Planning Resources For Hiking The American Discovery Trail
- Updated: May 15, 2025
- Post By: Matthew Hengst
The initial planning phase of any big hike can be daunting much less a 4,900 mile walk across the country on a loosely defined route of roads, sidewalks, and occasional trails that is rarely attempted much less done successfully.
When I started looking seriously into the American Discovery Trail I had some struggles even with a strong background in thru hiking. My goal with this post is to give you a place to start as far as basic resources. Other posts will cover what the trail is actually like, gear suggestions, and other topics.
This write-up can be considered a supplement to my pre hike planning and prep video which can be found here:
Data from my hike
Whenever I'm hiking I keep track of my daily mileage in a Google Sheet. This prevents the need for me to run a GPS track (and is generally more accurate) and is how I do all my estimates and progress tracking
You can find my own daily YouTube videos I made on the trail here which show the ins and outs of every day on trail to an occasionally excruciating detail.
180 episodes and counting!
How Many Miles From Delaware to San Fransisco?
You often find the American Discovery Trail stated as being 6,800 miles from Cape Henlopen State Park in Delaware to Point Reyes California. However this number is misleading at best as it counts every mile of route that exists not the amount you would walk to get from one coast to the other.
That's because this trail is one of the rare oddballs like the Florida Trail where there exists two official routes that cover the same section of the country between Denver and Cincinnati. However there is no way to walk both sections without jumping off trail and backtracking.
Personally I find trying to count total miles of alternates gets a little silly and make work-y. Picture trying to apply that same idea to the Continental Divide Trail and it's dozens upon dozens of alternates. However there have been some record minded hikers who have done both routes and that got extensive coverage online so you see the total quoted all the time.
Per discoverytrail.org the southern route is about 5,000 miles while taking
the northern route makes the entire thing a bit shorter at 4,800 miles.
Obviously these numbers change over time as adjustments get made to the
route.
Per my research the southern route is the most commonly done and generally accepted by those who have done both as the better hike of the two. It includes several lovely trail sections like the River to River and KATY trails and the longer distance doesn't have much of an effect on overal time due to how flat and open everything is out there. The northern route is a little shorter, more of a slog, and apparently exists because of some sort of a sponsorship opportunity when the trail was first being set up.
For the record driving from one terminus to the other via the most direct google map route is about 3,000 miles. This is closer to what a lot of folks using carts have to do since much of the trail sections aren't passable or legal for wheeled vehicles.
Also this makes it significantly easier to finish than a 5,000 mile hike. When I looked into multiple people who said they had done the ADT they had actually done a significantly shorter variant sticking to a lot of these road based shortcuts. It seems like on average those people were doing about 3,200 miles coast to coast.
Maps
Since the ADT is more of a route utilizing many different sections of many different trails along with a lot of connecting road walks following the route is difficult if not impossible without some sort of map.
We're well past the days of paper maps and everything you need to navigate the trail is found on a modern smartphone. As someone who owns multiple standalone GPS devices and smart watches I really wouldn't recommend buying either with the intent of using them for this trip.
As far as where to get the trail data there are two major sources. These confused me to no end when I first started my research.
The official trail data is found at the official website for the American Discover Trail https://discoverytrail.org. When I first looked at their store I had a rather negative reaction because the maps are divided up into individual states but after talking to someone on their end they did make a entire trail dataset available here for $99 which is what I bought.
It contains per state gpx files and some rather neat turn by turn guides that include information on what the type of surface you'll be walking on is. This is something I thought was really cool since even with FarOut I'm often surprised that a section is on dirt road vs single track trail or finding the extent of road walks. And I basically never looked at it once I started walking.
NOTE: More recently after much feedback they are planning to release this data for free. It's still the second best set of maps for this hike.
Then you have Hiking America at https://www.hikingamerica.com. It previously went by a different name which caused some confusion with the official ADT org.
This site is run by John Brett a dedicated individuals attempt to modernize the ADT route data. He is not associated in any way with the ADT organization and they are very clear his route is not "official"
For
$70 a year you get access to the entire trails worth of data via a
folder share on GaiaGPS which can be accessed along with map layers via web browser while planning and an app on your phone while hiking.
This can be exported into other products but
honestly you're better off just biting the bullet and using Gaia.
The reason I recommend this data set so strongly over the official one is how he has incorporated data from past hikers. Everything from campsites (both legal and stealth), water sources, trail angels, and numerous other things that past hikers have found useful are marked.
Without this I never would have known about a hundred different things that had a major impact on my hike.
The ADTS does provide some of this information in standalone form if you contact the individual state coordinators however I found that was a subset of what was available on HikingAmerica.
John is constantly soliciting feedback from people hiking the trail and making updates to the maps. These get pushed out auto-magically via Gaia which means if you have someone ahead of you you can benefit from "live" updates.
I bought both...so you don't have to!
