Track the Sergeant!

[floridacyclist]

http://www.rideforfatherhood.org/track/

One of our Cadet Senior Master Sergeants is hiking almost 50 miles alone through the St Marks Wildlife Refuge as part of a school project called "Intensives Week" where you take a week off from school and do something, well intensive; this is not a Civil Air Patrol activity.

As a safety measure, he is checking in every few hours via text messaging or ham radio to report his coordinates; as a public service and favor to the National Wildlife Service, he is also collecting the coordinates of campsites, trail intersections and other points of interest for them to use on their website as most of their coordinates are not in a people-friendly format.

Now you too can track him! Simply visit the website (link below) and either print the included PDF files out or just save and use them on your computer.

As we get position reports, we will update the links here so that you can keep track of his progress. Once you've plotted his position, you can come back to the website to download the updated map with his positions marked off and check your work.

All times are EDT. Delorme (the program used to make the maps) does have some minor errors, so don't assume you're wrong if he is not on the trail according to the map.

If you aren't sure how to use coordinates with maps, check out http://www.maptools.com/tutorials.html

Please go to http://www.rideforfatherhood.org/track/ for the latest coordinates as they are updated over the next few days. Hopefully some will enjoy this little exercise.

[stillamarine]

Outstanding! Good luck and Godspeed to him!

[floridacyclist]

He finished! He varied the route just a little but still ended up hiking 35 miles in about 2 full days of hiking - and that was with a full pack. I talked to him on the radio just then and he's headed toward the house as soon as his friend gets off work. I'll leave the page up for a while if anyone wants to play with the coordinates etc - it's only HTML so it doesn't take up hardly any space on the server.

http://www.rideforfatherhood.org/track

[BillB]

OK Gene, now do it as a CAP activity. Oh wait, you'd need a senior member to go along. I don't think many seniors would get past the 2 mile point. Old age ya know.

[stillamarine]

Heck I'd love to do it. I love hiking and I'll admit I don't move as fast as I used to but I think I could make it past 2 miles lol

[floridacyclist]

I think we might do that leg together one of these days, perhaps over a 3-day weekend. That might be a thought...set out after Thanksgiving dinner and do it as a family.

Talk about walking the turkey off! LOL

He leaves for basic in June, so not so sure if I'd want to try to keep up with him after he gets back.