This Land, Your Land

The North Carolina Bartram Trail Society has developed a new map of the trail that it plans to distribute by the end of March, the society said last week.

The map of the Bartram National Recreational Trail will be the first to cover the entire length of the 118-mile trail, according to the organization. It will describe the primary features of the trail - water sources, campsites, vistas, road accesses, etc. - as well as driving directions to trailheads. Volunteers walked the length of the trail with high-precision GPS equipment and a distance measuring device (a "wheel").

The map "will also contain information on William Bartram, his contribution to the history of the area and his encounters with the native Cherokee, as well as interpretive information on the natural and cultural history of the region," the society says.

Eighty miles of the trail wind through the Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina, running northwest from near Rabun Bald just south of Highlands and ending at Cheoah Bald. It joins the Appalachian Trail at two points, including at Wayah Bald. In Georgia, 38 miles of the trail run south-southeast from the state border to the Chattooga River and then head northeast paralleling the river to the Ga. 28 bridge.

"Underappreciated, the Bartram Trail covers much of the same (spectacular) terrain as the Appalachian Trail in Georgia and North Carolina, but offers a much more solitary experience," says the GORP site.

(We first saw info about the N.C. Bartram Trail Society's new map at Smoky Mountain News.)