When I threw both only a single map what I found was that they were basically the same. The main difference I found had to do with the philosophy behind route adjustments.
HA will make any updates that make sense while staying true to the spirit of the ADT. The ADTS however has a policy of not adding something to the official trail without official approval from a stakeholder.
For example leaving Fruita in Colorado the ADT has you on the side of a busy road because the bike path on the other side of the fence wouldn't give them approval for some silly reason. HA shows the bike path. I was quite happy walking the bike path permission be damned.
Other corrections I submitted like avoiding the dangerous road section north of Manitou Springs were applied in a few hours to HA and were significantly more delayed by consideration by the ADTS.
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| Want to do this on foot? Yea, me either |
So in the end go with Hiking America and you'll be all set. But please appreciate all the work / join the American Discovery Trail.
Also as a side note both Hiking America and the ADTS have section guides that include turn by turn directions. I started out looking at these but soon just stuck with Gaia as it had more information and really everything I needed.
Eastbound vs Westbound
When I started to make plans I had a strong preference for going eastbound since it would make for an easier start for me as we spend the off season in Southern California. Also I felt like it would allow me to hike longer into the fall and possibly winter as weather out east is generally a lot more manageable than the high peaks out west.
However as I dug into it weather realities soon made me reconsider.
When it comes to the American Discovery Trail the big barriers are the crossing of the Sierra Nevada and the Rockies. Both are high altitude mountain ranges that get a significant amount of snow making them impassable for long periods of the year.
(There is also technically the Kansas crossing in the heat of the summer but that's generally going to be survivable)
The Rockies are enough in the middle that I wasn't worried about crossing them in either direction assuming I was keeping a reasonable pace. However trying to get across the Sierra Nevada in spring can be anywhere from unpleasant to unsafe depending on the snow levels.
I was convinced to change to westbound after talking things over with John at Hiking America. He does a better job with long term data than I ever could so I suggest you read his article here. But the short version aligned with my experience that trying to do a Sierra crossing before early June wasn't going to be very realistic.
And with 200+ days of hiking at a fast pace in order to finish I didn't have a lot of time to spare if I wanted to make it coast to coast.
Switching to westbound allowed for a much easier start date. I started March 27th because of other commitments back in SoCal but there were folks starting a few weeks before. Granted they ran into some unpleasantly cold storms but again weather out east is generally more gentle.
This did mean I had a constant countdown clock hanging over my head the entire hike to when the Sierra crossing wouldn't be possible. I had to accept I was hurrying as much as I could and planned to make it across if at all possible. If I missed the weather window for one reason or another I planned to come off in Reno and go back the following year. But it did mean I was loathe to take any time off trail unless absolutely necessary.
To Cart or Not to Cart
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| Taken from an online news report and not from the ADT |
A good number of the people I see online asking about the ADT or who approach me have seen others expounding on the advantages of using a cart in their cross country hikes.
The idea is instead of having a backpack you can put most of the weight on wheels and push it along with you. This can seem appealing particularly if you backpacked at some point with way too much gear and remember yours knees aching every step. However there are some drawbacks worth considering.
It prevents you from doing the trail sections
If all you want to do is walk from coast to coast and you don't care about following the ADT a cart might make more sense. Looking at the USA Crossers Facebook group for example they often are just doing roads and many of them use a cart so they can jog faster.
All my advice is from the perspective of someone who wanted to do the 5,000 miles redline official route in all it's glory since otherwise I wouldn't feel like I'd done the American Discovery Trail. I would have just walked coast to coast which is it's own type of accomplishment but that's a much different thing. For what it's worth I would have made it across with several hundred miles to spare last year before my injury if I'd done that first sort of a route.
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| Not great but not bad as they go |
The first few eastern states seem like they would actually be relatively easy to manage with a cart. You spend a good amount of time on the bike path C&O and other rail trails. The Dolly Sods section is a short dirt trail you'd have to bypass since no wheels in the wilderness but there are dirt roads the cyclists take as an alternative.
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| Yes, this is the Buckeye Trail. It's often not this bad though. |
Ohio would have been very different and I would have missed out on almost all of the awesome Buckeye Trail. YMMV but that was my favorite of the early sections as it sticks you on long sections of dirt single track trail.
Finally you'd have to skip completely most of the CDT overlap again due to wilderness and the rough nature of some of the trail. And there is a lot of really memorable trail out there.
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| Not the CDT but soon after on Grand Mesa. Also not cart friendly. |
It makes the worst road walks more dangerous
There are a lot of miles of road walking on the American Discover Trail. A lot of them are perfectly safe with sidewalks or wide shoulders where your biggest annoyance is usually just traffic noise.
Some aren't though and often those sections were both long and highly stressful even with the ability to jump off into the vegetation when a vehicle got too close.
I often didn't have warning that a particular section would be bad and often there really wasn't an alternative to the worst of them without a massive reroute.
