ADT Tracks Completed

The American Discovery Trail (ADT) in the State of Nevada

This was the missing piece.  After I got done with California, I forgot that I skipped a head and when I reviewed Nevada's track, I found that I wasn't done after all.    That's it, I have tracks for the ADT from coast to coast now.

A couple who were already ADT thru hikers did another one.  And they finished a track as well.  My guess is that they might have gone on the latest thru hike to field test it?  My tracks are a bit rough in some places.  And I've never been on a thru hike (I did this all from the desk). So, without knowing, I'd probably judge theirs to be superior. Being on the ground is a another story.  I could have easily mistracked the trail in places like Utah or Nevada.  When they're available, I'd go with their tracks, too.

From what I understand, the American Discovery Trail Society will need to determine how to deploy theirs.  My work is ineligible for that mostly because it could violate the terms of use of the free products that I used to generate it.

Right now, my tracks are great for plotting the locations of commercial campgrounds, hotels, motels, bed & breakfasts, hostels, libraries, post offices and grocers.  I only work with stated amenities and discount incidental trail angels.  Couchsurfing and AirBnB was covered in a previous log entry and can require some lengthy preparation.

All this information is necessary to write what I like to refer to as a "mock hiker."  it's a document that  details the day to day mileages of a typical thru, and 10 mile per day hiker.  It's "mock" because the hiker is imaginary. And I'm not intending to get to it soon.  The tracking project took 19 days.  If I remember being new to mapping correctly, this could taken the average person 6 months to prepare months to prepare.  I gotta say... that's too long.

Something that I've done with the Buckeye Trail (which also has mostly fixed amenities) is that I've analyzed it.  I've heard it said that hikers cover the trail in all different ways.  But when you have a typical, or average time frame, that makes things easier because it's now a matter of how to do it, what mileages and where?

Now this might reveal that certain places have amenity gaps.  This is where the hiker on the route is at the end of their stamina, but there's no place to sleep.  But it's not exactly the "end of the world." There is a method that I like to apply last and that is transit.  Sometimes you can find it in the smallest counties.  I apply it last because it's antithetical to the notions of some hikers.  Yet they aren't always aware that certain rural transit agencies use Dodge Caravans.

There's also something else... the American Discovery Trail has up and coming state committees for which they need volunteers for.  If your interested, you should contact a state coordinator and let them know.  But there is one thing that they might be able to do.  North Country Trail and other agency is already doing it.  It's about re-occurring trail angels.  Some of them might be willing to go on a roster, but where they're names and contact information won't go on a web page?  It's only available to those who request it.