Where are the hikers?

[Greenlight]

I did a cursory look see, and didn't find another post on this SERIOUSLY COOL new website by Raincrow. It has AT hiker heat maps.

Impressed beyond words. Check it out:

https://www.wherearethehikers.com/heatmap/

[Ashepabst]

from the website:

How It Works

The visualizations on this site are generated from the locations and dates contained in the Trail Journals entries of Appalachian Trail hikers from 2001-2016. The data is not limited to thru-hikers only; it visualizes all warm bodies on the trail for each day of the year, whether they're thru, section, or day hikers. The final data set includes data from:

• 6,000 hikers
• 234,000 individual entries
• 910 locations
  
  • The top three locations visited were:
    
    • Damascus, VA (4,508 entries)
    • Hot Springs, NC (3,346 entries)
    • Springer Mountain (2,604 entries)
  
  
• 365 days of the year
  
  • April 15 had the most entries (1,611)
  • December 24-26 had the fewest (9 each)

[nsherry61]

It's very cool

[LittleRock]

Very cool! This looks like it took an impressive amount of effort. Thanks for sharing.

I'd been wondering why I'd been seeing more hikers on the trail on my yearly October section hikes as I made it up into central VA. Now I know why - that's when the SOBO 'mini-bubble' typically passes through there.

[Rockit Mann]

That is really cool for section planning - like me right now! Where to go? Looks like anywheres from mid Aug till Nov.

[Berserker]

I saw this site the other day and thought it was pretty darn neat.

I do have to inform everyone that a thru I met earlier this year told me that there is no such thing as a "bubble" though...that's apparently just a fallacy

[JPritch]

Just like that daggon Dot.Com Bubble. I didn't lose any money on that.

[Tundracamper]

Ok, that is really neat!

[Crushed Grapes]

Great resource!

[Nanatuk]

Very cool, thanks!

[Odd Man Out]

Very cool, but there is no label on the y-axis of his graphs. I don't know the total number of hikers at any given point.

[Dan Roper]

Yeah, it looks like the Heat Graph is based on percentages rather than actual numbers. So the graph on December 24 shows "hot spots" because there were 9 total hikers reporting on the AT on those days....so if 1/9th were at Springer, that's a hot spot, and 1/9th at Mount Rogers, that's a hot spot, and so on....making the hot spots for December 24 appear as large as those for April 15 and every other date. I think that's the case, anyhow.

[Corley]

Awesome. What a great resource for AT service providers. I'll spread the news on my blog

[Odd Man Out]

Yeah, it looks like the Heat Graph is based on percentages rather than actual numbers. So the graph on December 24 shows "hot spots" because there were 9 total hikers reporting on the AT on those days....so if 1/9th were at Springer, that's a hot spot, and 1/9th at Mount Rogers, that's a hot spot, and so on....making the hot spots for December 24 appear as large as those for April 15 and every other date. I think that's the case, anyhow.

Yes that is what it looked like to me, but I was having a hard time coming up with a good explanation. Doing it that way makes it harder to compare from one month to the next. Also, it has buttons to scroll through by day or by month. I would have liked to be able to scroll through by week. That would give a better animation to show how the bubble moved. Going day by day is a bit too slow and going by month is a bit too fast.

[walkinmyshoes]

Looks cool! But is it possible to create a more detailed map like Google Maps?

[chknfngrs]

Lookit the bubble