[cdt-l] North South Trail

[Paul Magnanti]

Ah..not sure if I am ready to tackle this epic trail
yet. :)

On another forum, here is what someone wrote about
this challenging trail:

Don't make fun of RI hiking. Consider:

1) Hundreds of people hike the entire AT every year.
Only a handful, if any, complete RI's North-South
Trail every year.

2) The AT is blazed throroughly and effectively. The
N-ST is sometimes blazed, though trail junctions are
usually left unmarked.

3) The is a large and active support network of Trail
Angels along the AT. As Mags said, in RI the locals
rarely bop you over the head with guns any more.

4) The AT has guidebooks and maps that are updated
regularly. The N-ST does have a guide book, but it is
a tad out of date, apparently having been written
before the last glaciation period rearranged the
landscape.

5) The AT has several hundred shelters and even more
campsites, and you can even download their GPS
coordinates. The N-ST has few established camping
areas, and the guidebook is sometimes less than
specific as to their location. For instance, in
describing the only legal campsite within 29 miles,
the guidebook has this to say: "Concerned this site
could become an attractive nuisance, a number of
people at RIDEM have asked that I not disclose its
precise location here. Therefore it is up to you to
find it on your own." (I am NOT making this up. It's
on page 165.)

>From the above, we can draw the scientific conclusion
that hiking Rhode Island's North-South Trail is much
more difficult than hiking the Appalachian Trail.

*****

Mags again: Hmm..an  80 mile version of the CDT ??!?
:D

Tim and I were going to hike this 80 mile trail just
before he joined me for the road trip on my move to
Colorado (1999).

Ordered the maps from the NST people. Was ready to go!

But as any native will tell ya, southern New England
in the summer gets downright nasty. Hot, humid, buggy.
Blecchh!

So what did we do? Went to the beach that Friday. And
for some reason, Tim spent the rest of the weekend
with his girlfriend rather than hiking through the
deer tick and mosquito infested woods of RI in the
summer with me...

As a weird twist of fate, Tim now lives within minutes
of Jerimoth Hill AND on the road that the NST goes on
(marked with blue blazes).

The trail starts at a beach and ends in the woods at
the Mass border..and the mid-state trail. From there,
you can hook up to the M&M trail(and I believe)
connect all the way up to Monadnock in southern New
Hampshire.

Parts of the NST go through some the last rural areas
in RI and is actually pretty nice (Arcadia Mgmt Area,
George-Washington MA and a few others). Most of it is
road (Rhode?!) walking though. Being RI, it actually
goes by a few Dunkin Donuts!

Finally. I think I have the only NST patch in
Colorado. It is on my day pack. A little home state
pride.

Having said all this...the grand journey of the NST
will have to wait. :-)


************************************************************
The true harvest of my life is intangible.... a little stardust 
caught, a portion of the rainbow I have clutched
--Thoreau
http://www.magnanti.com