At the risk of sounding like a total ingrate, which I don't want to be but uncomfortably recognize that I might be (since I am a user but not a maintainer of the Batona Trail), does anyone share my dismay at the over-blazing of this trail? I have stood in certain places along the trail and been able to count at least 12 visible paint marks only by moving my head. There might also now be a wooden block on a tree declaring that I am at "mile 23.5" or whatever. Some of the blazes are a foot or more in length (i.e., obnoxiously large) . The number of blazes seems to have exploded over the last few years, and to me, it detracts from the experience in a very significant way.
Like I said, I do feel like a #$%& for saying this, because of course I am grateful for the people that maintain the trail. But why are so many paint blazes and other human intrusions necessary on a trail like this?
I'm not a big fan of the mileage signs, but I'll take the new overblazing over the old faded-to-being-worthless blazing that was the usual until a few years ago, because at least someone is out there keeping an eye on things. I'm no stranger to hiking in the pines or on the Batona, but there were regularly spots where the trail would simply evaporate into nothing. Combine that with this being pre-GPS and then early GPS days, and the nightmare of inaccuracy that was that terrible green map that they used to have at the ranger stations and its amazing that more people didn't need rescuing out there on a regular basis. There were stretches of miles and miles that hadn't had a whiff of pink paint for years and years and years. We used to walk around with the topo maps, because it was easier to figure out where we had to bushwack from them than from the official trail map.
The worst time I somehow ended up on a firebreak. The blazes were infrequent enough and hard enough to spot that I ended up back on the trail before I realized I had been off it, but had been turned around by the break. Never knew what happened until we passed the same tire in a puddle we'd seen miles back and it dawned on us that that tire looked way too familiar. That was not a fun day, dragging a pack of Scouts out of the woods in the rain.
Next time I did that stretch of trail, I was super careful and alert... and still couldn't figure out where the stupid trail was supposed to go. Found where I lost it the previous time, couldn't find where it was supposed to go. Ended up skipping that section with a short road walk for years after that... it was a ten minute detour and way better than trying to figure out that mess.
It's the polar opposite now, even when my brand new 11 year old Scouts are in charge of the hike, they never loose the trail. I get to tell "When I was your age" stories and they look at me like I'm crazy.
