Join Me on the Trail

Want to meet up for a day? A weekend? A week? Here’s how:

1. Pick a meetup spot. Choose either a time when you’d like to meet me or a location that is convenient for you. Unfortunately, it’s unlikely that I’ll be passing through your ideal spot at your ideal time, so try to be flexible. If you’re not sure where the trail passes your area or how to reach it from your location, a good place to start is this Appalachian Trail parking website. Explore the map or click on the state you’d like to hike through and find directions to hundreds of locations along the trail with maps and photos of these areas.
   Another good resource is the Appalachian Trail Club website. The “Parking, Shuttles and Transportation” link provides details for reaching the trail via most modes of transportation. Use the “Interactive Map” link to find parking locations or shelters near your proposed meetup location (scroll to the bottom of the page with the map and click on the box to the right of the features you want to appear).
2. Estimate the distance from Springer Mountain. Use this table to estimate the distance from Springer Mountain to the spot where you’d like to meet me. If your ideal meetup location isn’t listed, make a rough guess based on the distance to shelters near the spot (shelters should all be listed).
3. Monitor my distance from Springer Mountain. Watch my progress using the “Where Am I?” tab of this blog to see when I’m approaching your ideal meetup spot. The “Total Distance” column will tell you how far I am from the southern terminus of the trail, Springer Mountain in Georgia, so simply compare this value to the distance estimated in Step 2 above.
4. Project a meetup date. Using the average daily mileage information from the “Where Am I?” tab, estimate when I’ll likely be arriving at your chosen location. For instance, if I’m averaging 15 miles per day, I should cover roughly 100 miles per week. (I expect that my pace will quicken over time, so it might make more sense to average the last one or two weeks’ daily mileages if you’re joining me later in my hike.) Pick a date close to the time I’d naturally be passing by your meetup spot anyway. I understand that not everybody has as much time off as I now do, and I will try to be flexible and speed up or slow down to meet you on a weekend if that’s most convenient.
5. Let me know your plans. When I’m approximately 100-200 miles away from the spot at which you’d like to meet up (or 1-2 weeks before you’d like to join me), post a comment on this blog or email me at lalaviol@gmail.com specifying when and where you’d like to meet me and for how long. Please include your contact info so I can get in touch with you by phone or email. If you wait too long to let me know, I might miss your message or be unable to meet you, but if you tell me too far in advance, it may be hard to estimate a realistic time to meet (I may be way past your ideal meetup spot by the time you are free or I may still be miles away if my pace slows).
6. Await confirmation of your plans. I’ll confirm your plans the next time I’m in town, which should be within 3-5 days. If for some reason I will not be able to make it to your ideal meetup spot when you are planning, I’ll let you know why and try to adjust my schedule or find an alternate time/place to meet.

Thanks for your interest in joining me on my adventure! I look forward to seeing some of you out on the trail!