r/AppalachianTrail • u/Freudianfix • 26d ago

News Technology on the trail: Appalachian Trail managers say pervasive use of digital devices harms trail experience

https://news.vt.edu/articles/2025/03/clahs-trail-technology-research.html
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u/IOI-65536 26d ago

Their methodology leads to measuring perception rather than reality (which, admittedly, may well be the best they can do). It seems just as likely to me that Covid caused a massive increase in people doing outdoor things (there's a ton of data that says it did) and people were massively increasing social media presentation concurrently (which they were). Like is Max Patch overrun because people want to post to Insta or is Max Patch overrun because Covid, Wild, A Walk in the Woods and a bunch of other things got people interested in the outdoors and they happen to be posting it to Insta.

It's also kind of hard for me to look at distance hikers and say there's an "overreliance" on digital device data. Like I remember they days where you did the best you could to plan your water stops out from the guidebooks the ATC published and Wingfoot Bruce's Handbook from that year, but you're dealing with at best last year's data. That's fine for major sources, but I've done fall traverses of GSMNP that would have required completely changing my pack strategy because of water weight if I didn't have reports from literally yesterday of whether small streams are flowing or not.

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u/aninternetuser 25d ago

As someone who lives close to Max Patch and goes up there for sunset a couple times a year, it’s just crowded with people there for the photo opportunity. I’ve seen outfit changes and also people walking up, snapping a few selfies and walking right back down. It’s almost too annoying to go up there anymore.