I have seen carts decorated quite effectively with flags, tassels, and signs. And I think that on the wider roads that could actually be a huge improvement on how people treat you on first encounter and the number of folks stopping to give trail magic.
But on the narrow roads I feel like it would be a huge liability. You'd have to take up part of the oncoming lane and anyone who has spent time around traffic knows there's something about driving that often makes people far less reasonable whenever something outside of their vehicle affects them in the slightest way.
Yes, it would be the drivers fault if they hit me but they would be the one in the hospital. Cars always win.
A cart is an anchor you will have to think about constantly in towns
I haven't hiked with a cart but I do have experience with long distance canoeing which similarly has you attached to this big unwieldy contraption you use to carry a lot of your stuff. Something you can move with you but can't just be brought inside with you.
Consider that whenever you go into town, stay in a hotel, or go eat inside a restaurant you need to be aware of where you leave your cart. Some hotels only have stairs and availability on the second floor for example. And often restaurants can be tight on space inside.
This sort of thing happens not uncommonly when people don't take precautions along the Mississippi River. Meaning finding a friendly trail angel or fisherman to guard their canoe or kayak or trying their best to hide it off in the bushes.
ADT wise there was also an incident our year where someone was robbed in one of the bigger cities outside of a Dollar General type store. Per the hiker it was by some homeless people who they believed targeted them because he looked homeless and had a lot of stuff in the cart.
For us on the Mississippi it was enough that it prevented us from leaving the river to go out to eat or get cleaned up very often. And we had the advantage of there being two of us so Jen could run in for food and I'd be on canoe guard duty.
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| Me on canoe guarding duty instead of getting to enjoy a sandwich inside air conditioning |
On the other hand with a backpack I usually just keep it on my back going into a store or else put it in the shopping cart while I shopped. Restaurants that aren't along the Appalachian Trail have never complained when I put my pack in the booth / chair beside me. Personally I never want it out of arms reach unless it's locked in a hotel room.
This isn't an insurmountable problem by any means but it is something that folks might not consider until they are out there.
It can encourage over packing
I had this related by several trail angels who had seen people using carts on their attempt. They often had far too much stuff with them.
This was everything from cheap heavy camping gear (which will cause you other issues on a trip like this) to having 150 tortillas and gallons of water in a section where there were multiple options to stop every day.
Backpacking tends to encourage you to be frugal since you feel every pound. This can be a challenge but also encourages better packing behavior.
I will have another article on gear specifically but you should be able / aim to be in the low 20s without food or water. That's easily achievable for a solo hiker carrying everything and a pair can push it lower than that.
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| My very achievable low 20s pack starting out |
I have also seen people with both a cart and a huge backpack which is kind of the worst of both worlds.
It may be a bigger challenge than you think particularly out west
I only went as far as Moab so far so that take under consideration. But I have spent a good amount of time hiking all across the west and I've heard the same concern from the western ADT state coordinators.
While yes there are longer water carries out there not all of the sections that the map shows as roads are exactly cart friendly. Even the section I was on there were often deep sand or rocky sections I had to pick my way up and that was even on the more established Kokopelli section.
Again consider that a good number of the cart enthusiasts probably do a different shorter route.
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| An extreme example of the ADT in Colorado National Monument. The most memorable section of the Colorado / Utah border by far |
Don't Fear Bears, Snakes, or Mountain Lions. Fear Rural Dogs
I've taught an annual wilderness class in Southern California since 2009. As a part of that and my various trail journeys I have a lot of contact with folks on the newer end of the spectrum when it comes to wilderness experiences.
This is something I have a lot of passion for. I just adore the excitement and general energy people have during those first hesitant steps into the wilderness. However over time I have noticed a particular trend that I feel is highly counterproductive.
The #1 thing that people seem to fear stepping into the wilderness is animals. And when you ask what they specifically fear it usually comes down to bears, mountain lions, and snakes.
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| Title slide from my annual WTC animal lecture |
Each year I do a topic on animal encounters later in the class. As a part of that I take the opportunity to poll the class on what they think the biggest animal danger is with my cross country adventures.
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| Yes, Stephen Colbert was funny but let's be realistic |
#1 answer is always bears, #2 is usually humans. And the next few is usually snakes and mountain lions.
I am convinced that most peoples image of bears comes from movies like The Revenant above. Just like sharks most people base off Jaws. And AI from Terminator. Thanks Hollywood.
Consider that if that image of bears was correct we should have multiple fatalities every year on the AT where bears tear out of the wilderness and rip apart a bunch of smelly hikers packing a bag of chips out of town. And yet...
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| Each blue mark is generally a campsite |
Yes, people living in remote parts of Montana for 40 years have a different view of things. However I have crossed a good amount of the country and done a lot of shorter trips and backpacks long before I had an Inreach that aren't shown above. So let's call it thousands or more nights spent in the wilderness and a lot more day hiking.
