Hiking a Trail with No Official Map
There are hikes, and then there are hikes. Anyone looking to take on the Continental Divide Trail is interested in the latter variety--and is also probably a little nuts. The entire route stretches nearly 3,100 miles, following the Rocky Mountains from Montana down to New Mexico. And there are two catches: over 1,000 miles of the trail are incomplete, and the whole thing has no official map.
But with winter thawing out, the folks over at Backpacker magazine might be looking to finally change that. Last year editor-in-chief Jonathan Dorn called on readers to help map the CDT and got an outpouring of almost 3,000 applications to volunteer. Three hundred were chosen and grouped into teams, and they tracked their progress on the CDT Project blog.
By the end of September the teams had defined over 2,000 miles of the trail, and Backpacker's map editor Kris Wagner left off saying he planned to pick the project back up after the snow melted. We haven't heard anything since, but we'll be keeping an eye out--and maybe doing some training. The CDT Alliance says a thru-hike takes about six months--if you average 17 miles a day!
Related Stories:
· Continental Divide Trail Alliance [Official Site]
· Best Damn Weekend Ever: Montana's Anaconda-Pintler Wilderness [Backpacker]
· Hiking coverage [Jaunted]
[Photo: bgautrea]
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