I have been an Appalachian Trail Section hiker since 2017. I have accumulated 225 miles over numerous multi day hikes. For me, a section hike must be planned at least 3 days and 2 nights on the trail to “count” towards these miles. “Day hikes” do not count.
On of my first hikes was in the Shenandoah National Park where the trail follows the Skyline drive. On the first day of hiking I had paper copies of the AT Guide in a zip lock in my pocket. The guide is more or less a map of the trail with details on mileages, elevations, shelters, place to camp, water sources as well as many other details of the trail.
When I stopped for my first rest stop the zip lock was no where to be found!
I must have dropped it somewhere on the trail.
The backup to the paper maps was an app for the phone called GutHook (now called Far Out). I never wanted to use the app because I wanted to save the battery on my phone and this was why I chose to always carry the paper. But when I turned on my phone to use it, the app would not open, nada, zip!!
For the rest of the day I followed the trail without my copies of the guide and no access to the Guthook app. It is very hard to get lost following the AT but I love the guide to tell me how far I have gone and how far I have left to go to my destination for the day.
That evening I camped at a shelter (called huts in the SNP for some reason) with other hikers and told my story of my missing guide pages and the phone app that would not open… as a result, I was given the name of “mapless”
Luckily another hiker arrived with my zip lock bag they had found and I was only mapless for a day, but now have the trail name forever… once you are given a trail name it is always your trail name per the trail rules…
Adventures of an AT Section hiker "Mapless" 