The actual biggest risk as far as animal encounters is rural dogs particularly on a trail like the ADT which spends so much time around civilization and rural areas. And I base this on both my own experiences including multiple incidents I barely escaped without injury and people I have met directly who have related their encounters in one way or another.
I often get really hostile comments from dog lovers when I say this. But they often haven't had the experience of getting surrounded by two pitbulls in the middle of a long stretch of farm road with nowhere to go.
Also the running joke is the last thing you hear before a fatal dog mauling on trail is "don't worry he's friendly" but people not being able to judge their pets reaction to strangers particularly smelly ones dressed like hikers is a whole different topic...
Rural areas in particular are where you see the worst problems. And it's usually irresponsible owners who get an aggressive dog breed (aka pit bulls) and leave it outside unfenced and don't train or take care of it. So in the end it's a human problem not a dog problem but it's the dog that's going to try and bite you.
Pit bulls are the worse and all the encounters where I was truly afraid involved them. Norther Florida, Alabama, and Georgia in particular were the worse there bad. They are just massive dogs that can do real damage if they manage to get a hold of you.
My year on the Florida Trail there was a pack of three pit bulls someone had loose around Sirmans, Florida. This road is officially a part of the Florida trail and multiple hikers barely managed to make it past before someone finally got bit and sent to the hospital. Hiker got a rabies shot, dogs were taken away and killed.
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| A concerning but not worrying dog encounter in Ohio |
Other dog breeds can also be problematic.
A number of years ago in Ohio there were unfenced sheepdogs that attacked multiple people to the point locals would give hikers rides through that section our of fear of their safety. Per locals fences were eventually installed after a mailman was attacked and they don't play around with that.
A few weeks ahead of me in Kansas another hiker ended up getting rushed by a group of 11 dogs. He was bit, ended up on top of a fence and had to yell for help. He wasn't seriously hurt but had to go through a rabies shot course which wasn't pleasant. When I went through later locals acknowledged this and said "Oh, yea, we called them the crazy dogs. They'd come and chase your car when they went by"
This town didn't do anything until they had to. Often hikers encounter dogs, have a bad encounter, but don't know where to report it so things can go on for years until someone is actually bit.
Ohio in general used to have a really bad reputation for dog attacks but for what it's worth it seems to have improved significantly in the last few years as the dogs were forcefully taken away from people. I was still on edge in a lot of the more rural areas.
Dog defense
The hard part of these encounters is the fact they usually come out of nowhere after days / weeks of you just walking along lost in your head.
Similar to bear spray if you carry one of these I strongly advice taping the top into the safety slot to avoid accidental discharge inside your pack.
So how do I manage dog encounters?
First when they charge you take an aggressive step forward and yell "Back" in a commanding voice. This usually gets dogs to back off particularly the ones that are just enthusiastic and saying hello.
Second get your trekking poles up and pointed at the dog. Keep them there. If you're being surrounded by multiples point them at the ones acting the most aggressive. Move forward but make sure you don't give them any openings to dart in and grab you. Hope that they are tied to a yard and you can get away from them. I've had a pack on me for a half mile before.
If you don't have trekking poles I don't have a lot of advice here. I know multiple people who came away with bites trying to kick to keep them back. It's part of why I kept my poles even in the early flat section of the ADT where I wasn't using them much.
Also, please report any bad encounter where you felt threatened. This can be difficult as the process varies depending where you are and as hikers we often don't have any context for a given area. And sometimes not cell coverage to do any research. But a little effort on your part can prevent others from getting hurt.
I've literally climbed a hill to get reception and spent an hour on the phone in a remote part of Alabama to do this and it seems to have actually had an effect on the worst dog encounter on the Pinhoti.
On Bears
As far as bears yes there are black bears along the ADT. Not a ton but they exist. Yet I met two hikers my first few weeks who were carrying bear spray on their belt like they were hiking in Glacier because they were convinced / been told it was needed.
Per the documentation bear spray is specifically intended for grizzly encounters specifically to stop a charging grizzly.
This is a map showing grizzly bear range in the US. Note that the ADT goes nowhere near their range. In face the only place it's really a factor is the northern end of the CDT until you reach the Great Basin.
I carried bear spray there. Anywhere else I never would. I've had people here in SoCal tell me they were carrying it for people, black bears, mountain lions, or because they "believe in taking responsibility for their personal safety".
Here's the thing. With all of my experience I have never encountered bear spray being legitimately used in any of those cases. Let's ignore the "it's makes me feel safer" factor.
I have however encountered a non trivial number of incidents where it's been triggered inadvertently either spritzing a car, tent, or just hikers
on open air. And having had to discharge expired bear spray canisters I
can attest to how potent and painful they are to even get a slight whiff
of.
