View Full Version : Inconsistent mileages in reference books...
This might be someplace on the site, but as a journal poster for an 07 thruhiker, I find mileages come up different depending on the book you look at - data book, companion, handbook. How come? What's the deal?:-?
V8
SGT Rock
04-08-2007, 20:37
Well four issues:
1. Sometimes one guide is from one year and the other uses mileage data from another. With Relos the trail changes a little every year
2. Sometimes there are edit errors.
3. Some people cannot count.
superman
04-08-2007, 21:05
I think every year there are some people that get all worked up when they discover something real or imagined that isn't correct in any of the guide books. The information is only a guide...it is not chiseled in stone. The information provided to aide hikers on the AT is far better than you get for any of the other trails. It's way more than what is needed to hike the trail. All you need to hike the trail is to face north and follow the blazes...everything else is a comfort factor. I know people who carry a gps and moniter it almost constantly. I don't need or care about having a lot of information. Mostly you want to know where the water is and where to resupply. It's all good. Just find what you're comfortable with and don't sweat the details. The AT is a wonderful trail and there is more than enough information for most folks to get from GA to ME.
TJ aka Teej
04-08-2007, 22:20
Earl Shaffer once told me he thought hiking guides "weren't worth spit," since the best they can ever be is a report on what the Trail was like at a certain past point in time. The ATC recieves mileage changes and relo information from the various maintaining clubs, and Dan Chazin uses some sort of magic to turn those numbers into the ATC's DataBook. What's in there is "official," but sometimes the clubs are late in reporting, report what they planned and not what they did, etc. I know Wingfoot has calculated a few of those 'extra' changes into at least one of his guides, but the Companion uses the Databook information. The State-by-State guides are sometimes a decade out of date.
re GPS: The ATC's gps locations are well off the mark for several lean-tos in Maine and N.H. If you put the ATC's overlay onto Google Earth you can see the waypoints are sometimes on the wrong side of the mountain!
Blue Jay
04-08-2007, 23:18
You forgot the actual signs on the trail which are also often wrong. Sometimes you can walk a mile and see a sign that says you are two back. Shelters and road crossings are the only true markers and you can be sure they won't be where you think they are.
When I am hiking I really don't know what my real speed is except I am a slow hiker compared to most. Sometimes while using a guide it might say it is 4 miles to a water source or shelter and after two hours I expect it around every bend and it never is. I am just a poor judge of distance as are most hikers. Sometimes a goal will be reached a hour before I expected it but usually it is a longer time frame than I expected. It depends on if the hiking is up hill- down-hill, hard or easy. The guides and signs sre a fairly accurate measure of distances but with relocations even the best one may not be accurate. Just hike, use them as an indication of approximately what to expect and when you get there you will get there. Hiking is not an exact science. It seems every mile you hike is either easier or harder than the map or guide indicated it should have been.
Fiddleback
04-09-2007, 19:44
It may not apply to the AT as much as others but sometimes trails and their mileage change.
Once my boss and I had to drive from San Antonio to Waco. We were discussing how long it would take when he said, "It's not as far as it use to be." That cracked me up.:D When I stopped laughing he explained new stretches of highway had shaved some miles off the distance.
FB
Spirit Walker
04-11-2007, 02:04
One think I learned a long time ago, just when you are absolutely sure you must have passed the shelter/trail junction etc. because surely you should have passed it a long time ago, you'll find that it is five minutes ahead. I don't know how many times I've sat down with the map/guidebook and tried to figure out how I could have missed it, and then when I started walking again, there it was just around the corner. Jim and I laugh about it - but it's always "five minutes more. "
Wanderingson
04-11-2007, 02:56
It may not apply to the AT as much as others but sometimes trails and their mileage change.
Once my boss and I had to drive from San Antonio to Waco. We were discussing how long it would take when he said, "It's not as far as it use to be." That cracked me up.:D When I stopped laughing he explained new stretches of highway had shaved some miles off the distance.
FB
Another funny quote I got while asking directions in Montgomery, Al. "you can go down the road right here, but you can't get there from here". WHAAAT?
