That moment in the Smokies when I realized my map app was lying to me

Back in March I was hiking the southern half of the AT near Fontana Dam. My phone said the shelter was 2.3 miles ahead. Kept walking for an hour, still 2.3 miles. Turns out the trail had been rerouted around a landslide in 2021 and the app never updated. A guy with a paper map flagged me down and pointed me to a blue blaze. That was the wake-up call. I still bring a physical map on every trip now, even the overnight ones. Does anyone else double check their GPS against a printed map before heading out, or am I the only one who got burned this bad?

1 comments

1 Comment

kim.dylan18d ago

That bit about the app still showing 2.3 miles after an hour is the scary part, right? Did you check if the app had any kind of update log or trail condition notes before you trusted it, or did you just assume the data was good? I'm curious if you found out later whether that reroute was even in the app's system somewhere, hidden in a menu you had to dig for.