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| This didn't end well for me or the person filming |
My advice for animal protection on the ADT
- Trekking poles are your best defense. Carry them even if you don't think you want to use them
- Don't carry bear spray (or other weapons for that matter) as the consequences are higher than any potential gain
- If you carry bear spray at the very least tape down the safety
- If you need something bring a small thing of dog spray making sure it's the gel vairety and keep it secured
Food storage in bear and rodent country
Food storage in bear country is something that's rather controversial and there is a lot of bad advice there by people who don't have enough experience to really be giving advice.
The short version of what I personally do:
I never hang my food because it's very difficult to do correctly in the best of circumstance and bears can and will defeat even the best version. I use a bear can in the Sierra but not really anywhere else. Everywhere that doesn't have special regulations (which is all of the ADT) I keep my food in my tent with me inside my pack at night.
This means I never let it out of arms reach. That means if I go out to the bathroom to dig a cathole my pack / food bag goes with me. This has carried me safely through years of extended trips through bear country.
Also don't have anything looking or smelling of food pressed against the outer fabric of your tent since that's the only time I've had mice issues. When Jen is with me the food bag goes in between our sleeping bags to prevent this.
The biggest thing you can do to avoid bear or rodent encounters is pick campsites that are not heavily trafficked. Want to see a bear? Stay at the shelters along the AT. Never want to see a bear? Use lightly used campsites or stealth spots.
Mountain Lions and Snakes
I have encountered both of these extensivly.
Of the two mountain lions are the rare encounter but having been followed down a ridge alone after dark out in the desert by one I can say it can be an unsetting encounter.
However as far as actual incidents of someone getting attacked it all but doesn't happen. We're talking rare incidents when viewed on a national scale. Unless you have a small dog or child with you the risk is really infinitesimal.
If you see a mountain lion get big, wave your arms, yell. Hope it just eats your smallest dog / youngest child assuming you didn't pick them up like they recommend. Take pictures.
As far as snakes there are only a few varieties you have to worry about in the US. I'm going to address rattlesnakes specifically since that's the most common.
I probably get rattlesnakes going off at me about half a dozen times a season. This is taking all the usual precautions and being aware. They don't want to bite you, 99 times out of 100 they just want you to back off. I've encountered folks who have been bit and it's always been a complete freak occurrence they couldn't have prevented or else they for some reason thought it would be a good idea to reach for the snake.
If you get bit it's an emergency situation meaning walk out and get help. Unless you're really old or young or otherwise compromised medically it's not life threatening but the only treatment requires a hospital and anti-venom. Any snake kits still being sold in the US are infective and usually result in people doing harm to themselves.
Even if you do get bit keep in mind you can have anywhere from zero to multiple puncture wounds. Even if you do have puncture wounds it's possible no venom may have been injected. As a general recommendation I tell folks get out and get checked. If you can't get out in say a half a day and you're seeing swelling and discoloration then consider hitting your Inreach.
Also the whole don't wear headphones because you need to hear the snake rattle is BS. I can vouch for the fact you hear them through noise canceling AirPods while listening to music or an audiobook.
Short answer: stay aware but it's not worth worrying about.
Camping will be a bigger challenge than you think
This is something I both knew from past trips and which somehow still surprised me.
As a general rule you cannot legally just set up a tent in anywhere in the United States. Wilderness and BLM you can usually camp with some limitations and sometimes requires some sort of permit.
Whether you are likely to get called on that or not depends on the area but in the modern times there is a large amount of sensitivity in a lot of areas around the so called visible homeless.
This isn't just a matter of hating on people who are in bad circumstances. Visible homeless are a small percentage of the actual homeless but they tend to be the ones with mental issues, using drugs or alcohol, or leaving trashed tents or starting fires. Check out the Vagabond subreddit on Reddit.com for a lot of first hand examples of bad behavior. Also mentally ill people living in vehicles overflowing with trash is something we've been seeing a lot more of everywhere but Colorado Springs it seemed particularly bad.
Walking through Grand Junction or Parkersburg there were people sprawled out on the sidewalk insensible or arguing with the air / inanimate objects. It's understandable when they have a pack and are attired not completely unlike me I'd be grouped with them when people encountered me despite my best attempts to dress like a hiker, stay shaved, and have patches on my backpack making it clear what I was doing.
Specifically when it comes to camping people setting up camp, trashing the area, or starting fires has put people on edge. A trail angel that approached me out of nowhere and gave me a place to stay in the pouring rain in Delaware related how many issues they've personally had on their property. At one point I was approached by a local who wanted to know if I was living in the creek. Later I pieced together from a HikingAmerica map waypoint that they had probably seen another hiker who had done a bad job of stealth camping nearby. I asked to have the waypoint removed.
I'm fairly experienced having had to stealth camp a good amount during my time on the Eastern Continental Trail and other lesser established things like the Trans County. I figured if I'd managed in the Keys down in Florida and one rather stressful night spent on the side of PCH in California I could manage. But it was still the major source of stress for me and the cause of many days particularly early on where I cut my mileage short because I was concerned about finding a secure camp.
