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2017/05/16

Campgrounds and Overlays for ADT - WV Complete and More

The overlays and campgrounds are done for the American Discovery Trail - West Virginia.  There's one questionable place that I'm unable to get a location for and that is Van Myra Campground in Mineral County.  I'm not sure that I understand what this reservation is, but it seems like it's a picnicking area only now?  A historical document of a farmer in "Dry Run Hollow" depicts that he moved from a property next to it and mentions this area.

I found Dry Run Road in Mineral County, but the structures on the properties didn't match the county's description.  If it is a picnicking area, it might still have a potable water well?  And that still might be of use, pending that the reservation is in range.

"Range" is a term that I use to determine the hiker's patience, or how far they're willing to go off trail to reach an amenity?

I posted on the ADT's Facebook group asking any previous multi-day+ hikers if they've ever had an overnight at an RV park in Kansas or Nebraska?  In Kansas, these types of establishments are the are fairly common, where conventional "campgrounds" are in short supply.

One thing that this project could use are the location of post offices, particularly in the desert areas.  Shipping resupply might be expensive, but those might as well be resupply points and from what I know of Ohio, they can still be in the smallest of towns (even unincorporated ones).  On the Appalachian Trail, a hiker can receive a bounce package, or mail drop on General Delivery/ first class shipping.  But that's because there are thousands, if not millions of them coming through every year.  Those towns have an economy built on them.

Under ordinary circumstances, if somebody doesn't live in that zip code, or have a PO Box, then they can't ship on General Delivery.  It has to be either "Priority Mail Hold for Pickup," or "Express Mail Hold for Pick-up."  On a trail with low numbers, even if somebody from a state committee showed up in every post office and got them to accept general delivery, there's probably not enough hikers annually for them to get use to it.  And I think General Delivery could cause a problem when a package was sent there first class and the post master didn't recognize who it was for that day and shipped it back.

However, there could be a solution to this.  Post Offices have community cork boards.  And if an ADT flier were to posted to one where general delivery was arranged, in some places it might not do much for trail promotion, but it might remind the postmaster even if the trail has low numbers?  And there might be something that we generally don't know about the AT's mail drops and that is what if, with all of their support, could somebody have been donating the annual fees for PO Boxes at all those post offices???  There's could be at least $1200 a year in those?

A couple days ago, I was looking for more BLM property polygons.  I have Utah and Nevada so far and I think California is about all I'm going to get out of it.  That's because I'm not seeing anything for surface parcels east of there.  Seems that everything else pertains to the federal government's subsurface mineral rights.

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