a conversation Smiley and I had back in PA about the actual, total length of the AT. We all know this year the magic number is 2174.1, but how close is that?

Smiley had heard that there are some people there who believe the trail is anywhere between 100-200 miles longer and some who think shorter. I find that a little high. (I could see an extra 100 miles if you include all the shelter paths and water source trails, but not an extra 100 white blazed. Maybe.) He thought that the last time the Trail had actually been rolled was 1999, but how accurate is that? Is there a way to do it with GPS?

But in the end, does it really matter? I guess not. As we all know, The Trail is more than just a path and numbers are just numbers. But it’d still be nice to know.

Officer Taco

#2

You could do it w/ gps if you kept it on during all travel on the trail and got lucky keeping your signal in the summer with full canopy overhead, but rolling would probably be more accurate. GPS is a straight line point to point unless you’re tracking sats the entire route. At least tht’s the way mine works.
FC

frankcornbread

#3

The ATC has mapped the trail using GPS. Most of the work was done by DelDoc, a near four time 2000 miler who passed away on May 20, 2004. I believe he thru-hiked the trail with a commercial GPS unit at least twice. I met him in the Smokies in April 1999. His antennae stuck prominantly from the top of his backpack.

He wrote about his project in the March/April issue of ATN which is available on-line at:
http://www.appalachiantrail.org/about/pubs/atn/archive/ATN02Mar.pdf

Also on line is an explanation of how the ATC is using GPS:

http://www.appalachiantrail.org/protect/gis/index.html

Celt