In areas with open forest you can usually set up pretty easy and don't have to worry. The hard part is when you're in farmlands out east where the properties take up every scrap of flat land or in Kansas where it's all farm fields and you have to work with the very occasional tree breaks.
A few times I was able to approach someone and got permission to stay on a patch of grass somewhere on their property. Once I was told to leave immediately by a catholic nun of all people. But in general offers of places to stay always seem to come at 10 am when I don't need them instead of a few hours before dark.
Being in larger towns I didn't mess around and just bought a hotel room. I know others who will stealth in parks or in one case even joined a homeless encampment but those approaches can have consequences of their own. And occasionally really good stories.
Personally I've experienced lights hitting my tent waking me up in the middle of the night and it sucks. It takes something I find highly enjoyable aka being snug and secure in my tent at the end of the day and sends my pulse through the roof. I lay there, pulse pounding, and have to contemplate if I'm about to have a gun pointed at me by an irritate landowner or just have to pack up and move on in the dark hoping I can find something else before I have to walk for half the night.
I worry less about this when Jen is with me. Mostly because it's a much more comfortable situation being confronted by someone when you have another person with you. But it's also a lot harder to stay hidden when you have two people.
All of this is why I personally have a much higher standard for how hidden I have to be when I stealth camp. And another major reason I tend to recommend first time people consider doing a more traditional trail.
Stealth camping basics
I would define stealth camping as anytime you are camping in an area where there would be consequences to anyone finding you. Those consequences could be anywhere from someone feeling uncomfortable to an encounter with police and a potential ticket or rousting.
The basic idea is to make sure you aren't visible. This means set up off in the vegetation and be careful about any lights after dark.
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| This is why you watch your lights |
Alternatively you set up as late as you can and get moving as early as you can. Do both in the dark and you have a much lower chance of having any sort of an issue.
In one rather epic story a hiker walking through the Keys slept in the back of an unlocked Uhaul behind a Home Depot after arriving late at night. Worked for him, funny story, and no way I would have been able to sleep.
I don't follow this mostly because I like my morning coffee and I need time to edit my daily videos. And I'd much rather do that inside my tent while I eat breakfast vs stopping somewhere and pulling apart my pack again.
How I select a site
It's hard to judge how far I'll make it in a given day so I often don't start looking at campsites until mid afternoon. At that point I have plenty of time to adjust but I know ballpark how far I'll make it.
First source is Hiking America's map data. He marks stealth spots used successfully in the past along with a lot of other options like churches or parks that have allowed people to stay in the past. Note that I found several individuals who's campsites I started to discount because of issues like the locals approaching me or what i consider unethical things like sleeping in a public bathroom.
Assuming there are no existing option I look ahead on Google Maps using the satellite layer. I look for wooded areas not close to any homes or other buildings where I think I can get in and be hidden from the road.
The GaiaGPS phone app that I recommended above has separate overlays for public and private land. They have a warning that you shouldn't fully trust the data but it's better than nothing. I usually check those and while I have stayed on plenty of forest plots that show ownership I generally feel better about ones marked as public property. Note that it's still quite possible to get ticketed or rousted so I still make sure I'm out of view.
At the end of the day I admit on I'm on the overly cautious side when it comes to tent sites. Partially because I've found that my time in the tent is a big part of how I recharge and manage to do these long and often very challenging trips. Better to make a little more effort and have a relaxing night than take an easier site and have to wake up in a panic in the middle of the night.
I also have a deep disgust at people who have let themselves into
others cabins or outbuildings without permission or do things like camp
in public restrooms impacting others. Aside from ethical considerations
behavior like this tends to splash back on the rest of us.
But as with many things on this list it is something that can be managed. I stayed with a good number of trail angels and had some amazing experiences camping out with permission in small towns across Kansas. But it's something you should be prepared for an a little consideration on your part can keep a lot of these options open for more people in the future.
Churches and small towns are an option...sometimes
Something we leaned on a lot more later in our hike was reaching out and asking permission from churches and sometimes smaller towns themselves. This was particularly helpful in Kansas where finding an unfenced area to camp out of view of the road wasn't trivial.
I tend to not want to engage with folks and just manage on my own but this trail had a way of breaking down that hesitation to the point where in Kansas we were being forced to knock on the door of farmhouses in the middle of nowhere asking for water.
Early on we called a church we were walking by out of desperation late in the day and had the good luck of it being a UMC Church. For whatever reason of the two or three dozen churches I contacted on my trip I had the highest sucess rate with them.
I at least partially attribute this sucess to the
fact they seem to always have as a part of their answering machine "For
pastoral emergencies please contact xxx-xxx-xxx" The first time we heard
this I hesitated for a moment feeling like maybe it wasn't appropriate. But the pastor was really nice and let us stay.
