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Using Top Trails

Organization of Top Trails

Top Trails is designed to make identifying the perfect trail easy and enjoyable, and to make every outing a success and a pleasure. With this book you’ll find it’s a snap to find the right trail, whether you’re planning a major hike or just a sociable stroll with friends.

The Region

Each Top Trails guide begins with the overview map, displaying the entire area covered by this guide and providing an overview of the geography. The map is clearly marked to show which area is covered by each chapter.

After the overview map comes the master trails table, which lists every trail covered in the guide. Here you’ll find a concise description, basic information, and highlighted features, all indispensable when planning an outing. A quick reading of the regional map and trails table will give you a good overview of the entire region covered by the book.

The Areas

The region covered in each book is divided into areas, with each chapter corresponding to one area in the region. Each area chapter introduction starts with information to help you choose and enjoy a trail every time out. Use the table of contents or the regional map to identify an area of interest, and then turn to the area chapter to find the following:

• An overview of the area, including park and permit information

• An area map showing all trail locations

• A trail features table providing trail-by-trail details

• Trail summaries highlighting each trail’s specific features

The Trails

The basic building block of the Top Trails guide is the trail entry. Each one is laid out to make finding and following the trail as simple as possible, with all pertinent information presented in this easy-to-follow format:

• A detailed trail map

• Trail descriptors covering difficulty, length, and other essential data

• A written trail description

• Trail milestones providing easy-to-follow, turn-by-turn trail directions

Some trail descriptions offer additional information:

• An elevation profile

• Trail options

• Trail highlights

In the margins of the trail entries, keep your eyes open for graphic icons that signal features mentioned in the text.

Choosing a Trail

Top Trails provides several different ways of choosing a trail, all presented in easy-to-read tables, charts, and maps.

Location

If you know in general where you want to go, Top Trails makes it easy to find the right trail in the right place. Each chapter begins with a large-scale map showing the starting point of every trail in that area.

Features

This guide describes the Top Trails of Shenandoah National Park, and each trail is chosen because it offers one or more features that make it appealing. Using the trail descriptions, summaries, and tables, you can quickly examine all the trails for the features they offer or seek a particular feature among the list of trails.

Best Time

Time of year and current conditions can be important factors in selecting the best trail. For example, an exposed low-elevation trail may be a riot of color in early spring but an oven-baked taste of hell in midsummer. Wherever relevant, Top Trails identifies the best and worst conditions for the trails you plan to hike.

Difficulty

Every trail has an overall difficulty rating on a scale of 1–5, which takes into consideration length, elevation change, exposure, trail quality, etc., to create one (admittedly subjective) rating.

The ratings assume you are an able-bodied adult in reasonably good shape, using the trail for hiking. The ratings also assume normal weather conditions—clear and dry.

Readers should make an honest assessment of their own abilities and adjust time estimates accordingly. Also, rain, snow, heat, wind, and poor visibility can all affect your pace on even the easiest of trails.

The Elevation Factor

Cumulative Elevation Gain and Loss

The at-a-glance info in the margin of each Top Trails entry includes a pair of numbers labeled Vertical Feet. The numbers represent the total gain and/or total loss of altitude as you negotiate the trail’s ascents and descents between the beginning and ending points of the hike.

For hikes that start and end at the same spot—that is, a loop or an out-and-back trail—the elevation gain matches the elevation loss because you’re essentially retracing your route. (Exceptions—which are reflected in the numbers—might include, for instance, an optional spur that you take outbound but not inbound.)

Top Trails Difficulty Ratings

1 A short trail, generally level, that can be completed in 1 hour or less.

2 A route of 1–3 miles, with some ups and downs, that can be completed in 1–2 hours.

3 A longer route, up to 5 miles, with some uphill and/or downhill sections.

4 A long or steep route—perhaps more than 5 miles or with climbs of more than 1,000 vertical feet.

5 The most demanding route: both long and steep and more than 5 miles long, with climbs of more than 1,000 vertical feet.

With a point-to-point, or one-way, route, the elevation gain and loss will most likely differ. In either case, for matching or differing figures, the author provides both sets of numbers, preceded by a plus or minus sign.

Example: Picture an out-and-back trail that starts at 1,500', climbs to 1,700', descends to 1,500', and climbs to 2,800' at the turnaround point. The hiker reverses course and descends 1,300', climbs 200', and descends 200'. Coming and going, the elevation gain and elevation loss each total 1,300', represented as Vertical Feet: +1,300'/–1,300' for this hike. If, however, at that 2,800' turnaround point, the hiker has arranged for a shuttle and this is a point-to-point hike, then the cumulative elevation change would be +1,500'/–200'.

Elevation Profile

To show these incremental ups and downs, each Top Trails entry includes an elevation profile. This graphic element provides a visual guide to the rises and falls you can expect along the hike. For example, one trail’s cumulative elevation may total +1,300'/–1,300', and the elevation profile shows that the gain and loss occur as you climb and descend only one peak. Another trail’s cumulative elevation may be identical (that is, +1,300'/–1,300'), but its elevation profile may reveal many small rises and falls all along the trail to reach that total.

Thus, you’ll want to review both the cumulative elevation number(s) and the elevation profile to know whether your climbs and descents will be many small ones or a few long and arduous ones.