Another funny quote I got while asking directions in Montgomery, Al. "you can go down the road right here, but you can't get there from here". WHAAAT?
I like the one: "Turn right where the old firehouse used to be"
RockStar
04-11-2007, 05:25
The information provided to aide hikers on the AT is far better than you get for any of the other trails.
YOU GOT THAT RIGHT!
One think I learned a long time ago, just when you are absolutely sure you must have passed the shelter/trail junction etc. because surely you should have passed it a long time ago, you'll find that it is five minutes ahead. I don't know how many times I've sat down with the map/guidebook and tried to figure out how I could have missed it, and then when I started walking again, there it was just around the corner. Jim and I laugh about it - but it's always "five minutes more. "
I thought I was the only one in this elite group but, as I suspected I am not. :p
Another funny quote I got while asking directions in Montgomery, Al. "you can go down the road right here, but you can't get there from here". WHAAAT?
I have lived here for 17 of my 27 years and that is the way 90% of the ppl here give directions. That and *points down to friedens reply
I like the one: "Turn right where the old firehouse used to be"
THIS too kills me. lol
This might be someplace on the site, but as a journal poster for an 07 thruhiker, I find mileages come up different depending on the book you look at - data book, companion, handbook. How come? What's the deal?:-?
V8
according to the Appalachian Trail DATA book...the trail is 2,175.6 miles(GPS mileage)...go by the 2007 DATA BOOK!
see ya'll in VA Apr 25-may 6
superman
04-11-2007, 11:27
I was looking for a trail in VT. I stopped and asked an old Vermonter where it was. He said to turn right after the gray house. Easy direction I thought. So I came to a gray house, turned right and there was no trail down that road. This repeated a few times until I came to the Gray House Restaurant. He never said anything about it being a restaurant.
I noticed that last year, but mostly because I missed a few cool campsites that I thought were in a different place.
White blazes for me! :)
Pennsylvania Rose
04-11-2007, 12:18
Maybe it's not always our imaginations. Last week my kids and I did a loop hike in the Smokies. The guidebook we used is very reliable and agreed with the trail signs. The trails themselves haven't changed in years and years. However, two of the trails we used were being measured, and there were labeled flags every 1000 feet. We didn't pay much attention on the trail we took downhill, but the uphill trail was be followed for exactly 3 miles. We counted down each flag as we passed. And then we passed another flag...and another. The trail was actually almost 3.5 miles according to the flags. Don't know who made the mistake - the original or current measurer. Regardless, it was a LONG extra 1/2 mile to the trail junction we were looking for.
hillsidedigger
04-11-2007, 20:00
Accurately measuring distances in rugged terrain is an expensive undertaking so to save money I guess they often have just 'guessed at it'.
WalkinHome
04-13-2007, 10:36
TJ pretty much covers it but I would add that as volunteers, we would rather devote the bulk of our time to protecting/improving the trail rather that spending much of that time adopting "minor" mileage changes of the AT. I can say that as the trail in Maine is pretty much set in stone (pardon the pun). Using all of the reference points available to you (summits, roads, streams etc) you should be able to tell pretty much where you are. In doing the last set of Maine maps, my statement to the cartographer (when we started dancing around the degree of accuracy on some spots) was " Hey, we are not calling in a B-52 strike here." I have to rely on information supplied to me by our "Overseers" who each are responsible for about 50-60 miles of trail. The "Chinese telephone" influence can apply here. LOL
Be safe
Alligator
04-13-2007, 10:52
The data collected will never be 100% accurate. A little bit of an aside, but the maps we use also have inaccuracies, with map standards varying by type of map, producer, scale, etc.
Thanks all - the question came up while posting trail journals for "Uncle Tom", and between his reports, the data book, the TJ calculations, the companion and the handbook, well...lotsa choices!!
Touch of Grey
04-13-2007, 15:24
This leads one to also wonder why the ATC calls the AT a 2000 mile trail and anyone who finishes it as a 2000 miler. Maybe that should have been our first clue.
Of course I feel the same way about water sources which are sketchy at best in Georgia, partly due to the lack of rain down there for the past several months.
TOG