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2017/06/21

Thru Hike Difficulties & Proposial - North Country Trail

The North Country Trail is 4,600 miles long.  And without having done a mock hiker document depicting the daily mileages of an average thru hiker, it's hard to tell if it could be routed to miss winter conditions on either end.  From what I'm told, the answer is "no."  If that's the case, then I believe that the NCTA and it's following needs to come up with a new plan.  From what I know here in Ohio, the vast majority of hikers don't like the winter.

So, I'm going to take the next week or so and finish merging the NCTA's GIS tracks into it's chapter's spans so I can write the mock hiker.  It's of interest to me as the section supervisor of the Whipple Section - Buckeye/ North Country Trail.  After I get that document written, I can then suggest a course of action if any is needed.

I ready know that SE Ohio needs a chapter for resupply reasons.  And that in NCT trail promotion, the Buckeye Trail takes up 83% of Distance Hiking Ohio.  The beneficiaries of it's trail promotion is self contained.  Meaning that it's not contributing to North Country's whole.  But North Country chapters work in such a way that they're trail promotion not only contributes to themselves, but elsewhere as well.  In Ohio, we're missing North Country trail promotion in 3 quarters of the state.  So, what Whipple is getting is probably anemic. The course of action that I can think of is to make this a chapter with multiple loyalties.

It needs to elevate the importance of the NCT - Ohio patch.  But what I think might need to happen probably won't take place with the NCTA.  In fact, I think it's very grass routes.  There are two audiences when it comes to thru hiking.  There's those who come immediately from the Appalachian Trail.  Some of them come with their minds made up of what hiking is and I doubt they'd be able to change their notions anytime soon.  But there's the internal, hikers that North Country already has and those that they get as a result of local trail promotion in the future.

They might need to legitimize a slight step down from thru hiking.  My idea is to complete 30 hiking days at a thru hike rate ahead of time, then hike the rest in mass using transportation to bypass what they already did.  If they did that, this hiker could miss winter conditions in Vermont, New York and North Dakota. The question that would have to be put to North Country's followers is are they going to support it?

I wouldn't really regard it as a full "2nd place."  It's more "1b." 1a is a full thru.  1b is

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