The Lost Appalachian Trail

But a hiker in 1931 had a different experience of hiking regardless of the route. While the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club’s Guide to Paths in the Blue Ridge is no longer valuable on the trail itself, it is still an informative and beautiful piece of material culture. The year 1931, of course, was before Google Maps, GIS, and satellites, so these paper maps were (and still are to a lesser extent) essential for navigating the trails. In the early years of the Appalachian Trail, however, even the paper versions of the maps were not as easy to come by. The only official maps were obtained via the Appalachian Trail Conference or the local trail clubs that maintained the different portions of the trail. At this time in Virginia, it was solely the domain of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (there are now eight groups). The guide was priced at $2.50 or about $47.55 today.

Once acquired, the 1931 Guidebook was the hiker’s constant companion and had to hold up to its time on the trail. The 1931 edition has a snap enclosure that keeps the pages protected as well as an interior pocket that protects the larger fold-out map of the entire Virginia portion of the trail. The guidebooks and maps changed in many ways with technology advances over the years, but this earliest example in our collection seems more usable than the 1937 pocket version with its microscopic print or the 1941 version with its fold-out maps that never seem to quite fold back in flat. But, it is still just paper, not the coated waterproof trail maps common today, and susceptible to the elements and wear and tear of the trail.

Mapping technology has come a long way as well. The guidebook contains one large fold-out map and then maps of smaller sections of the trail, all of which are hand-drawn and very general in nature. In order to supplement this, a large portion of the guidebook actually consists of descriptive directions on how to remain on the trail, noting private businesses and residences that bisect the trail and might be able to afford lodging and food. A typical section reads:

At one point the guide also instructs hikers to cross a baseball diamond “diagonally from first to third base and beyond foul-line cross bars and enter woods.”⁴

While the 2019 edition of the Central Virginia AT trail guidebook points out its “omnidirectional format [that] allows you to see where you are whether southbound or northbound,” in order to be usable in both directions, the descriptive directions in the 1931 version are repeated twice: once for North to South, and again South to North.⁵ The 1931 guide also includes some information regarding how to treat medical emergencies on the trail, how to identify local plants, and an area for notes.

The 1935 Trail Manual issued by the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC) to help standardize the markings of the trail declares the “sole purpose” of the trail to be “pleasure and recreation.” A hike is always more enjoyable when one does not get lost, which makes both these guidebooks and the signage on the trail extremely important. The manual estimated the life of a trail sign to be between five to seven years, but signs for the old Virginia route – “The lost Appalachian Trail” – could still be seen as late the 1980s, more than thirty years after the route had been abandoned by the official ATC.⁶ Perhaps they are there still, just like the guidebooks on our shelves, standing testament to history.

–Jessi Bennett, Digital Collections Specialist, and Rebecca Schneider, Senior Reference Librarian