Originally Posted by
WhoDey
Any other helpful info or tips? Thanks for the help!
We yo-yo'ed the BT in May 2011, including the 12-mile road walk near Franklin. The summary page for our journal (http://trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=349088) reflects:
The Bartram Trail is very well marked and maintained, except for the number of blow downs, which perhaps have just not been cleared yet for this year. I believe we counted around 100 blow downs in less than 95-miles of actual trail (i.e., not roads). Yes, we counted them. Some areas of trail are getting to the point of needing a little grooming maintenance, but not much.
We loved the remoteness [feel] of the trail. We had camp to ourselves every night and saw very few backpackers during the day. Actually, we only saw one backpacker on the entire trip, excluding the last day.
There are some stretches where the water sources are about 9 or 10 miles apart, so you do need to pay attention to the location of future water sources.
If you are planning on doing the road walk, be sure to read our journal about that section as we had a very close encounter with numerous pit-bulls.
The guidebook we used was Johnny Malloy’s book Long Trails of the Southeast. No maps.
Our journal will detail more info that may help you - camping sites, the "roller coaster", water, route challenges, etc.
Have fun.