Mountains-to-Sea Trail

[wataugadave]

I would love to hike through the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. The issue is that while it's currently possible a lot of it involves hiking on roads. My worry is that are the roads signed or blazed well or will I have to constantly hold a map in front of me during those sections?

[The Botanical Hiker]

Hi Wataugadave! I have thru-hiked theMST twice and am a volunteer with the Friends of the MST. I am happy to answer any questions you may have regarding the trail.

To answer your question about the road portions...for most of the roadwalking, road signs are prominent, however there is no blazing.You would not need to study a map for these roads, but you would certainly need to pay mind to your guidebook or mile-by-mile directions. The portions of trail connected by road are blazed well,so you can fairly easily hike these portions without looking constantly at a map or directions. I would however advise you to still carry a map for every section that you're hiking, as this is a trail under construction and reroutes happen now and again. It is not always as well maintained either as say, the AT, so there are times when you may go a long ways without seeing a blaze or you are uncertain if you are indeed on trail. I never was truly lost for any length of time but I did get turned around on a number of occasions or take the wrong road for a few miles.

A good guidebook to start with is Scot Taba Ward's MST thru-hiker's guide and then supplement with the PDF updates on the Friends of the MST website(www.ncmst.org) as well as the portions of guidebook the Friends have completed and also posted on their website, as portions of the trail have changed since he last wrote his guide in 2012.

Edited March 12, 2015 by The Botanical Hiker
typos