January rove

[Thom Kaye]

Continuing on with my assault on the Tuscarora, it looks like January 15th 2011 will be the next hike. I am going to start from the trail-head on route 678 (Elizabeth Furnace) and loop around back. There are other route options from the trail-head if anyone else wishes to go.

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&ie=UTF8&msa=0&ll=38.929671,-78.328274&spn=0.001519,0.002411&t=h&z=19&iwloc=00049893d52bb0ccd4a6e&msid=204029216377518969824.00049893d0f828a72f51d

[Thom Kaye]

Yesterdays hike was a great success. Final numbers show an 11 mile bite was taken out of the TT. Moreover great views were had of Strasburg from Signal Knob.

One item of note worth mentioning was that I discovered my recording interval was much more successful this time around. Last time I was out I only managed a 2 mph moving speed average. This yielded a survey result that was was less than desirable.Yesterdays trail was not as taxing and allowed my group to move along at a pace of 2.5 mph. This resulted in tracks that had more integrity using the 3 second recording interval. I am curious to hear other surveying results from members of the group.

Overall the day was beautiful. The sun was out for the majority of the hike. The trail was well maintained with about an inch of snow in the shadowed areas.  I hope to see more folks turn out at next months hike.

[Jim Tomlin]

Yesterday I completed my 'mission' of hiking all of the A.T. between SNP and Harpers Ferry.  I began in December with a 4-day backpack from Ashby Gap to HF, and have been filling in the rest with day hikes.  Strange that I've been hiking around here for 40 years and had never done that section of A.T..  A great feeling to have finished it yesterday.

Just for the heck of it, I have been trying to follow the data collection protocol for the TT data collection.  I used a 3-second interval on a DeLorme PN-40 during the day hikes (I mistakenly thought the PN-40 didn't have enough memory to do 3-second interval on the 4-day backpack; it easily could have).  And I lingered for 9 seconds at each switchback turn.  I got some excellent-looking detailed tracks for the AT between Jenkins Gap in SNP and Ashby Gap.  And north of Ashby Gap with a longer time interval, it looks pretty good too.

Jim T.