>>2416570>in a hiking group>someone hosting a hike in Alabama>good group, experienced, no fatties>following a trail the organizer found on AllTrails>lesser used section leading to a really great grotto and waterfall>trail abruptly ends at a 15’ sheer drop>spend over an hour looking for a better way down>have to turn around and go backNot sure if we were expected to take a rope or if it was an elaborate troll. I was weary before we began because of a similar situation I’d had a few months prior. A friend showed me a route on AllTrails that I was fairly certain wasn’t a trail at all (because I’m very familiar with the area). When I went after he showed me I checked to be sure, and not only was it not a trail, it was a legitimate swamp.
It’s a classic failure of crowd sourcing with no vetting. A hike that includes a 15’ drop using a rope can be fun, but that information is critical if you’re going to share it with other people. “Follow this trail” isn’t the same as “bushwhack through the jungle after trudging through the swamp over unmarked terrain.”
For mapping prior to hiking, I use CalTopo. Its a great source of digitized, up-to-date USGS and FS maps. The maps can be cropped into whatever sections you want, in whatever scale you want, saved as geospatial pdf’s, and printed at Kinko’s for like $.50 each (11x11 is the largest you can do for free, otherwise the website charges a membership fee). It’s a website, and there’s an app as well but it was pretty buggy when I tried it maybe two years ago.
The app I use is Topo Nomad. It has a database of USGS 7.5’ topo maps. It also supports geospatial PDF’s, so if you have a custom map (such as from Cal Topo) you can view it in the app. The app was $10 but there’s no membership fee or anything.
