View Full Version : Great Eastern Trail
Majortrauma
08-02-2012, 16:36
I did a search on WB for the GET and there were a few comments that the completion of the GET and all the shelters etc that the AT has would be "decades" away with no comments that I saw indicating that it would NOT be that long.
Granted, 20 years is technically plural for decade but do you really think the completion of the GET is 20 or more years away?
WingedMonkey
08-02-2012, 17:03
I can see it being that long before Alabama has it off of road walking.
If ever.
Majortrauma
08-02-2012, 17:13
What is Alabama's malfunction or if I believe that "My Cousin Vinny" is a documentary does that explain it all?
You can read about it's progress here:
http://www.greateasterntrail.net/
Cookerhiker
08-02-2012, 18:45
Looks to me like the biggest challenge is $$$ and (probably) lack of willing sellers to fill in all the pieces on private land. This especially appears the case for the southern half of Alabama but I suspect there are numerous other smaller tracts as well.
The Solemates
08-03-2012, 12:31
huh? GET in AL is the Pinhoti, where it terminates at its southern end. there is no road walking.
Tom Murphy
08-03-2012, 12:57
Developing new trails is a lot of work and $$$.
The COHO trail in northern New Hampshire has a very dedicated group of people who have been working a number of years and is still very much a work in progress.
WingedMonkey
08-03-2012, 13:22
huh? GET in AL is the Pinhoti, where it terminates at its southern end. there is no road walking.
The GET is planned to go all the way to the Florida line and to the Florida Trail.
The Solemates
08-03-2012, 15:14
to me, that is the AMT and always has been
The Solemates
08-03-2012, 15:15
AMT or ECT....
(Some mod might want to move this to the GET sub-forum)
The next version of the GET big map for the web site will re-classify the portion south of the south end of the Pinhoti as "Phase II". That will occur as soon as I GET around to it. :)
Seemingly people do road walk across Alabama than attempt much of the rest of the GET, whether they call that AMT, ECT, Alabama Trail, or whatever.
The GET is continuously hikeable north of I-64, but still no one known to me has said they have hiked even all this portion, as section or thru.
Developing trails on private land is a significant undertaking and also not all applicable public land managers have come around to the GET concept. Many if not most of the GET groups develop trails on private land through transient permission rather than by easement or purchase, the GET would be far shorter and more fragmented than it is if land purchase was needed before trail building (case in point: Cumberland Trail in TN where this purchase-before-trail approach is used since it became a state park). If waiting for "willing sellers" is a criterion for "completion" then we are talking about many, many decades especially as the political trends in this country seem to be moving away more than towards the significant public support such an approach implies.
I would love to believe that the GET route in West Virginia would be complete within 20 years. That would be a huge success given the landowner issues in this state. Once this section is finished, it will have been worth waiting for, but until that, there is this 200-mile section with bits and pieces here and there. Just today a request that I worked on for over 2 months was denied by the DNR. We will change their minds, but it's going to take years of work to get this stretch off of roads and into the woods. Decades would not surprise me at all, and even then shelters will not likely exist in southern West Virginia.
I'm proud that we'll get to show off a lot of this incredibly beautiful state . . . someday.
Cookerhiker
08-03-2012, 22:38
(Some mod might want to move this to the GET sub-forum)
The next version of the GET big map for the web site will re-classify the portion south of the south end of the Pinhoti as "Phase II". That will occur as soon as I GET around to it. :)
Seemingly people do road walk across Alabama than attempt much of the rest of the GET, whether they call that AMT, ECT, Alabama Trail, or whatever.
The GET is continuously hikeable north of I-64, but still no one known to me has said they have hiked even all this portion, as section or thru.
Developing trails on private land is a significant undertaking and also not all applicable public land managers have come around to the GET concept. Many if not most of the GET groups develop trails on private land through transient permission rather than by easement or purchase, the GET would be far shorter and more fragmented than it is if land purchase was needed before trail building (case in point: Cumberland Trail in TN where this purchase-before-trail approach is used since it became a state park). If waiting for "willing sellers" is a criterion for "completion" then we are talking about many, many decades especially as the political trends in this country seem to be moving away more than towards the significant public support such an approach implies.
I would love to believe that the GET route in West Virginia would be complete within 20 years. That would be a huge success given the landowner issues in this state. Once this section is finished, it will have been worth waiting for, but until that, there is this 200-mile section with bits and pieces here and there. Just today a request that I worked on for over 2 months was denied by the DNR. We will change their minds, but it's going to take years of work to get this stretch off of roads and into the woods. Decades would not surprise me at all, and even then shelters will not likely exist in southern West Virginia.
I'm proud that we'll get to show off a lot of this incredibly beautiful state . . . someday.
You guys deserve our thanks for your painstaking hard work. Merely hiking a trail is easy; planning a trail is very difficult and tedious.
Erica Gibson
08-04-2012, 02:24
Thanks for sharing.