The hard part is usually reaching someone on the
phone. On the Florida Trail they spoil you as the FTA has worked with
the churches to make sure you have a contact number for someone. But particularly with smaller churches of the type you might find along the road in a rural area they often don't have a full time
office and it's not readily apparent where you might find someone to ask in person.
I remember at one point calling a Lutheran Church where I could
hear the phone ringing inside each time I called.
Anecdotally the churches I've had the least sucess with are Catholic and Mormon. In one case I even had a Catholic nun I sheepishly approached demand I leave the area at once. Others with more insight with me have attributed this to the fact the churches are run more as businesses and they often don't have as much local control / worry more about things like insurance liability. As always YMMV and this isn't something I would personally expect from some random church in the (relative) middle of nowhere.
It goes without saying I went out of my way to be respectful anytime I did this. As a part of that I'm not personally comfortable camping out behind a small church even in the actual middle of nowhere if I don't have permission. These days cellular security cameras are I more and more places and I've had people show up to check on what I was doing when I just sat out front on the steps to rest for a few minutes. And I don't want to make someone else feel uncomfortable just to make my life a little easier for one night.
Small towns particular in Kansas often had places they'd let us stay. We usually found these due to a note in Hiking America but we also would scour Google and try and find some sort of a contact number. In one notable case the number was answered by someone who sounded like your elderly grandmother at home in the kitchen. When Jen explained what we were doing and that we were looking for a place to camp just overnight she exclaimed "Oh, let me ask Patrick!" and within 10 minutes we had a call back from the mayor who happily gave us permission and a safe place to get water.
Also Larned, Kansas specifically told us they would love for more people to stay. It was somewhat surreal hiking into town at 11 pm and going into the police station complete with buzzing neon sign to talk to the 911 operator. But they gave us a permit (in case they wanted to check us for a permit I guess??) and even had an officer sweep the park to make sure no teenagers or other riffraff bothered us while we were setting up.
I picked up that this particular section of Kansas used to have a lot more bike packer traffic and so many of the towns were used to this sort of thing. It's very much not the norm everywhere. For example one small town elsewhere in Kansas we were approached by a police officer to relatively friendly asked us what we were up to and then wanted specifically to know where we were going after town. And then parked on the outskirts and watched until we left. That same area locals called the police on us 4 days in a row while we were just walking down the road.
I've personally found people are generally good and often surprise you with how far they'll go to help a complete stranger. But you are very much something they don't expect when they encounter you walking across the country like this.
I have also been told others had success camping in cemeteries. YMMV, I've done it before with permission, but it somehow feels disrespectful to me.
Safe Water Doesn't Always Exist In Civilized America
On a trail like the AT or PCT you can filter from water sources along the way. Pretty much any filter method will protect you from giradia / cryptosporidia and viruses are rarely encountered in US water. This is water access as most thru hikers know it and once you get a routine down it's quite convenient outside of the occasional long dry stretches.
However on something like the American Discovery Trail or the Florida Trail there are additional considerations.
First when you are on flat terrain the water doesn't drain down from a spring before it gets used below. We take water from Sierra slopes all the time where the only danger is usually animal and human fecal contamination. But in the flatlands it sits, absorbed pesticides and other chemicals, and then just stews. Look at Lake Okeechobee in Florida as an eye opening example. Often these chemicals leach into the ground table so not even shallow wells are safe.
Crossing Kansas it was hot and we really needed a lot of water. 11-12 liters a day wasn't unusual. We took from cattle wells a few times having done that on the CDT but it's not nearly as safe outside of those more mountainous areas. See things like Blue Baby Syndrome.
My default was to get water from towns however not everyplace in the US has safe municipal drinking water. This was a bit of a surprise outside of the few well known cases like Flint, Michigan but I've now encountered so often it's a habit whenever I go into a town or stay in a hotel to ask someone if it's safe to fill up from the tap.
Sometimes the issue is just lead or rusting pipes in a particular building but also some areas just do not have safe water period. In eastern Colorado I encountered this and had to beg bottled water from random people on the street after the only place in range I found to buy was tiny prohibitively expensive bottles in a cash only liquor store. Insufficient when you need a gallon plus.
We had two incidents on the trail that I think came from drinking bad water. The first was along the C&O where I took out of a side stream and the Potomac after realizing how nasty the water in the campsite wells were and not wanting to divert off trail to get into a town. This was honestly avoidable if I carried a bit more water which I did going forward.
The other was in Kansas where Jen had major intestinal issues for days. We're pretty sure it came from drinking either out of a cattle well or else a hand pump on someones property. We did that once in particular where the result tasted pretty off but we didn't have a lot of choice.
In both cases I ran it through my usual Sawyer filter but that doesn't do anything for chemicals.
