[Cdt-l] surveyor tape

[Moynihan]

I'd agree with yeti in that the tape could yield mixed results. One
particular section in New Mexico stands out in which I thought I made the
correct left turn. There was a mini cairn, surveyor tape and everything
seemed right. My gut grew heavy when the elevation began to descend
rapidly. Although my maps confirmed that this was correct too, I soon found
this route to be totally overgrown and ultimately following a steep
drainage. I walked back out and continued along the road where I was
greeted with the correct left turnoff a half mile later and marked by
welcoming posts.

I'm mixed on the idea of thrus identifying the trail while thru-hiking as
how many thru hikers are always on the correct route instead of say, three
miles to the east? It would also need to be a system hikers can
differentiate between other surveyor tape and isn't excessive..... perhaps
a special color, pattern, knot... A bunch of flagging is welcoming at
times, but distracting to the beauty of the trail. If the surveyor tape
becomes the plan, then the second phase (the actual development of tread,
signage,etc) needs to follow closely behind.
I can see having mixed feelings on identifying a route, after all I felt a
masochistic glory when there was no trail and I was out there trying to
navigate on my own. I also had comical moments when I found myself
misplaced along the CDT only to find some evidence of a thru hiker having
been there too; a cairn; footprint; a sharpie marker.
Yet, I think of the ease, the stress free nature of the PCT and that was
nice too. There's alot of barriers making the CDT a difficult trail to pin
down entirely. One is the lack of larger metropolises supporting the demand
for all the sections to be connected. Another is the length along a trail
that is battered down by weather for large portions of the year. There's
also free ranging cattle that obliterate tread, amongst a plethora of
others things like riparian environment. (I started eating beef on the CDT
and embrace it now!)
It's a slow development, but I think it would be great to see it become a
complete trail. I know many thrus want to keep it wild, but I remember so
many sections where just my two feet alone made an impact on precious
alpine flora. There's a reason the CDT is called a trail. If you want cross
country there are plenty of other places to adventure.

Speedstick



On Thu, Jan 19, 2012 at 12:49 PM, Yeti <yeti1938 at fultek.com> wrote:

> The problem with surveyor tape is it's already all over the place for
> other purposes including logging areas so it could be extremely
> misleading. There must be a better idea even though I don't have one
> right now.
> Yeti
> _______________________________________________
> Cdt-l mailing list
> Cdt-l at backcountry.net
> http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/cdt-l
>



-- 
*To read about Mary and her passion for long distance hiking visit*
http://www.marriedtothetrail.com/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mailman.backcountry.net/pipermail/cdt-l/attachments/20120119/1a1d420e/attachment.html