How to Hike the North Country Trail teaser

How to Hike the North Country Trail: not quite a Guide

Introduction

This book will serve as an aid in planning a long hike, but it is not a guide. A guide would include such things as water sources, nearby towns with possible re-supply options, public transportation options, all trail junctions, major turns, parking, etc.

It is impossible to understand why the management policies and regulations along the North Country Trail vary so much without understanding the history of how this trail came to be. Therefore, a large portion of this text seeks to clarity that history.

The primary objective of this book is to help potential long-distance hikers understand why it is so important to camp legally along the NCT, and to provide hikers with a list of known legal camping/lodging locations. Of course, this list must be qualified by saying that it is ever-changing, and no list will be 100% accurate for longer than, probably, ten minutes.

There have been several attempts to write a guidebook for the North Country Trail, with varying degrees of success.

One difficulty in collecting and printing a detailed list of junctions, waypoints, and resources is the sheer immensity of the trail. Michigan alone has more miles of the NCT than many “long” trails. A guide would need to be presented in volumes rather than a single book.

Alternatively, a guide might be created online. This would be easy to edit as changes were needed. However, this raises the question of who would do this maintenance. A couple of variations on this format have been tried over the years. The primary outcome has been to conclude that keeping such a document updated would be a full-time job. Crowd-sourcing (a wiki) was attempted, and was subject to a great deal of misinformation, requiring a full-time moderator.

Additionally, the NCT is as yet much too fluid to create a definitive guide to all the miles. It would be out of date before it ever came off the presses. New miles are continually being moved off road or to more sustainable or scenic locations.

This unsettled state of the trail is likely to be a reality for many years, perhaps forever, due to the pattern of land ownership and management along the trail. This will be more fully discussed in Land Ownership and Management.

The early sections of this book cover some brief history and the administration and management of the trail. Reading this material will reveal the underlying reasons why this trail is so different from some others.

Again, this is NOT a guide. It does not include water sources, off-trail resources in towns, mileages between a variety of types of waypoints, elevations, access points, or lengthy descriptions of segments. However, the second section of this book is an attempt to compile information about legal camping and some info about other lodging opportunities in towns. Google and other web-based mapping resources are likely to have current information about motels and restaurants.

This is a trail to be sampled and savored. Those who are interested in genuinely experiencing the various ecosystems and cultural neighborhoods through which the trail passes might be advised to take on the trail as a section hike. This allows time to visit local museums, read interpretive signs, hunt for interesting trees or geological evidence, or rare plants. On the other hand, to thru-hike the trail is a challenge of a different kind. The sheer length of the trail is daunting. To hike 4800 miles with only some short breaks takes a type of mental stamina that is hard to grasp until it is attempted.

If you have reached this page independently through a search or some other means, go to Books Leaving Footprints, or email Joan H. Young to order the book.