[pct-l] PCT Maps (Without bickering)

[Bob]

> I'm wondering if maybe a nice solution would be for someone to edit the WP
guides.

Haven't heard recently, but as of last May, when I talked with him, Ben
Schifrin was working hard on updates.

Dr Bob

-----Original Message-----
From: pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net [mailto:pct-l-bounces at backcountry.net]
On Behalf Of Will M
Sent: Wednesday, January 18, 2012 3:23 PM
To: pct-l
Subject: Re: [pct-l] PCT Maps (Without bickering)

Well said Alan.  I'm wondering if maybe a nice solution would be for someone
to edit the WP guides.

A few simple format changes could pull the  data point/mileage markers to
the margin or highligh them in some other way.
It's nice to have the narrative, decriptions of potentail campsites,etc..
but if you spend too much time trying to orient yourself, one could see why
people might just give up and just go to the data books.  I myself, gave up
o the WP maps but carried the other sections to read during my breaks or in
my tent at night.

It would be a shame to lose al of that great info.  I suppose in the near
future we will have some kind of gps activated guide that will beep when we
get to an interesting spot and provide the corresponding narrative via some
sultry robot voice.

On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 11:40 PM, Alan Artman <alanartman at msn.com> wrote:

> Back in the day, pre-Halfmile, pre-Erik the Black, pre-Postholer, 
> pre-Yogi, even pre-Databook, and certainly 
> pre-PCT-markers-at-most-intersections, all we had (or at least all I 
> could find) was the Wilderness Press Guide Books and a hodge-podge of 
> rarely topographical USFS maps.  With the WP books, it was always that 
> intricate dance you do where you find--buried in the narrative--your 
> last datapoint, hold it with your finger while you leafed through the 
> next few pages trying to find the correct piece of map, which 
> inevitably did not contain your next datapoint and so involved more 
> shuffling, then going back to locate that datapoint on other pages in 
> the narrative.  Most hikers did not like that dance.  I myself may 
> even have uttered an unkind word, maybe more than once.  So when the 
> databook came along, it seemed a godsend.  And things have just continued
to get better and better.
>
> In my 2010 (attempted) thru-hike, I and just about everyone else 
> carried some version of just-the-data:  Halfmile/Erik the 
> Black/Postholer etc.,  but few of us had the WP pages, and I have to 
> wonder if in the process of streamlining the data accessibility we 
> didn't throw out the baby with the bathwater.  I find myself squarely 
> in the camp of Stone Dancer, Piper, Steel-Eye, Eric, et al --- HYOH 
> notwithstanding :  without the WP narratives to give me "the lay of 
> the land", my PCT hikes would have been pretty bleak, kind of like a 
> months-long treadmill workout (except add bugs and weather).
>
> For example, just in the Sierras leg:  (1) taking a break just north 
> of Tehachapi, I read about a particular rare plant which grew in that 
> area, identified by the young man who researched that portion of the 
> trail for the guidebook, and as I looked around, not 20 feet away was 
> one of those plants, in bloom no less!  (2) hiking north out of 
> Kennedy Meadows, I passed through an old burn that, just as the WP 
> pointed out, was growing back but not as the same forest, perhaps due 
> to environmental change; (3) somewhere in the vicinity of Crabtree 
> Meadow, the WP mentions a creek with wild onions growing a few feet 
> upstream from the trail.  Wow!  There they were!  I confess I had wild 
> onions in my stew that night.  And (4) somewhere north of Yosemite, as 
> the geology of the terrain changes, the WP spoke of a large white 
> boulder of anomalous origin smack in the middle of the trail.  I'm 
> sure that I would have just walked right past it had not WP alerted me 
> to it.  So:  do not disdain the WP books.
>
> And now, speaking of not disdaining, I'd like to segue into my annual 
> harangue for the current year's PCT class:  after you've eaten your 
> fill at the Incredible Breakfast Buffet at Timberline Lodge (in 
> northern Oregon), and you're back on the trail and you cross the Sandy 
> River and soon come to a junction where the PCT directs you to the 
> left, but a sign saying Ramona Falls directs you to the right.  GO 
> RIGHT, YOUNG PERSON!  DO NOT MISS RAMONA FALLS!  Stop and rest a few 
> moments at this magical place, sit and be mesmerized by the dappled 
> light playing on the cascading waters!  Then, instead of backtracking,  
> follow Ramona Creek on down to the PCT junction.
> The whole "detour" is actually (slightly) shorter than if you'd gone 
> to the left as ordered and skipped the show. And though I cannot speak 
> for him, I'm pretty sure Eric the Ryback will still present you the 
> PCT medallion, for Ramona Falls was once a part of the official PCT 
> (and, in my book anyway,
> will always be a part of the REAL PCT).   And, HAVE A WONDERFUL HIKE!  I
> hope to see you on the trail in the Siskiyous this summer.
>
> Patchwork
>
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