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Appalachian Trail hikers provide Web updates
04-16-2006
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Greg Baltus estimates that he has hiked about 500 miles on the Appalachian Trail. On the Web: Readers can follow Greg Baltus' progress over the coming months with his journal entries. |
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The 30-year-old independent robotics consultant is planning to hike all 2,174.6 miles that stretch from Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to Mount Katahdin in central Maine. Although he is traveling by himself, he won't be alone.
Up to 3 million people each year hike various stretches of the trail, most for only a day or two. Like Mr. Baltus of Uptown, some 2,000 to 3,000 other determined hikers will be trying to cover the entire trail.
Statistically, only about 20 percent of these "thru-hikers" will complete the grueling journey, which on average requires taking more than 5 million strides to a height of 6,643 feet at Clingman's Dome on the North Carolina/Tennessee border and to a low of 172 feet at the Hudson River in New York.
What makes Mr. Baltus' trek different is that he will be posting his entries and photographs on the Internet via a new map-based Web site, www.trailposts.com, designed and maintained by colleagues at Carnegie Mellon University's Studio for Creative Inquiry.
Although this is his first attempt at a thru-hike, Mr. Baltus has had lots of experience on the trail, known by hikers as the A.T. He estimates he's hiked about 500 miles at various times.
Last summer he spent a month on the A.T. with Nathan Martin, another Pittsburgher and CMU grad who is associated with the creative inquiry studio. It was on that hike where they hatched the idea for trailposts.com.
Wouldn't it be good, they reasoned, if there were a way for A.T. hikers to post and share their trail experiences and provide their friends and family with a way to follow their progress. In addition, hikers could add and access real-time, map-based updates regarding news about local weather conditions, water availability, hazards, shelter conditions and other invaluable, ever-changing information.
Mr. Martin has been part of a team developing maphub.org, an interactive, map-based Web site that enables people to share locally based information about Pittsburgh. Along with Jeff Maki, another Studio associate, he's been spending long nights developing trailposts.com.
Although there are a number of Web sites about the A.T., this is the first that features a scrollable map of the entire trail, with different layers of information, such as shelters along the route. It also has a section allowing hikers to post their journal entries.
"As he walks the trail, Greg will be inviting other hikers to participate in the project," said Mr. Martin. "It's not profit-driven. Our primary goal is to provide a prototype that will allow for dynamic updates to the shared map, both for hikers and people who want to follow their progress."
Most A.T. thru-hikers spend five to six months on the trail, but Mr. Baltus plans to finish in four by averaging 23 miles a day, six days a week. Wednesdays will be his rest day in towns along the way, where he hopes to sleep at a motel or hiker's hostel, pick up mail and supplies that are being sent to him by friends and colleagues, and visit the local library to post his Web entries.
To maintain this ambitious pace, he'll be traveling light -- toting 9 pounds of equipment instead of the standard 20 to 30 pounds.
With the supply shipments, he's calculated that he'll start each section with another 12 pounds of food and fuel that will diminish as he approaches the next town stop.
His lightweight approach takes ingenuity. He's created a lot of his own equipment, including sewing up several small kit sacks and a big tarpaulin which will serve as his tent between the rustic shelters along the trail. These items are made of Spintex, a tough, ultralight nylon fabric impregnated with silicon designed for the spinnaker sails of racing boats. He doesn't have a cell phone but is carrying a digital camera that weighs just 4 ounces to keep a record of what he sees.
Like most hikers, he'll be drawing water from springs and streams and purifying it with tablets, never carrying more than two liters at a time.
His diet, while repetitive, is light in weight and high in calories. Breakfast is oatmeal and protein bars, with tea. Lunch: special trail mix with peanut butter and crackers. Dinner: Heavy on carbohydrates, such as angel hair pasta, with dried vegetables and protein. All have been pre-measured into resealable plastic bags and packed into boxes being sent to post offices along the route.
Even though he's been training for months at the Downtown YMCA -- walking the treadmill carrying a weighted pack -- Mr. Baltus gives himself a 50 percent chance of making it all the way to Maine. The physical demands are one thing, but the psychological toll of walking day after day for as much as 20 weeks can become overwhelming, he said.
"A lot can happen when you're out there," he said, recalling a slip he experienced last summer down an incline where he sprained his ankle.
"Success is mostly a matter of self-sufficiency, solving problems you encounter along the way with what you have at hand. It's a combination of what you carry and what you know. Overlooking the simplest thing can quickly lead to big troubles."
"Either way," Mr. Martin added, "We'll all know a lot more about what will and won't work with this Web site when Greg's walk is done. The point is to find out what will and won't work. It's an experiment in participatory design, a better way to manage information."
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