Re[2]: Half serious/ Half ;-) RE: [at-l] AT Trail System

[spiriteagle99@xxxxxxxxxxx (Jim and/or Ginny Owen)]

Weary wrote:
>I understand Jim's words, but I don't believe the premise behind the words.
>Thru
>hiking is a tiny minority of AT users. The figures the politicians are
>interested in are not 300 or so thru hikers who claim to have finished, or
>the
>3,000 who start at one end or the other. But the 5-6 million people that
>use
>some part of the trail each year.

Two parts - first that the 5-6 million may not be what you think it is.  If
memory serves, its 5-6 million "visitor-days".  Which means Ginny and I
contribute at least 20 to 40 of those "visitor-days" every year - and each
thruhiker who finishes would contribute roughly 120 to 180 "visitor days".
But I could be wrong about that - anyone know for sure?

Second - one of the contributing factors to the recent loss of a $6 billion
contract was the loss of 20 minutes of satellite data per month - out of a
total of 40,000+.  That's 0.05%.

Significant?  Maybe - maybe not.  Depends on who's looking at it. And why.
You might be surprised what gets looked at when a million dollars is at
stake.


>Thanks to the maintaining clubs and ATC, the AT is by far the cheapest
>national
>Park in terms of dollars per user day, and among the cheapest regardless of
>size
>and useage. There's only one ranger for a 2,000 mile park, totalling
>600,000
>acres (the acreage is a guess, but it's in the ball park.)

Yep - and I'd suggest that we want to keep it that way.


>It costs the park service several million dollars a year to operate Acadia
>National Park in Maine. It costs the park service a few thousand dollars to
>operate the Appalachian Trail in Maine, which encompasses about the same
>acreage.

Those numbers have no significance except as one part of the overall
ATC/Trail cost.  A quick look at the ATN that came yesterday says that the
States and NPS put $922,000 in the pot.  And the ATC operations cost about
$4 million per.  That doesn't include what the clubs (and individuals)
contribute that doesn't show up on the ATC statement.  There's more there
that I didn't mess with right now.


>Though usage of the AT in Maine is less than usage of Acadia, it's no
>contest if
>you compare dollars per user.

True - if that were the only criteria.


>A doubling or halving of the number of thru hikers is insignificant in the
>overall picture.

Maybe - but I'd bet that a 95% (or even 80%) drop would be noticed.
The magic word is "metrics".  And then you're not talkin' just cost per
visitor, but performance.  ATC does well in that regard - so far.  But
calculating the costs/effects of change is a chancy business.

Walk softly,
Jim

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