====Before you depart: Don't do this ...====
To be issuedThere is one thing you don’t need to do before you depart: Public announcements of your hiking plans. So far I observed: As more ambitious the announcement was, as more attention-grabbing the web page with this announcement appeared as less the loud-mouth actually archived. One hiker used without asking and consent a slight modification of the trail name to name a web page on which he loudly and proudly announced a 1500 mile thru-hike of the GPT. He used this page to ask for donations and even got T-shirts printed. It took about one week till he aborted the thru-hike and started to bus primarily from national park to national park to visit a couple of the more established trails. This change of plans was actually a wise decision. What it hilarious is that he still makes it appear on his page that he hiked and paddled 1500 miles through Patagonia. What is interesting to note is that around the same time several other hikers and packrafters started in the same area without having made public announcements. These low-profile people covered more ground and really immersed into the land along the GPT what made it such an amazing experience for them. They were open to learn and free to adapt to the trail while they hiked their hike. They could find their pace without being chased by a public claim that they set free before they departed.
====When being on the GPT: Learn and Adopt====
