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    • Not right now, but hey if he didn't want you to then he wouldn't have put his number out there, lol. That's San Francisco so I would do so after lunch tomorrow......

      Or you could go HERE and on the bottom left of the page there is a "Contact us" tab. Click, give them your info and your conundrum.
      If your Doctor is a tree, you're on acid.
    • TrafficJam wrote:

      I'm a little confused. I created a map in Gaia of what I think is the BMT between Tapoco Lodge and Fontana. I know this route is on the old AT, now called Yellow Creek Mountain Trail. When I zoom in, this Gaia says it's the AT (?)
      Probably pulling info from the old USGS maps?
      Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
      Dr. Seuss Cof123
    • Rasty wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      I'm a little confused. I created a map in Gaia of what I think is the BMT between Tapoco Lodge and Fontana. I know this route is on the old AT, now called Yellow Creek Mountain Trail. When I zoom in, this Gaia says it's the AT (?)
      Probably pulling info from the old USGS maps?
      topoquest uses usgs maps and if you look at the one for noontootla, ga it shows the AT on the wrong side of hickory flatt cemetary. the relo of the AT to its current location was done at least 30 years ago.
      2,000 miler
    • Rasty wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      I'm a little confused. I created a map in Gaia of what I think is the BMT between Tapoco Lodge and Fontana. I know this route is on the old AT, now called Yellow Creek Mountain Trail. When I zoom in, this Gaia says it's the AT (?)
      Probably pulling info from the old USGS maps?
      Yeah, that's annoying and confusing.

      Both the old AT and rerouted AT are labeled Appalachian Trail. The center line pointing up is the trail to Fontana. The red line on the left is the BMT and on the right is the AT.
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      Lost in the right direction.
    • TrafficJam wrote:

      Rasty wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      I'm a little confused. I created a map in Gaia of what I think is the BMT between Tapoco Lodge and Fontana. I know this route is on the old AT, now called Yellow Creek Mountain Trail. When I zoom in, this Gaia says it's the AT (?)
      Probably pulling info from the old USGS maps?
      Yeah, that's annoying and confusing.
      Both the old AT and rerouted AT are labeled Appalachian Trail. The center line pointing up is the trail to Fontana. The red line on the left is the BMT and on the right is the AT.
      That intersection is fairly obvious. It's just past a green fire tower reflector. The trail going to the AT goes up hill at the intersection and the BMT goes downhill.
      Sometimes you will never know the value of a moment until it becomes a memory.
      Dr. Seuss Cof123
    • max.patch wrote:

      Rasty wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      I'm a little confused. I created a map in Gaia of what I think is the BMT between Tapoco Lodge and Fontana. I know this route is on the old AT, now called Yellow Creek Mountain Trail. When I zoom in, this Gaia says it's the AT (?)
      Probably pulling info from the old USGS maps?
      topoquest uses usgs maps and if you look at the one for noontootla, ga it shows the AT on the wrong side of hickory flatt cemetary. the relo of the AT to its current location was done at least 30 years ago.
      A new map tool should have updated maps, especially on a trail this well known.
      Lost in the right direction.
    • TrafficJam wrote:


      A new map tool should have updated maps, especially on a trail this well known.

      Easier said than done. The USGS has pretty much gone out of the primary mapping business, and nobody has really filled the void successfully. The new "US Topo" series are missing a ton of features that we hikers are interested in, and getting them in is "not a priority" for the USGS.

      usgs.gov/faq/categories/9797/7471
      usgs.gov/faq/categories/9797/3579
      I'm not lost. I know where I am. I'm right here.
    • AnotherKevin wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      A new map tool should have updated maps, especially on a trail this well known.
      Easier said than done. The USGS has pretty much gone out of the primary mapping business, and nobody has really filled the void successfully. The new "US Topo" series are missing a ton of features that we hikers are interested in, and getting them in is "not a priority" for the USGS.

      usgs.gov/faq/categories/9797/7471
      usgs.gov/faq/categories/9797/3579
      Yeah, I've read about that on other sites. I hope its funding and not refusal to do their job...
      --
      "What do you mean its sunrise already ?!", me.
    • max.patch wrote:

      Rasty wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      I'm a little confused. I created a map in Gaia of what I think is the BMT between Tapoco Lodge and Fontana. I know this route is on the old AT, now called Yellow Creek Mountain Trail. When I zoom in, this Gaia says it's the AT (?)
      Probably pulling info from the old USGS maps?
      topoquest uses usgs maps and if you look at the one for noontootla, ga it shows the AT on the wrong side of hickory flatt cemetary. the relo of the AT to its current location was done at least 30 years ago.
      MP, did you do you Thru in the 80s after the relocation?
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General
    • Astro wrote:

      max.patch wrote:

