great smoky postman introduction

Update: great smoky postman completed! Summary here.

To become a 900-miler you must complete all the trails in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. To do this efficiently, you may want to solve it as a postman problem. Lowest mileage claimed for a map completion is 924.3 set by Benny Braden in 2017. (Note the omission of ~10 miles of temporarily closed trails.)

My goal is to complete all park trails in a new lowest mileage. I plan to do this over many weekend outings into the Smokies. I'll log time and distance running, hiking or crawling while in the backcountry, but won't count the time and distance spent on vehicle-accessible roads. I'll use man ways or bushwhack where advantageous.

I've been interested in finding the most efficient routes ever since purchasing a copy of Elizabeth Etnier's guidebook about a decade ago. This was originally with an FKT in mind. But a month away from work and family currently isn't feasible, so I'm going at this in 20-30 separate outings.

I've planned many routes so that I loop back to my car on foot, or by bicycle. But I'll gladly take advantage of a secondary vehicle when/if others join. And I do hope to include family and friends. I have a rough itinerary, but sequencing and dates are fluid. I plan to report back about each route on this blog.