Took me 4 trips to finally figure out water crossings

I kept planning routes along the Appalachian Trail near Shenandoah and every single time I hit a stream crossing that wasn't marked on my paper map. The first trip in May I spent 45 minutes walking up and down the bank looking for rocks, ended up just wading knee deep with my boots on. Second trip, same spot, I tried the log crossing and slipped right off into the water. By the third time I started asking other hikers and they all said the same thing, don't trust the map, just follow the worn trail to the narrowest point and go slow. Last Tuesday I finally timed it right, took me 10 minutes to cross a spot that had cost me an hour before. Has anyone else had a specific choke point that kept beating you until you figured out the trick?

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rubys1924d ago

The narrowest point thing is good advice but its not always the move. Sometimes the narrow spot is deeper and faster and the wide part has a nice shallow gravel bar you can walk right across. I learned that the hard way on a crossing in the Smokies where I followed the worn path right into a thigh deep chute.

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