Inter-day vs Intra-Day planning

I’ve talked about writing this blog post for awhile.

When I started the Appalachian Trail, I was told that nearly all of my plans would be thrown out the window. Upon hearing that, I decided that if I got to Atlanta with no plans, I would be just fine… which is what I did. I knew how I was going to go from the start of the trail to Neel Gap (around mile 35-40).

Everyone handles their planning differently. My basic approach is, figure out where I’m next resupplying to get the mileage. Decide how many days that’ll take me. Then put the guide book away and start moving throughout the days.

I have two items that help me:

• Guthook’s App that uses your gps to tell you where you’re at on the trail and what’s ahead.
• AWOL’s guide book.

I use AWOL’s book to look ahead for towns. The book also has maps of the towns coming up which allows me to see what I’ll be working with resupply-wise.

Guthooks gives me elevation changes for the day and water sources.

Basically, I wake up and check Guthooks to see how many miles I want to do for the day. I check the water sources to see if there are any long spans of time without water. If there are, I know where I need to actually carry water. Throughout the day, I usually check guthooks just to see how much further I have. I’ve noticed that as I hike more, I check less and less and just know I’ll get to my destination between 5 and 6 PM. I don’t look at elevation nearly as much as others. I just pick the mileage I want to do and go.

A lot of people only use one source. I like having both. Guthooks is really convenient from the sense that you’ve got your exact mileage while the book is great to understand the town and what’s available. The book is also a great backup if my phone does die.

That’s pretty much. It’s pretty simple! The difficulties on the trail are a lot more mental than physical from my experience so far.