[at-l] http://www.blindhiker.com/

[Jim Bullard]

Did it again. I meant this to go to the list. I messed up only sent it to
Art. Try again.

I've looked at his website, I've hiked with a guy (sighted) using GPS for
geocaching and I have to say that Mr. Hanson has a lot more faith in GPS
than I do. We spent a hell of lot of time looking for caches he had exact
coordinates for.

Yes, a blind man can hike the AT. Bill Erwin did it but he had a service dog
with eyes that could see the trail and a brain that could make judgments
about things Bill couldn't see. Even with Orient's guidance I recall Bill
saying he fell about 4000 times, roughly twice/mile. A GPS is a non-sighted
brainless device that only knows what satellites tells it *if* it can
communicate through the canopy which they often can't. How's a GPS going to
deal with stretches of blowdown, high streams after a sudden downpour and
all manner of other changes that happen after the GPS data was last updated?
The descriptive audio tapes? That assumes they are up to date too. He
basically needs someone walking a day ahead of him making the tape for the
next day and it could still sometimes be problematic.

I wish him abundant luck and a lot of good batteries. In his situation, I'd
follow Bill Erwin's example and take a dog.
-- 
Jim Bullard
http://jims-ramblings.blogspot.com/
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