In case of an emergency do cell phones work along most of the trail

[trailsnail]

I don't get it... How can your experience be ruined by overhearing a conversation? Does it really make a difference whether the hiker was sharing her experience with a loved one over a cell phone or with a nearby hiker?

[A-Train]

I don't get it... How can your experience be ruined by overhearing a conversation? Does it really make a difference whether the hiker was sharing her experience with a loved one over a cell phone or with a nearby hiker?

The fact is that another fellow hiker is actually there. They physically got there instead of wishing to share it with a loved one who is at home. I found it disconcerting and ruining of my experience to hear someone (a thru-hiker from springer nonetheless) blabbering not 10 miles from Katahdin. It was the most glorious day, a lazy stroll thru Baxter park with the river right along the Trail. I'm not gonna sit here and cry about it, it didn't ruin my trip or anything, but it sure wasn't appreciated by myself or the other 4 hikers I was enjoying a nice mid-day break with.
People everywhere are talking on cell phones. Thru the streets of New York and on my college campus, I can never walk past more than 2 or 3 people without hearing them chatting up some unknown, and I personally hate it.
Afterall who am I to tell you what you can pack and what you can't on your hike. Personally I hate cellphones and think they have no place in the backcountry, but thats just me.

[gravityman]

I don't get it... How can your experience be ruined by overhearing a conversation? Does it really make a difference whether the hiker was sharing her experience with a loved one over a cell phone or with a nearby hiker?

I'll tell you how it can ruin an experience (although not on the AT). We summited Long's Peak this summer on a spectular day. No wind, amazing views, and a lot of people. While we were resting on the summit (which is way cool - about as big and flat as a football field) everyone started to call people. We listened to on kid call about 20 people, leaving a message at most, saying "Hi This is Blah. I'm calling from 14,427. Where are you?" Over and over and over and over and over again and again and again and, well you get the point. And he was one of about 30 people doing this.

Did it ruin my summit? Yeah, it did. I had to leave after a 1/2 hour of listen to asinine messages.

But it was still incredible up there!

Gravity Man

[Fox]

I carry a cell phone when I hike. I usually have one in my pocket when I go out to dinner too. I do my best to never use it in either circumstance. I bring it to cover the 'just in case' scenario.

It burns me up when I am sitting next to some idiot in a restaurant that takes a call during a meal and proceeds to shout into his phone disrupting conversation all around them.

When I am on a trail or a mountain top I am having a 'private conversation' of a sort and I know I would be just as irritated if some lout nearby disrupted that by shouting into a cell phone.

[trailsnail]

I guess we all have our hot buttons. I get pretty irritated if I get to a summit (or any wilderness destination) and have to share it with a smoker and his/her second hand smoke.

[Blue Jay]

Then they would say you died because you did not carry a cell.

[c.coyle]

AGREED, Trailsnail! This happened to me just last weekend: a long, painful, steep climb to a mountaintop and I was greeted with lungfuls of second hand smoke at the top. I'm asthmatic and cigarette smoke can put me in the ER - it can kill me when I'm 7 miles back into rugged mountain trails with no emergency services around.

This should really be in "pet peeves".

Lungsfull? Outdoors? Come on! Was the smoker 2 feet upwind from you and blowing it in your face? Were you in a shelter? Frankly, I'm tired of hearing people complain about getting a whiff or two of cigarette smoke outdoors.

I don't like smokers in the woods because they invariably leave butts on the ground. They can start fires. But I've never been engulfed in a cloud of smoke outside.

Ever get a whiff of campfire smoke? A hiker who hasn't showered in a week? Auto exhaust? An over-perfumed woman in a restaurant? Those stupid cranberry - pumpkin - chutney Yankee Candles people like my wife think nothing of burning indoors? If you were "greeted" with lungsfull of smoke when you got to the top, that means that smoker was there first. Could you have moved a few feet away?

I'm not picking on you or anybody personally, but it's a stinky world out there, and we all have to deal with it. Intolerance goes both ways.

[Rain Man]

... Frankly, I'm tired of hearing people complain about getting a whiff or two of cigarette smoke outdoors.

.... Intolerance goes both ways.

You feel the same way towards folks who are bothered by bee stings outdoors???

Intolerance does go both ways.... but that's begging the question of whether it's good or bad intolerance. Intolerance of illegal or rude and obnoxious conduct is GOOD intolerance. Kinda like the police being intolerant of muggers. At least, in my book.

[c.coyle]

You feel the same way towards folks who are bothered by bee stings outdoors???

