1-Spacing. What do you do when you have two great
towns eight miles apart and the next one nineteen miles
away? And it all comes after 100 miles of no long term
resupply within a mile of the trail. It’s feast or famine
and it presents some interesting choices.
2-Towns without services. Not every town will have
every thing. Some services will be close to the trail, others
won’t be. Great trail town will have some unusual gaps in
what they can offer you. Read the companion carefully.
3-Services without towns. Some things you need will be
close to the trail and not ‘in town’ at all. Don’t be afraid to
take advantage of these. The one thing to be careful of is
the tendency to overeat at nearby restaraunts making that
mile or so back to the trail slow and occasionally involving
a dash into the woods.
4-Milestones. It’s only natural to say that you’re at the
beginning or end or some fraction of the way through a
state and want to stay there. Pennsylvania doesn’t work
that way. You’ll have trouble finding groceries in Delaware
Water Gap and trouble finding a town at Pen-Mar.
5-Compound Effect. When you go without being able to
stop and plan things out things can get out of whack. It’s
not so much that you stick religiously to a plan just that
you have one to work from.