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The Great Eastern Trail

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    • The Great Eastern Trail

      The Great Eastern Trail Association, working with American Hiking Society and local trail partners are creating America’s newest long distance hiking trail. This path is 1800 miles long and crosses nine states. The Great Eastern Trail (GET) provides a premier hiking experience on a series of existing trails that are being linked to each other into a long-distance footpath in the Appalachian Mountains stretching from Alabama to the Finger Lakes Trail in New York.

      Benton MacKaye’s original vision for an Appalachian Trail in the 1920’s showed a network of “braided” trails running the length of the Appalachian Mountains. In 2000 Lloyd MacAskill of PATC published an article in the Appalachian Trailway News calling attention to the existing trails to the west of the AT and saying “Don’t look now, but parts are already in place.”
      “Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
      the saddest are these, 'It might have been.”

      John Greenleaf Whittier

    • IMSoctty, this is really interesting and would be an alternative for me to doing a thru hike of the AT in the future.

      Biggest selling point for me is I do not have to do the Whites and Southern Maine again, since I prefer hiking over mountain climbing and rock scrambling. Also could do as various 2-3 month section hikes each summer, without impacting my work schedule. Also would be doing something different that I have not done in any other form. :)

      Now the downside, several of the trails still need parts to be completed. Doing road walks for the gaps might be even more dangerous for me than NH and ME. Definitely would not wait for all of the various trails be completed, because that may be well past when I need to hang up my hiking poles. Also have gotten used to having FarOut (GutHooks) so back to old paper maps only, although Pinhoti and Allegheny are currently available, and others may be with time. Finally, doubt resupply is as easy as the AT. :(

      Had thought about this in the past, but the map makes it much more appealing and realistic. Would love to research more right now, but need to get back to grading.

      Thanks for sharing! :thumbup:
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General

    • The Cumberland Trail is part of the GET and it’s a joke. Only a few sections are worth hiking due to lack of maintenance and other ridiculous stuff, what I call “lack of infrastructure”.

      For instance, there’s one section that’s impossible to hike in one day yet the only parking area doesn’t allow overnight parking, you’ll get towed. Huh? (But now this section is closed due to being impossible to hike from lack of maintenance.)

      The CT website is never updated so info isn’t accurate.

      If you are concerned about something or want to report a problem and send them an email, the response is lukewarm and they basically say, don’t complain unless you want to become a maintainer.
      Lost in the right direction.

    • Traffic Jam wrote:

      The Cumberland Trail is part of the GET and it’s a joke. Only a few sections are worth hiking due to lack of maintenance and other ridiculous stuff, what I call “lack of infrastructure”.

      For instance, there’s one section that’s impossible to hike in one day yet the only parking area doesn’t allow overnight parking, you’ll get towed. Huh? (But now this section is closed due to being impossible to hike from lack of maintenance.)

      The CT website is never updated so info isn’t accurate.

      If you are concerned about something or want to report a problem and send them an email, the response is lukewarm and they basically say, don’t complain unless you want to become a maintainer.
      That is concerning since there is already supposed to be 131 of the 245 miles "open". :/
      The road to glory cannot be followed with much baggage.
      Richard Ewell, CSA General

    • Details of a couple intrepid adventurers who did the whole thing (or, the parts that were completed):

      gethiking.net/

      I also know of one other person who did the whole thing, though I was told that some stealth camping was required in order to overcome certain logistical challenges.

      The Cumberland Trail definitely has its maintenance challenges in places, and management of it should be much less opaque, but there are a lot of good sections that are worth checking out. It's a work in progress.

    • Time Zone wrote:

      Details of a couple intrepid adventurers who did the whole thing (or, the parts that were completed):

      gethiking.net/

      I also know of one other person who did the whole thing, though I was told that some stealth camping was required in order to overcome certain logistical challenges.

      The Cumberland Trail definitely has its maintenance challenges in places, and management of it should be much less opaque, but there are a lot of good sections that are worth checking out. It's a work in progress.
      Some sections are worth hiking for sure.
      Lost in the right direction.