FarOut Maps I have
Costs
I’ve only bought maps, not used the subscription. Subscription gets you access to everything for $100 a year.
That came up in a recent discussion—I did not realize it was so much.
That means that if I had subscribed I’d have paid seven hundred dollars or more.
Instead I’ve paid a lot less. Even buying sections outside of the yearly sales, I’ve still paid a lot less for an awful lot of trails.
Changes
It used to be that you bought FarOut for trail details and a guidebook (like AWOLS, Whiteblaze, ALDHA, or Yogi’s) for towns and off trail information.
Several things have changed.
First. AWOL was sold. Yogi hasn’t released a new edition since 2019. Other guidebooks have often lagged in being updated.
Second, FarOut has expanded to cover the trail towns and more.
Other guides/maps
Other maps are “just” maps. Often they have specific uses and can be significantly justified.
Especially away from the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails, the maps are often very useful and have extra information not otherwise in FarOut and may have annotated tracks available.
An annotated track is a map of a trail with notes overlaid that show water, camp sites and other factors of note.
They do have a learning curve.
Online materials (with an example)
The amount of “official” online material varies dramatically by trail. Each trail has a trail association that provides some resources.
The Arizona Trail breaks up the entire trail into roughly twenty mile sections (called passages) with dramatic amounts of detail, enough to be suitable for use by day hikers.
For example, for each “passage” on the AZT there is the following information:
LOCATION
- Mexico Border to Parker Canyon Lake Trailhead
LENGTH
- 20.3 miles
RESOURCES
- MAP
- PROFILE
- TRACK
- Waypoints: GPS | MP
- Arizona Euro-American History
- USGS Topographic Maps: Montezuma Pass, Miller Peak and Huachuca Peak.
- Coronado National Forest Map, Sierra Vista Ranger District.
- BLM Information Center maps.
- “Trails of the Huachucas” by Leonard Taylor.
Access
Trailheads
TRAIL ROUTE DESCRIPTION
DIFFICULTY
- Moderate to Difficult.
SEASON(S)
- Spring, Summer and Fall
- Current weather forecast
WATER
NOTES/WARNINGS
FOR MORE INFORMATION
CURRENT PASSAGE INFO
—For every one of the 43 passages.
The Appalachian Trail has multiple online resources in addition to the official site. The Trek is the most notable. None are as detailed as the AZT material. The traditional site is Whiteblaze.
The PCT has significant resources beyond the official ones that are managed by Yogi at https://www.triplecrownoutfitters.com/pct-local-permits (and other pages) and her self proclaimed opposition at https://www.halfwayanywhere.com/pacific-crest-trail/ provides other resources.
Halfway Anywhere also has Continental Divide Trail resources to supplement the official site. There are also Reddit and Facebook groups for almost every trail.
Reddit and Facebook groups have taken up all the bandwidth that used to go to online forums like Postholer. You can track the change by looking at when the last posts were made.
Or, by checking when their link to their forums was replaced by a link to a Facebook group.
Beyond that there are blogs (more below) and all the usual online posters.
Beware. Many “backpacking” or “gear” sites are first and foremost affiliate marketing fronts seeking kickbacks.
You can spot many by looking to see if they rate sun hoodies and if they do, is https://jollygear.com/ mentioned.
- Jolly Gear is probably the current dominant provider for sun hoodies in use on long trails.
- Jolly Gear does not, as of this writing, offer affiliate marketing kickbacks.
If the site is legitimate then they will include Jolly Gear. If they are focused on selling you gear for kickbacks regardless of what is best or popular then they will skip Jolly Gear.
The Blogs and Trail Journals
Sometimes you can find someone who hikes at your speed and their story can really provide some perspective.
https://www.trailjournals.com/ is the premier source though their advertising has gotten pretty heavy.
As for the websites I do find that someone who does 30-35 mile days may be impressive (99% of hikers don’t go that fast) but they are kind of useless to me in getting a feel of what it will be like for me to hike the same trail.
As a result some sites do not connect for me.
I like some blogs. For example, PMags has a great blog with great resources as do others.
Books and YouTube
Amazon has books and movies. The books can be interesting. Some offer great historical snapshots as well.
I’ve recommended some documentary movies which you can get from Amazon or from the source. https://www.tbwproductions.com/
YouTube has a flood of videos. Dixie, Darwin and lots of others can all be found there with videos of their hikes.
Age will eventually affect some sources but currently while the videos and documentary sources aren’t a guide to gear, they still provide an excellent feel for what the trails are like.
Bottom line
Aside from buying FarOut trail guides for the app instead of subscription access, there is a lot out there, some of which I find useful.
The official sites aren’t bad.
- https://appalachiantrail.org/
- https://www.pcta.org/
- https://cdtcoalition.org/
- https://aztrail.org/ (an incredible site).
The free materials can be good and the movies are worth paying for. While the Appalachian Trail has by far the most resources, other trails have significant resources available.