Mapping the Sheltowee

the solemates · Guest

Is the trail continuously marked, to date?

Boyd · Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 3:07 pm Post subject:

Welcome!

No, with exceptions. Most trail on park and forest land is blazed with either a whitle turtle, white rombus (diamond), or a "100"...sometimes all three. Where the trail intersects a road, you'll see the red, blue, & white USA Trail marker. In popular areas, you will find the trail well blazed. Some areas use the white diamond to mark all trails, so you'll need to 'stay tuned' to the Sheltowee to not get confused.

In less popular areas, the situation is much different. Some stretches of the trail will go miles without a marker and backwoods intersections with ATV & user defined trails have no signage. Outside of park & forest property, you'll find little but the USA Trail marker.

I placed a GPS track of the entire trail in the GPS section of the forum. Do you use GPS?

Guest · Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 5:42 pm Post subject:

It will not let me download the gps files, I guess since I am not a member. So, you have included waypoints for every point 132 feet away from the last for 260 miles? How accurate are these? That must have taken some time.

I was just curious as I have just today learned about this trail. It would be fun to thru it. Has anyone attempted? What is the trail like? Easy to follow/hard to follow? Not well travelled, so you get cut up in brush and undergrowth? Or an established path, like a more conventional trail (the AT)? Resupply? Free maps/books? etc...

Guest · Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:01 pm Post subject:

Ive discovered the maps. Youve done a great job with this website.

Boyd · Posted: Wed Nov 10, 2004 6:03 pm Post subject:

Register! it's free! I did this so other sites don't direct link to the data. When the proofs are published here, I'll probably do the same thing.

Each vertex or point along the track is approx. 130 ft apart. That's fairly generalized but it will works on the ground if you are hiking more than a couple miles of trail.

I know very few people who have thru-hiked the trail, but people do every year. The trail is easy to follow in popular areas, but in less traveled areas, you'll find any number of trail impediments....overgrown conditions, deadfall, unbridged streams, etc...

No free books, but Johnny Molloy's book is a good start. USFS has a free sheltowee map and they made a north and south map for the entire DBNF, but it is almost 20 years old....but it is cheap if you can find it.

The interactive map here has mile markers and photos list those miles in the title. So you have a visual. TOPOS can be downloaded from the map too.

You've found it great!