View Full Version : Mileage wheel idea
Gambit McCrae
09-09-2014, 10:32
So I was wandering how often the AT or any trail for that matter is measured using a wheel, and how difficult that could be, and I came up with an idea and with with being slightly bored I painted you all a pretty picture to show what I am thinking of.
28293
you could always ask bob lockbaum----who did the mileage for the GSMNP a few years ago.....
here's a link to his story...
http://www.smhclub.org/Stories/Lochbaum.htm
Sarcasm the elf
09-09-2014, 11:15
The mileage wheel has been done, Bryson mentioned it in A Walk in The Woods.
More recently I believe they have surveyed the trail with GPS.
I would think adding a little weight to the wheel would improve its trail grip and lessen bouncing. As long as one has a wheel, perhaps moving the pack down to the wheel frame would lighten the load, at least the apparent load. I have seen a trailing wheeled pack like this before. One wears the harness, the external frame pack is attached at about hip level, and a wheel is attached at the other end of the pack.
I read several years ago that someone mileage-wheeled the entire length of the Pinhoti trail, although I believe the Pinhoti has been extended since then.
28294
WingedMonkey
09-09-2014, 11:27
George Masa (1881-1933)
“Ah, he was a dear little man,” recalled George Masa’s friend and fellow hiker, the late Asheville architect Anthony Lord. “When I first knew him, he was a very popular member of the Carolina Mountain Club. A great hiker…he had one of those little bicycle wheel trail-measuring devices and he pushed it all around through the mountains and measured the distances from here to there. And…a great 8 x 10 camera that he carried in a canvas thing on his back.”
http://wncmagazine.com/feature/a_photographic_memory
Alleghanian Orogeny
09-09-2014, 11:56
Allen de Hart, a retired Louisburg College professor, mapped the entire MST in North Carolina with a wheel some time in the fairly recent past. He also mapped many other trails in the process of writing over 10 hiking guidebooks.
AO
Traveler
09-09-2014, 13:12
Allen de Hart, a retired Louisburg College professor, mapped the entire MST in North Carolina with a wheel some time in the fairly recent past. He also mapped many other trails in the process of writing over 10 hiking guidebooks.
AO
Does anyone know if there was any significant mileage recording than GPS records? GPS would not necessarily pick up the vertical gain of steep terrain if they are only measuring point A to B in two dimensions.
Another issue with GPS is how often the instrument fixes its location. On the PA Mid State Trail we had wheeled distance be up to 4% longer than recorded on recreational grade GPS receivers, on relatively flat (but rocky) ridgetop profile. I suspect this may be a greater factor than the inclination of the terrain, remember the Earth is smoother than a billiard ball.
Traveler
09-09-2014, 17:05
Another issue with GPS is how often the instrument fixes its location. On the PA Mid State Trail we had wheeled distance be up to 4% longer than recorded on recreational grade GPS receivers, on relatively flat (but rocky) ridgetop profile. I suspect this may be a greater factor than the inclination of the terrain, remember the Earth is smoother than a billiard ball.
Only smoother if the billiard ball is increased in size to the earth... or vice versa. GPS measures distance on a map in two dimensions, you can walk a half mile up very steep terrain and only register about a quarter mile of distance covered horizontally.
Another Kevin
09-09-2014, 17:21
GPS reads out elevation as well, although that's commonly ignored by the tools that process GPS data.
In any case, the 'length' of an irregular object like a trail will always depend on the scale, or the precision to which you measure it. It's the "coastline paradox (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastline_paradox)." Historically, the precision obtained by a mileage wheel has been the "gold standard." But there really isn't a good way to define, "distance."
LIhikers
09-10-2014, 01:17
The mileage wheel has been done, Bryson mentioned it in A Walk in The Woods.
More recently I believe they have surveyed the trail with GPS.
And not so recently. There used to be a hiker that went by the trail name of Del Doc, or maybe Doc Del, who covered the whole AT a couple of times with a full size pack loaded with GPS equipment. We knew something was up when we saw the antenna sticking out the top of the pack. We shared a break at some shelter with him and got a full explanation of what he was doing. That must have been 10 or more years ago I think. He's no longer hiking on this earth.
jersey joe
09-10-2014, 09:49
And not so recently. There used to be a hiker that went by the trail name of Del Doc, or maybe Doc Del, who covered the whole AT a couple of times with a full size pack loaded with GPS equipment. We knew something was up when we saw the antenna sticking out the top of the pack. We shared a break at some shelter with him and got a full explanation of what he was doing. That must have been 10 or more years ago I think. He's no longer hiking on this earth.
I ran into Del Doc on my 2002 thru hike, so 12 years ago now.
He did pass away, more on that, and him, here: http://www.whiteblaze.net/forum/showthread.php?4760-Del-Doc-has-passed-away
Just Bill
09-10-2014, 11:45
Yar, a trimble device mounted in a backpack is the most accurate mapping tool I know of. I used GPS for survey work for a time, a typical unit (assuming good connections) is accurate to a yard in the x,y axis, and 1/10 of inch vertically. The BIG assumption is that you have a solid connection, which is limited by trees, buildings (rockfaces), and even atmospheric events. While the devices are accurate enough to say, grade a parking lot or highway to within a tenth (1.25") there are many times during a typical workday when the connection is lost and work is put on hold.
Point being-
GPS is good, at least 5 trips would likely fill in enough missing data from any single run.
The simple wheel (if user error is ignored) is more accurate for distance, for elevation- you'd need to shoot grades along the whole route. Likely you could walk five times faster than you could set up and shoot the whole trail with a total station (electronic surveyors' transit).
To achieve dead accuracy- you can add a millimeter GPS, which is a station that provides a laser as a benchmark to eliminate "bounce" from GPS signal loss- these systems are only used on the largest of highway jobs though and would be impractical/useless in the woods.
OR- be happy with the +/- 1% accuracy we have and call it a day:D
The AT's been "wheeled" from end to end a number of times. I've seen pix in some old journals and books. (Didn't Warren Doyle do this once or twice?) They had reasonably accurate mileage figures long before there was GPS. Even so, the AT has mutated and grown several percent over the years. Whenever a section is rerouted -- which happens often -- the length changes again.
And of course you wonder how certain sections (eg. Mahoosuc Notch) can be wheeled at all. I imagine different hikers could wheel out wildly differing measurements depending on hiking style and other factors. Maybe several percent variation in really rocky, gnarly terrain.