Where's Karl?

[BlueDog]

Looks like he should be crossing MW in about 3 days?

[Arthur Dent]

Karl's plan, as of right now, is to get to RT-2 (Gorham) tonight and go from the Rattle River trailhead to Crawford Notch, 47+ miles, tomorrow. Personally I think this day is too ambitious having hiked this section a few times and it took me a few days.

I believe the biggest flaw in his plan is to only stay at road crossings with the support team in his large RV instead of doing any back country camping. This restricts how many MPD he can hike. He needs to average about 47 MPD to break the record but he's already had one day where he had to do either 33 miles or 64 miles and he chose 33. These deficits do add up and could be a problem later.

[mtruman]

Looks like he should be crossing MW in about 3 days?

At his current pace of close to 50 miles per day (yikes!!! ) it should be even sooner. Looks like he should be in NH by early afternoon based on his current location.

[Brad]

Arthur, I agree with your point. He either has to adjust to very short or long days based on stopping where the RV can go - or he does wasted time to go down to the RV for the night and come back up to continue.

[Rich]

I've been following him. In his video cast he's currently behind schedule due mainly to one day with torrential rains. He's not worried as he'll make it up in the flatlands further south. I'll be at a trailhead in CT to clap him on when he cruises through.

6000 plus calories burned a day! Crazy!

[Brad]

I have an album of topo map images of the AT. I flipped the order to match Karl going north to south. Here is where he is now on the image labeled AT-145 on the top of Mt Success just after crossing into NH.



The album is at http://public.fotki.com/bradbradstre...s/corey/trail/

[Arthur Dent]

Brad-"I have an album of topo map images of the AT."

I just took a quick look and AT-141 has major errors. You show the A.T. going directly down to Crawford Notch and up the A-Z trail to Zealand Falls Hut but that isn't where it goes.

The A. T. Goes over Jackson, along Webster Cliff, then drops to RT-302 before going around the end of Wiley to Ethan Pond, past Whitewall on the old RR cut, then to Zealand Falls Hut.

[Brad]

Great - if you all see other errors post them here. The Delorme Topo software sometimes does not show where the trail goes and i had to guess.

[Arthur Dent]

Brad-"...The Delorme Topo software sometimes does not show where the trail goes and i had to guess."

Delorme TopoUSA v7.0 shows the Appalachian Trail and it seems to be pretty good at showing the trail. Here is what your AT-141 would look like on that software without the red line enhanced, of course.
AT-141A.jpg

[rockin rex]

I just can't see what the hype is all about. I say this from the view point of being a former thru hiker (1986). The record that is set right now is from someone who did it unassisted. That means no camper, no clean clothes, no support team. That is the way the trail is meant to be done. The forum V.F.T.T. has some extremely good insight into this whole record thing. When I did the trail I started at Springer and hiked to the big "K" carrying everything I needed. I averaged 20 miles a day carrying 65 pounds. Karl is carrying nothing and is in a camper every night. Just seems he is missing the whole idea of what Benton Mckaye meant for the trail to be. Seems to me that a very big ego is in the making here. Thru hike the trail for the love of the trail. Not for a record.