Blind since birth, a St. Louis Park man is hitting the Appalachian Trail with GPS technology

StarTribune.com ^ | 2/25/10 | LAURIE BLAKE

[ButThreeLeftsDo]

Mike Hanson plans to hike the 2,174-mile Appalachian Trail end to end, without ever seeing the ground under his feet.

On Monday in Georgia, the St. Louis Park man -- who lost his sight at birth -- will start his seven-month trek to Maine, navigating by GPS. He has mastered its use by cell phone and trusts global positioning technology to steer his every step.

"It gives me everything I would need to know about the trail but the view," Hanson said. "I will be able to hear and smell what is going on."

If he makes it, he'll be in select company.

More than 11,000 people have completed the trail but only three or four were blind, said Laurie Potteiger of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. One was Bill Irwin, author of "Blind Courage," who did it in 1990 with a guide dog.

[JoeFromSidney]

A friend of mine hiked the AT in two-week stretches. Every year he took his vacation hiking the trail, each year starting where he left off the previous year. I can't recall now just how many years it took him to finish. It was a big splash in the local paper when he did.

[JerseyHighlander]

This is not good. The guy responsible for large parts of these data sets guesstimated the elevation by +-50 feet.

Chris Johnson:
http://parkaymaps.110mb.com/

and the first guy to successfully tackle the data collation for the AT:

http://www.guymott.com/atgps.html

[Cvengr]