[pct-l] Organizing the PCT information sources

[pcnst2001 at covad.net (pcnst2001@covad.net)]

One of the benefits of walking section O is that one has a lot of time to think
up things for
other people to do, whether it's clearing poison oak and dense brush or
reorganizing the printed
information resources we all rely on.    

Some of the ways our information sources have evolved
have been less than optimal, it seems to me; information such as resupply points
and post office
locations shows up in many places, not always currently and consistently.     
So if I were dictator of these things I would
replace the current three-volume guidebook set, data book, and town guide this way:

1) The data book is much the same, except just the data for all five states; the
resupply information goes elsewhere.
It's not expected to change frequently.   But it should be aligned so that
sections can be easily
separated for the benefit of us section hikers.   Many people (I'm not among
them) hike with only
the data book.

2) The map book should just contain the maps for all five states, 
also aligned so that sections can be conveniently
separated.   (The current guide books have the section overview map on the same
page as the
end of the previous section).   Many people (I'm not among them either) hike with
only the
maps and resent their intermingling with the descriptive text.    I like the text
but not as much
when it's facing the wrong map.    The maps change VERY infrequently.

3) The guide book contains the descriptive trail narrative for all five states,
divided - did you guess - conveniently along sections.   The narrative doesn't
change very frequently either.

4) That leaves us with the annual PCT Yearbook, that Yogi should be hired to
edit, published
each February with the latest information for all five states on post offices,
resorts, resupplies: phone numbers,
addresses, hours, emails, URL's; prices; permit information, etc. - all the stuff
that changes 
frequently.    It should incorporate the Town Guide maps, or better ones, and the
appropriate
parts divided conveniently along sections.     It should incorporate all the
errata for the
less-frequently published data book, map book, guide book, and day hiking guides.

5?)   I am not sure whether there's a need for a fifth thin volume that tells you
how to plan and do
a through-hike (as opposed to general advice on how to backpack or how to day hike); 
there are elements of through-hiking advice in the current guidebooks and in
Yogi's current
book along with
the section-specific information.     Since I would buy the yearbook every year
(and the others
whenever a new edition came out) and since I am a section hiker, I wouldn't 
particularly want to pay for that fixed information over and over, as I would if
it were part
of the yearbook.

Even as a section hiker I would be carrying all of the section-specific
information from all
of the above since I often find that my needs were not always what I expected in
advance.   
(Did I mention how convenient it is if these volumes divide on section lines?  
And how 
convenient if these books were all printed on the same size of paper, which due
to the fantastic
cost of preparing the topo maps, means the size of the current guidebook pages).

I also carry the day hiking guides in the car.    And I would print out the very
latest information
off web sites, of course, since not everything can be known in advance.    But
having everything
possible neatly printed in advance strikes me as very convenient.

My next project will be to try to convince somebody to manufacture a hiker's vest
of mosquito
netting to replace my old fisherman's vest whose pockets are almost but not quite
the right
size for the guidebook pages.