      Rasty wrote:

      TrafficJam wrote:

      I'm a little confused. I created a map in Gaia of what I think is the BMT between Tapoco Lodge and Fontana. I know this route is on the old AT, now called Yellow Creek Mountain Trail. When I zoom in, this Gaia says it's the AT (?)
      Probably pulling info from the old USGS maps?
      topoquest uses usgs maps and if you look at the one for noontootla, ga it shows the AT on the wrong side of hickory flatt cemetary. the relo of the AT to its current location was done at least 30 years ago.
      MP, did you do you Thru in the 80s after the relocation?
      after i moved to GA the first hike i did on the AT was springer to hawk shelter and it was on the old AT. at that time the trail was right next to the cemetary and you couldn't miss seeing the cemetary, pavilion, and whirlybird as you passed by. when i did my thru the trail had been relocated to the other side of the cemetary but i did not know that. the trail is farther away from the cemetary, and you can't see it from the trail when you pass it. i remembered the cemetary was right after long creek falls, and when i hadn't passed it in a while after seeing the falls i thot i must really be hiking slow. i kept wondering when i was going to pass the cemetary until i finally reached the hawk mountain shelter. at first i thot i was daydreaming or something when i passed the cemetary but then i figured out that i had just experienced my first relo.
      2,000 miler
    • I have similar issues with Google Earth, I have the KML of the current AT as a red line on the topo and clearly the old trail sections still show. Also the GPS line can at times be as much as 60+ feet to the left or right of the true line. Just continue to follow the blazes, don't let it frustrate you. I have wondered if it was possible to get an overlay of the original trail to compare and contrast how much has changed from the "government trail"
      Be wise enough to walk away from the nonsense around you! :thumbup:
    • Wise Old Owl wrote:

      I have similar issues with Google Earth, I have the KML of the current AT as a red line on the topo and clearly the old trail sections still show. Also the GPS line can at times be as much as 60+ feet to the left or right of the true line. Just continue to follow the blazes, don't let it frustrate you. I have wondered if it was possible to get an overlay of the original trail to compare and contrast how much has changed from the "government trail"
      In the maps that I produce, I often have multiple incomplete data sources for the trails. For instance, in the NY/MA/CT corner, I have trail data from the GIS bureaux of all three states, from the ATC, and from OpenStreetMap. I usually wind up rendering all of them on the map. It doesn't look bad if they coincide or nearly coincide. If they do not, the 'cubist' look is actually useful to me as a map user: it's a warning that either the trail has been recently relocated, that the trail is difficult to follow and so different mappers got different results, or that the trail has a poor view of the sky for GPS data. (Or sometimes, simply that one or another agency has wrong information!)

      The AT in Massachusetts is an example. Coming on it northbound, the trail as blazed goes up to the footings of where the Mt. Everett fire tower used to be, and then makes a switchback out to the cliff top to catch a nice view. There's a well beaten herd path that goes straight forward and rejoins the Trail about a quarter mile north. Mappers for two of the five agencies simply went ahead on the herd path and recorded that as the Trail. (And the switchback has been there for as long as I can remember. It's not a new relocation.) On the same screen, you'll see double locations for The Hemlocks shelter and the old Glen Brook shelter. Down in the Glen Brook ravine, GPS is pretty wonky because there's a limited view of the sky and pretty dense vegetation (the eponymous hemlocks) overhead.

      By contrast, over on the South Taconic Trail, NY (magenta) and MA (black) have some pretty dodgy alignments - still good enough to follow the trails and see which are ridge trails, which streambank trails, and so on. The Census Bureau has a route for the trail in their data set, too, but (as is typical of Census Bureau data outside the towns), it's pretty hallcinatory. It looks as if someone simply laid a ruler nearly parallel to the state line and said, "it runs about here."

      On the old topos, foot paths, fence lines, and similar features were often penciled in without a rigorous survey, and could well be off by a few hundred feet. As long as they matched a basic description like "the trail follows the ridge roughly along the state line, then turns west and makes switchbacks down to the Copake iron works," that was good enough for virtually all users. High accuracy on trail data was never much of a priority. In the GPS era, it's more important, but it's still a lot of work to get the high-accuracy data, and nobody's paying for that work to be done.

      Map data are never perfect, and map data out in the boonies are often very bad indeed. A mapmaker always has tradeoffs.
      I'm not lost. I know where I am. I'm right here.