View Full Version : Guthook & ATC Campsite Use Survey
Hi everyone. Guthook’s Guides is trying to help the Appalachian Trail Conservancy measure use levels at AT campsites. You can help by leaving a comment in the Guthook’s Appalachian Trail app after staying at a shelter or campsite with the number of people that spent the night in and around the site you were at. This will help the ATC anticipate future needs on the AT.
To reiterate: just a number of people is all we want, and it will hopefully give the ATC a much fuller picture of how busy the campsites get. Thanks, and please spread the word!
If you don't have the app, don't worry about it-- maybe just mention this to someone who does have the app and is on the trail. Any amount of info that comes to the ATC this way is better than none :-)
How about making a hot-button that can be pressed that will indicate we stayed there. Using the comments section users will end up with so many comments that they will stop getting read/stop being useful.
How about making a hot-button that can be pressed that will indicate we stayed there. Using the comments section users will end up with so many comments that they will stop getting read/stop being useful.
That's part of the plan for the future, but this was a last-minute idea we had to help the ATC out... I'm not expecting too big a flood of comments, but if it does get pretty big we can clear out some of the clutter from time to time while we work things out. And who knows, maybe we'll think of more good hot-button type things (water availability is a good one, too).
soumodeler
06-06-2017, 13:38
good hot-button type things (water availability is a good one, too).
please!!! :)
please!!! :)
Item added to our weekly meeting schedule for discussion on future app enhancements :-)
Slo-go'en
06-06-2017, 15:43
I can see how knowing about how many people are in the area around me in real time would be useful info.
The problem with a "I was here" hot button is it only counts those with the app and can connect on-line to report. And while the app is popular, it's not universal.
A more accurate (but still often a guess) is for someone to report a head count, best they can figure. I could see someone in every group taking on the nightly head count reporting duty. Having an occupancy data page added to the details folder in the app for each POI would be handy for seeing the current and historic occupancy numbers.
ccartertn
06-06-2017, 17:42
I can see how knowing about how many people are in the area around me in real time would be useful info.
The problem with a "I was here" hot button is it only counts those with the app and can connect on-line to report. And while the app is popular, it's not universal.
A more accurate (but still often a guess) is for someone to report a head count, best they can figure. I could see someone in every group taking on the nightly head count reporting duty. Having an occupancy data page added to the details folder in the app for each POI would be handy for seeing the current and historic occupancy numbers.
Agree with this. Like a WAZE app for the trail....
Maineiac64
06-06-2017, 18:01
As much as I love guthook, it seems like it has limited penetration with those on the trail. It would seem that other estimation methods might be more reliable (survey at road crossings, etc.).
The problem with a "I was here" hot button is it only counts those with the app and can connect on-line to report. And while the app is popular, it's not universal.
As much as I love guthook, it seems like it has limited penetration with those on the trail. It would seem that other estimation methods might be more reliable (survey at road crossings, etc.).
Well, let's not get too far ahead of ourselves here :-) What we're looking for right now is just numbers of people who are staying at a campsite, so as long as one person with the app puts a head-count in the comments at a given date, that's a data point that the ATC probably didn't have before. So if it works out like we're hoping it does, there will be a lot of new data on campsite usage. It's not that we're expecting or hoping for every campsite on the entire trail to have exact data for each night of the year, but any extra info is info that wasn't available before.
Other survey methods are great, too, but if we have the ability to get more info to the ATC about campsite usage than they might otherwise have, my feeling is that it's worth doing. It's basically no extra work for them, and a little extra work for me, and it only adds to the info available from other survey methods.
And heck, even if it doesn't work out to give us any useful info, no harm in trying, right? ;-)
Slo-go'en
06-06-2017, 20:36
Well, I think it's a great idea and will be fun to see how this evolves. I knew feature creep all too well. Hopefully, the word will gets out to the trail and enough partake.
Well, I think it's a great idea and will be fun to see how this evolves. I knew feature creep all too well. Hopefully, the word will gets out to the trail and enough partake.
I'll definitely be thinking of ways to make it more effective, too. The to-do list here is never ending :-)
gpburdelljr
06-06-2017, 22:17
If the ATC wants historical, as opposed to real time, data they could go low tech and have ridge runners leave notebooks in the shelters that are strictly for recording date and number of people. Then they could get counts on days when no one had the app at a particular shelter.
Tundracamper
06-08-2017, 09:26
Sounds to me like they are looking for a reason to close more camping areas. Perhaps I'm just being pessimistic.
Sounds to me like they are looking for a reason to close more camping areas. Perhaps I'm just being pessimistic.
I'm pretty sure you are being pessimistic. Again, this was my idea and just a way to help ATC get more info about how many people are using campsites. There's no plan for what exactly gets done with that, but I could see it just as easily going the opposite direction-- if they can suddenly see more places where crowding is an issue, that might be the push needed to get more campsites. Look at Hawk Mountain... there was lots of crowding in that area, so they opened a large, new campsite last year.