hi ryan,<br>i really like the concept of a corridor and not a defined trail. as "goof" said, "the at is your undergrad, the pct is your graduate degree, and the cdt is your doctorate." i hope this will be the established plan for the cdt when i can do the hike.<br><br><b><i>Ryan Jordan <ryan@backpackinglight.com></i></b> wrote:<blockquote class="replbq" style="border-left: 2px solid rgb(16, 16, 255); margin-left: 5px; padding-left: 5px;"> Interesting discussion.<br><br>When I started hiking the CDT, we had no "CDT maps". Just ... topo maps (USGS 1:100k) and BLM maps for identifying private land parcels.<br><br>It was fun. Rewarding. Nonpolitical. Choose your route. Hike your hike. <br><br>The most glorious thing about it was that (a) it wasn't the AT and (b) it wasn't the PCT.<br><br>In other words, it wasn't sanitized, and there was nothing defining what a hike along the Divide was to be. <br><br>Here in Montana, I spend my efforts trying to preserve the "CDT" as a
*corridor*, not to protect a "trail" or identify a "route" but to protect "options in the corridor for wilderness travel". <br><br>My mapping efforts are not focused on mapping the "CDT", but on understanding (a) access points to the corridor, (b) the width of the corridor, (c) discontinuities of the corridor, (d) corridor ecosystem disruptions. A "trail" designated or not, really has no impact on corridor health. <br><br>Unfortunately, we have to work with a political environment that needs a "trail" defined in order for it to fit into the NST system. More unfortunately, we have to address a "culture" within the hiking community that seems to want blazed routes, for one reason or another. <br><br>The goal here is: protect the corridor and understand it's relationship to its boundary regions, who cares about the "route" through it?<br><br>Ryan<br><br><br><br><br><br><div><span class="gmail_quote"> On 9/14/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Ginny & Jim Owen</b> <<a
href="mailto:spiritbear2k@hotmail.com">spiritbear2k@hotmail.com</a>> wrote:</span><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"> It seems to me that most of the folks who volunteered for this project did<br>so because they thought it would be fun to hike a section of the CDT with a<br>small group of hikers and be part of the mapping of the trail -- not just <br>because they were hoping for goodies. That really is irrelevant to the<br>success of the project.<br><br>My one question about the project relates to the mapping: before we hiked<br>the trail we tried to get information on recent relocations from the land <br>management agencies and CDTA. Aside from the map of the new route from the<br>border that we got from CDTA, (thank you!) we received very little<br>assistance in getting information on the reroutes. Only one of the National
<br>Forests (in Colorado) sent us maps of recent trail relocations. Everyone<br>else either ignored us or said, "We can't give you any information until the<br>trail is completed." When hiking the trail, we ran into sections that had <br>been relocated since the guidebooks were published. We followed the new<br>markers or pink ribbons and found that in several cases the trail deadended<br>in the middle of nowhere. Those were pretty much the only places we got <br>"lost" on the trail last year.<br><br>A couple of areas immediately come to mind - the new section north of<br>Lordsburg, the Gros Ventre section in Wyoming, the Carson NF, etc. I<br>thought it was a real shame that trail crews have spent a lot of time <br>building new trail that no one can use because it is impossible to get any<br>information on the new trail from those responsible. At one point we ran<br>into a trail crew in New Mexico that asked
if we had walked their recently <br>completed new section of trail. We would have, had we known about it, but<br>we didn't so we couldn't.<br><br>So, for the teams that were out there this year, did they follow the old<br>outdated routes (which route, the Westcliffe route or Jim Wolf's?), did they <br>actually get some information from CDTA or the Forest Service on relocations<br>that have been done since the guidebooks came out, or did they just skip the<br>sections that were under construction?<br><br>I remember a few years ago when there was a similar project to assess the <br>state of the trail and one of the groups said they had been using a 20 year<br>old guidebook in southern Montana, without understanding that there had been<br>updates since the book was published that completely changed the route. <br>That group had a very hard time, but more important, their assessment was<br>pretty useless because it did not concern the actual trail, just a
previous<br>incarnation of it.<br><br>So - was that the case this year? And if not, where can we get some <br>information on the relocations so next year's hikers can have the<br>information?<br><br>Ginny<br><br>_________________________________________________________________<br>Get the device you want, with the HotmailŪ you love. <br><a href="http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/mobilehotmail/default.mspx?WT.mc_ID=MobileHMTagline">http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/mobilehotmail/default.mspx?WT.mc_ID=MobileHMTagline</a><br><br><br>_______________________________________________ <br>cdt-l mailing list<br><a href="mailto:cdt-l@backcountry.net">cdt-l@backcountry.net</a><br><a href="http://mailman.hack.net/mailman/listinfo/cdt-l">http://mailman.hack.net/mailman/listinfo/cdt-l</a><br><br></blockquote> </div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Ryan Jordan<br>Publisher<br>Backpacking Light<br><a
href="http://www.backpackinglight.com/">http://www.backpackinglight.com/</a><br>USA Toll-Free +1-888-362-0999 _______________________________________________<br>cdt-l mailing list<br>cdt-l@backcountry.net<br>http://mailman.hack.net/mailman/listinfo/cdt-l<br></blockquote><br>