Intolerance does go both ways.... but that's begging the question of whether it's good or bad intolerance. Intolerance of illegal or rude and obnoxious conduct is GOOD intolerance. Kinda like the police being intolerant of muggers. At least, in my book.

I don't get the bee sting analogy.

Unlike mugging, smoking outdoors is not illegal. Nor is it correct to assume, as you seem to be doing, that anyone smoking outdoors is automatically "rude and obnoxious".

Comparing smoking outdoors to a mugging is a hysterical reaction. The outdoors provide natural ventilation. Unless you're caught in an inversion of stagnant air, smoke usually rises harmlessly or quickly gets dispersed by the breeze. When you're outdoors, there's almost always enough room for smoker and non-smoker to get far enough away from one another. Smoking indoors is a whole 'nother matter.

As long as we all exercise basic common courtesy, there shouldn't be a problem. The smoke Nazis (I don't mean anyone here) can't stand merely seeing someone smoke. Their goal is a total ban of all smoking.

This is way off topic. I'll let someone else have the last word.

[Lone Wolf]

I've been on Katahdin many times when a finisher lights up a big fat stogie to celebrate. Always pisses off the PC types.

[peter2003]

For my flip flop thru hike in 2003 I used a Verizon phone and it worked most of the time even in rural Maine in high elevation areas. I would guess that the phone worked about 80% of the time.

First of all try finding a pay phone down south in the trail towns, and if you do, you will probable find some young people talking for hours to their girlfriends/boyfrineds using the cheep phone cards so if you want to communicate in some of these trail towns before midnight a cell phone is the way to go.

I also used the phone to make reservation at motels a day or two before coming into town. With pay phones dissapearing right and left it is only a matter of time before one will have to use a cell phone to communicate. Just my take on the matter. Phone also allows hiker to keep in touch willl family friends. If I hiked trail again a cell phone would be one of the items at the top of the list.

VT Pete03

[Rain Man]

...The smoke Nazis (I don't mean anyone here) can't stand merely seeing someone smoke.....

HEY!!!.. give credit where credit is due!!! I am a proud anti-smoking Nazi.

Especially when it's a smoker on one hand and someone like Tracey on the other, who already informed us: "I'm asthmatic and cigarette smoke can put me in the ER - it can kill me when I'm 7 miles back into rugged mountain trails with no emergency services around."

Smokers don't bother me as much as cell-phone users do (that IS this topic thread, after all, LOL), but smoke DOES endanger others and I say their rights are far, far higher than smokers' rights.

Anyway, as I said, "in my book." My Opinion. Based in part on my grandfather's death from lung cancer after a lifetime of Camels and my grandmother's death of a heart attack from a marriage full of second hand smoke. Maybe she should have spent more time outdoors?

Thanks for the last word!!!

Rain Man

[Ridge]

I wouldn't carry one on a thru-hike or a long hike. Too much trouble with keeping batteries charged, I wish I could find one that uses AA's. I do carry one on day and short term hikes. I use it in private. The coverage/reception area with my verizon america's choice plan is good. Reception is nill in gaps and hit or miss at high elevations, but usually hits. Depend on others in an emergency situation to get help than a cell phone.

[orangebug]

Cingular is totally useless between Erwin and Damascus. Even in Damascus, it only works on the ridge above the town.

Wonderful!

[weary]

...Unlike mugging, smoking outdoors is not illegal. Nor is it correct to assume, as you seem to be doing, that anyone smoking outdoors is automatically "rude and obnoxious".

Let's see if we can find something that almost everyone agrees with. How about "anyone smoking outdoors (or indoors, for that matter) is either dumb or addicted."

Weary

[smokymtnsteve]

or maybe they just like to smoke and choose to do so,
driving an automobile eveyday is a much risker thing than smoking.

[weary]

I might be hiking the thru hiking the trail by myself and wondering that in case of an emergency (broken leg, twisted ankle, attacked by a bunch of wild drunken hill-billies, ect.) do cell phones get a reception along most of the trail? ....

Let's hope not.

[Rocks 'n Roots]

I guess most hikers don't really care about their responsibility of keeping the AT wild, remote, and disconnected...

[Lone Wolf]

Where the hell do you hike? The AT is hardly "wild, remote and disconnected" and to answer your question Dworak, without all the philosophical BS, cells work about 50% of the time.

[Rocks 'n Roots]

Are you arguing for developing the Trail? That seems contrary to the Trail's history and stated purpose as overseen by ATC?

What's your point, that we develop the AT? Or do you just not care and are knee-jerk potshotting at someone who does?