Hiking the Appalachian Trail

Dear Fellow POI Factory Users and Website Creators:

First, thank you for creating this website. Access to free GPS data has changed my life. I will go into greater detail as to how below.

I am blind. Adapted GPS gives me two peaces of information I never had easy access to before. It tells me about points of interest and landmarks around me. It also tells me my position relative to them. Free data makes it much easier and less costly for me to get this information. Latitude and longitude information are not covered by copyright.

I am considering hiking the Appalachian Trail using adapted GPS. I plan to do one or two test hikes of relatively short duration this year to test available data and my GPS system under conditions I am likely to encounter. I plan to do the actual hike in 2008 if all goes well. I plan to hike south to north, starting in March, 2008 and finishing approximately six to eight months after that.

I am attempting to put together a suitable database to hike the AT. I have centerline data and the locations of overnight shelters. Thanks to POI Factory, I also have the locations of some campgrounds in North Carolina and those in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park.

I got centerline data to tell me whether I am still on the trail. Normally, trails can be followed by feeling the difference between the trail and the surrounding ground. If you are going through thick underbrush, you are probably not on the trail. This is not always the case. Therefore, I included centerline data.

I am looking for as much information as I can get. I an concentrating on the following particular points of interest at this time:

1. Locations of campsites.
2. Water sources.
3. Locations of road and side trail crossings.
4. Locations of towns along the AT.
5. Locations of points of interest within such towns.
6. Locations of roads leading to such towns.

Do you know where I can get such information? I am in contact with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy and local trail maintaining organizations. They had centerline and shelter data, which I downloaded. I got campsite data from POI Factory.

My email address is mhanson@winternet.com. If you would rather reply via email, that is fine with me.

Thank You,

Mike Hanson