A possible solution: The Sawyer S1
In Florida I carried one of these. I barely used it thanks to water caches put out by trail angels but in retrospect I would carry it on the ADT if I was doing the Kansas to Delaware section again.
It comes with a Sawyer Mini (the little black part with a white top on the top of the blue thing) which I would remove and just carry a normal Sawyer Squeeze. That way I could use the standard filter or the more involved one at need.
It works by exposing the water to treated foam in the blue bottle. Squish it around, wait, filter like normal, and theoretically the water is safer to drink. They also have Sawyer S2 and S3 filters which say they can deal with things like heavy metals.
As someone who had to come off trail for 5 days and go into the urgent care I personally feel it would have been worth the cost and weight. And Jen struggling for days towards the end in Colorado probably would agree as well.
Can you do it without this filter? Yes, of course. People have done it before and while I did encounter a few stories form trail angels about people getting sick around the C&O presumably a lot of people don't. I would just recommend being a bit more careful than I was at collecting water before you get to the Colorado Mountains.
Utah Requires Water Caching. Contact Bob Palin
I mention this because it's something that people seem to always miss about this trail.
The section at the western end of Colorado, through Utah, and into Nevada is not doable without water caches. You can either lay them yourself or for at least the last few years the ADT Utah state coordinator and all around awesome guy Bob Palin has done an amazing job setting up caches to get people through this challenging section.
Best place to look for contact info is the State Coordinator list. Look under Utah and it should be Bob or whoever has taken over for him. https://discoverytrail.org/state-coordinators
Contact him early as he sets out the caches once and if you miss that you're SOL. A lot of the places he drops caches are not the sort of place you'd be able to reach with your average rental car.
He charges a nominal fee that's far less than what the service is worth.
Matt's YMMV Advice For Single Season ADT Success
- Start by buying the Hiking America mapset at https://www.hikingamerica.com/welcome. This will cost you $70 a year and is worth every penny. With this, a cell phone and a subscription to the GaiaGPS app you have everything you need to do the trail.
- Your best bet is to start from the east coast sometime in March. This balances cold weather and snow at the very start against the most time to get across the Rockies and Sierra. But you're going still going to have to hurry. Really hurry.
- Treat the early states more seriously than they feel. They are easy but
that doesn't mean you should dawdle more than necessary. You're going to
need the time later. Seriously.
- Don't have any sort of a firm end date as complications happen. Keep as many months open as you can. Because the universe hates nothing more than a plan.
- The real challenge starts in Ohio. More gain, more brush, and just harder going. And lots of ticks.
- Expect the Indiana / Kansas / Colorado crossing to be very hot and difficult. Honestly this section was a bigger challenge than any of the mountains. Water and dealing with the heat was the biggest concern along with trying to find secure camps.
- Consider carrying a filter capable of filtering out pesticides and other chemicals like the Sawyer S1/2/3. This would have saved us some intestinal misery. Not every town has safe drinking water out there and farms aren't always the easiest to approach particularly as a solo male who looks like they've been hiking for months.
- Plan to get through Colorado by September and the earlier the better. The CDT overlap section is going to expose you to a lot of high altitude remote areas and the weather is often complicated and can quickly get dangerous.
- Plan to get through the Sierra in early October if at all possible. In general it's easier to push through in fall vs spring because the snow isn't consolidated but we never know when the first big storm of the season is going to come in and it can make things impassable. Plus side you'll probably be strong and moving pretty good at this point.
- Look hard at the tradeoffs before committing to a cart.
- Assuming you use a backpack aim to get your weight to the low 20s. When in doubt leave it out and you can always acquire additional items along the way as needed. REI and other stores make profit on selling you a bunch of heavy overpriced crap that your not going to actually need out there and cheap gear is often more pain than it's worth. Because while that 30 or 40 lb pack is doable it's going to slow you down and significantly increase your risk of injury or burnout. Also it'll feel a lot harder to carry a month or two in when you're always tired.
- Weapons aren't needed. If anything bring anti dog spray. Closest thing I have to a weapon is a tiny Victorinox Classic SD Swiss Army Knife that I usually use to open packages and occasionally cut cheese
- Bears and wildlife are not a major factor. There are black bears in a few regions. Bear spray is for grizzly bears. Bear spray has a non trivial chance of incidental spraying.
- I slept with my food the entire way. Meaning it was inside the tent with me inside my pack at night. This is safe as long as you don't let it out of arms reach. That meant my food went with me when I walked off to dig a cathole.
- Ticks exist in large numbers and can give you unpleasant diseases if you don't take care. Treat your clothing with permethrin and take care when bushwhacking. You have a grace period when ticks start to dig in before you have to worry about disease transfer. Get used to doing constant tick checks.
- The biggest animal danger is rural dogs. Trekking poles are the best defense I've found after years of dealing with this since you already have them out and can get them between you and the dog
- Be lucky and hope you don't get hurt. Because it can happen suddenly and for really stupid reasons.
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