I can think of other places where the trail goes past large radar and VOR installations. (Snowbird Mtn, Apple Orchard Mtn.)
Originally Posted by rafe
similar to my "what if" hypothetical about removing the trail from the northern presis if it avoided a road walk- theres all sorts of ugly unpleasant stuff on top of mt washington mucking up the view that you have to walk by. is anyone talking about moving the trail off the summit (would be easy to do) so hikers dont have to see it? of course not.
the people who decide these things, IMO, seem to make a big deal over nothing every so often.
having just walked it on the same hike, i have to say, the current trail routing on whitetop is odd too. its shorter, so i didnt notice it and theres no longer an obvious different route that still exists and is shown on the hiking maps, so it didnt register as strongly, but really, just go over the summit of the mountain. you break out into the open, see the top of the mountain looming in front of you, and then boom back into tree cover? c'mon!
often times folks on this board suggest i do something like this. i almost never do for two reasons the first is the assumption the person i'd be contacting has better things to do, and the second is the feeling that, often times (and this case, because of the years involved, is definitely one of those) they probably dont have the answer.
but in any case, i e-mailed the maintaining organization. my e-mail was forwarded to the president, she responded. she had some insight about the general area, specifically about relos just to the north and linking them up together, but no real answer. in fact, she seemed not to know some of the info that people have posted here (this is NOT a criticism of her, no matter how hard some of you will try and read it that way).
the most interesting thing she had to share was that she has noticed the same thing and has had informal conversations about feeling like the AT should be at the top of that ridge instead of the side of it with other people who have a say in the matter at various times.
Maybe the folks who installed and maintain the tower(s) on Whitetop heard stories about some less than desirable thru-hiker behavior and insisted on the trail being relocated???? Just a thought.
maybe, but id be more inclined to chalk it up to the fact that in different places different parts of the trail are managed by different people and they have different concepts of what the trail should be like.
I remember making the same observation when I hiked this section a couple years ago. Several SOBO thru-hikers I ran into in Damascus admitted that they had walked the VA Creeper Trail into town instead of following the white blazes. After following the white blazes myself the next day, it was easy to see why. The Creeper Trail was easy walking along an old railroad bed and great scenery, while the AT was longer, much steeper, and often rough trail with very little interesting scenery. But the reason for the separate routes was also pretty obvious - the Creeper trail is a multi-use trail used by tons of cyclists and equestrians, and adding AT hikers into the mix would make for a crowded trail.
Then in the Grayson Highlands section, it was plain as day that the trail was designed to take the longest and most circuitous route through the highlands. One could shave several miles off of their walk by following the Pine Mtn trail north from Rhododendron Gap, but with gorgeous scenery like that, why would one want to?
As far as the last section from VA 603 to VA 16, the climb up Hurricane Mtn was unavoidable, and my best guess is the rest of it was routed to pass more water sources. The IMT route follows the ridgeline and it looks pretty dry. If the trail had followed the IMT route, in all likelihood there would be no Hurricane Mtn shelter (which is a very nice shelter BTW). There are numerous other places along the AT where the trail follows neither the shortest nor the easiest route, and I'm sure in each case the trail clubs had good reason for building the trail where they did.
It's all good in the woods.
the "need" for a shelter in that stretch is one of the things i considered, but if the AT was still on top of the ridge, the shelter could then be off on a side trail, which i think would be less than a mile. theres worse shelter locations on the AT as far as distance off the actual trail. same for the water source at the shelter. and theres water at the falls further north, which i'm guessing is accessible from the top of the ridge, via the trail by the falls if no other way. a few miles without water doesnt seem like a big deal, lol i'm from NJ, the AT here and in surrounding states doesnt have hardly any water at times it seems.
no, as i concluded from what others in this thread have said and what people at the maintaining organization had to add- the AT is indeed not in the best place it could be here, and it ended up where it is probably due to chronology in regards to land acquisitions in the area. it should probably be "corrected" at this point, others who have a say in the matter have noticed his and discussed it. maybe it will happen, but i'm not holding my breath.
A lot of different groups make these decisions, for different reasons.
In Maine, I spoke to a Maintainer about it and he expressed pride that Maine had the baddest, most difficult sections... by recent design. It wasn't that bad back in the 1970's... hence all the PUD's (pointless up and downs).
I've often wondered why Maine has so many river fords, and some of them pretty dangerous at times?? In the south, they make little footbridges over many small ditches and streams. Is that part of their "pride" as well?
Would this competition to be the "baddest" explain why PA routes their sections over piles of loose rocks?
this is just a guess, but i feel pretty confident in it.
when i started really getting into hiking in maine, i was surprised there werent MORE fords. i had heard for years all these wild stories about how theres no bridges over anything in maine and you are constantly getting your feet wet up to your knees. then i went and started hiking and kept finsing myself crossing streams and creeks over footbridges i had long been told didnt exist.
now that said, i soon came to find there ARE places where you do have to ford, of course.
so what decides whether a footbridge is put in or not? as far as i can tell, its a really simple answer- how much use the trail gets. so the trail that goes up saddle back, and the bigelows and baldpate? any water crossings on those have footbridges. trails in some non descript part of the 100 mw or somewhere between caratunk and monsoon? naaah. why not? not nearly the numbers of people hiking them. thats the only logical conclusion i can draw.
now, how does that translate to other parts of the trail? it would seem there must be footbridges across streams all along the trail in not especially heavily traveled areas, so why not in maine? my guess is that, owing to climate, the maintenance and upkeep issues such a bridge requires just much more quickly makes it not feasible if only a small number of people are going to use it.
i think all the "we're a bunch of badasses up here who dont need no stinkin' bridges" stuff is bogus.
Spring snow melt. Wipes out bridges and trail fairly often. That little ankle deep stream you had to wade through in August or September was probably 8 to 10 feet deep in April and May. You know RT 201 at the Kennebec River crossing? That was underwater in 1987 and most of that highway had to be rebuilt. From the looks of it this Fall, its been rebuilt fairly recently, too.
The long term maintainer of Poplar Ridge Shelter, Dave Field has a "why they do the things they do on the AT in Maine" list of answers. Dave has been active for a long time in the MATC and was involved with the major relocation of the trail after the land claims settlement (see my previous post). His answer to why there aren't bridges in Maine is pretty simple, there were bridges over most streams in Maine at one time but spring run off usually takes them out very quickly. Folks "from away" just don't realize how high the streams in Maine can get after a spring thaw accompanied by rain. Its routine for stream flow rates to be 50 to 100 times higher in the spring then summer flows. Along with the water are ice chunks and they can clog up a stream in minutes creating a dam. Unless the bridges are located quite high up off the stream with no abutments in the channel its highly likely that the bridge wont last more a few springs. In areas like the whites, there are suspension bridges that were built by the government but the FS is trying to rip out as many of them as they can as they don't want to maintain them (one was just taken out in the Wild River area recently). Add in recent requirements for ADA compliance (all new MATC privies are now wheelchair accessible) and a suitable bridge is million dollar investment. GMC just put one in over the Winooski and that took years. MATC is still moving and hardening the trail from the land claims settlement and that going to be ongoing for years so its matter to resources.
Anything that isn't paved in the Poconos and gets that many boots trampling it becomes a pile of loose rocks.
I always know where I am. I'm right here.
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