GPSies for the JMT

I can't say that I enjoy hiking with a GPS, but the technology sure is fascinating. GPSies is a slick little web site for you to post and swap your travel routes.

If you follow this link to the John Muir Trail , you can see where Lauren and I will be hiking this summer, and even explore some photos that other people have taken in the area. You can also search through their growing database of hikes in your desired area, which come complete with an elevation profile and time estimate.

Another Route to Katahdin

I like the new-ish feature on Google Maps that calculates walking routes and times between landmarks. Should take 18 days and 10 hours to walk from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mt. Katahdin, Maine. Could have used this and shaved about a thousand miles from our trip.



There you go. Now we know.

Some Parting Links

We're headed down to Amicalola Falls State Park this morning. We're taking a rest day at the lodge there before we start to regroup and start our hike fresh on Monday morning.

If you're curious about where the AT actually traverses, here is an interactive Google map of the trail shelters to pan and zoom to your heart's content

I posted a rough attempt at an itinerary tonight. If you follow the link to our detailed spreadsheet, it may look well-planned, but we can only assume our summer will barely resemble what is written down.

Not sure when we'll be in touch next.
Peace and Love,
Ben & Lauren

Map On the Wall

We mounted a map of the trail on the kitchen wall of my parent's house. We oriented it diagonally because the trail heads in a more northeasterly direction than it does due north. My dad loves maps and was examining the route we will be hiking.

The maps we gave to family and friends included a sticker with our ugly mugs and the address to our AT 2007 journal.

Welcome to BLT Adventure

This is where we will aggregate our thoughts and pictures over the next months while we attempt to walk all 2174 miles of the Appalachian Trail (big map) from Georgia to Maine. Our journey starts on April 30th so it's finally starting to seem real.

A quick tour of this site:

1. There are several ways that I'll be adding content to this journal, which are explained in this post.
2. In the right column you'll find the main navigation for ways to contact us, our (not-yet-completed) itinerary, a bit of our connection with and motivation for hiking the trail, some commonly asked questions, and a bit about the lightweight gear we carry.
3. Below the Main Navigation, you'll see a hopefully-fairly-current stat of where we are and how much of the trail we've completed.
4. Below that, the photos in the right column will be randomly displayed from our Appalachian Trail 2007 photo gallery over at flickr. (Not much there yet... but we haven't started yet, either!)
   
5. And towards the bottom of the right column, you'll find some additional links and ways of searching archived content, which is indexed by category or by posting date and title.

Well, that's it for now. Thank you for your interest and support!

A.T. Map