Navigating the AT (especially south of New England) is relatively easy and there are quite a few tools to help you. First, when you are on the trail, there are white blazes on the trees/posts/rock faces to indicate your way. Any trails that cross the AT have different color blazes. The trail junctions are well marked with the direction of the AT clear to hikers. It is quite possible to spend the entire day on the trail and not look at any other tool to get you from one shelter to the next.
Secondly, I had a map of the area with me (Pocket Profile maps by AntiGravityGear, LLC). This map is a simple, two-sided map. One side shows the trail winding through the terrain with key items of interest identified – shelters, water, privies, and the distance from the AT. The back side shows mileage from the beginning of the map to the next (shelter, water, trail crossing, parking/road crossing) with elevations and elevation profile. There are 22 of these maps for the entire trail – each map is approximately 100 miles.
I used these maps to help me figure out my hiking plan for the next day – how many miles did I want to hike (in part influenced by terrain), how far was it to the next shelter, and what amenities did the shelter have (privy, water source, bear cables for hanging food, capacity of shelter, tenting room). During the day, I could determine where I was and remaining mileage for the day. I also have an app called Guthook Guides (http://www.guthooksguides.com/) that almost everyone on the trail uses. I don’t have images, but the URL has some good pictures of what the various screens look like. The app uses your phone’s GPS to determine where you are on the trail. So, this app is more accurate at locating you on the trail and determining the distance to your next waypoint. This application is very popular because it can provide a wealth of information – your location on the trail, how far to the next waypoint (water, view, shelter, tenting locations, town and town amenities), an elevation profile, and comments from users. Several times this app indicated where there were established camping sites that were not on the map or in the AWOL guide. And, user comments provided more information to find some water sources that were a little way off the trail. This tool was used primarily for current day or next day planning.
A third navigation tool is the AWOL guide (officially The AT Guide – A Handbook for Hiking the Appalachian Trail by David “AWOL” Miller: https://www.theatguide.com/). I have the AWOL guide in both paper copy and as a .pdf file on my phone. This tool was used for long distance planning. I used this to plan each of the 161 days it would take to hike the entire trail prior to starting my trip.
The last navigation tool was primarily a safety and communication tool – my Garmin Explorer.
In the morning, I would begin tracking and send an message to my family that I was starting and they could track me. The Garmin provides my location every 10 minutes via satellite communication so I was not dependent on a cell signal with my phone. At the end of the day, I would communicate that I was stopping for the day. If I had gotten in trouble and needed to send out an SOS – the Garmin can do that and provide my GPS location within a range of about 10 feet of my actual location. This tool is more useful (in my opinion) than some other personal locator beacons (PLB). Many PLBs simply provide your GPS coordinates. The Garmin allows texting to folks receiving the SOS. Thus you can provide details of your emergency so rescue is better prepared when they reach you. Indeed, I read the story of one woman who was hiking the Pacific Crest Trail when fires became a problem. She was fine, but didn’t have the best information on how to get out and safely avoid the fires. The Search and Rescue (SAR) people had that information and were able to provide direction. It saved SAR from having to come find here – which would have been a considerable delay versus the hiker having the necessary information to self-rescue.
Welcome to My AT Adventure 