The Grand Enchantment Trail guidebook - a free online resource for trail users - provides detailed descriptions for the entire route, including mile-by-mile directions, GPS waypoints (named and keyed to the map set - see "Maps" below) , information on water sources, camping spots, and summaries of key features and highlights along the way. This guidebook will likely prove very helpful if not essential in understanding and following the suggested Grand Enchantment Trail route. The guide has a printer-friendly web browser viewing option, so you can easily print and carry just the pages you need into the field. Refer to the guide at trail intersections, road crossings, and any time the way ahead seems uncertain from map reference alone. Use it to plan each day of hiking, to estimate how much water to carry, to know the locations of potential campsites and the distance to the next resupply point.

The guide defines the route by segments - 39 in all - beginning in Phoenix and ending at Albuquerque. Each segment covers a portion of the route, usually between road crossings, most of which offer vehicle access to the route for the benefit of section hikers or others with vehicle support. (Many of these roads, where they approach the trail, do require a high-clearance and/or 4WD vehicle.) Each segment description begins with a summary of features and conditions, which you can use to quickly assess its highlights, challenges, and overall level of difficulty. Thru-hikers would consider the conditions in all segments between a given resupply point in order to determine hiking pace and how much food to carry. Thru-hikers and section hikers alike may prefer to access the guidebook via the Route Overview page, (aka Narrated Overview) which offers a brief synopsis of the route between each town stop and provides links to specific segment descriptions within each span.

Detailed topographic maps are absolutely essential for navigation along the G.E.T. Not only will such maps help you to visualize the route, your location along it, and the terrain itself, but they can also be invaluable in the event of a detour, whether voluntary or involuntary.

The Grand Enchantment Trail topo map set contains over 100 maps, covering the entire route from Phoenix to Albuquerque. Each topographic map is based on USGS 7.5' quadrangle data - the most detailed and accurate available - and features additional information pertinent to the G.E.T.: the route line, alternate routes and detours, mileage between features, GPS waypoints, locations of potential water and campsites, and other information as helpful. For most hikers, these maps are not intended to be used in place of the guidebook, but to supplement the guide and to offer independent field reference at those times when only a basic confirmation of the route is needed.

Please note: The GPS waypoints, as shown on the topo map set, are named and keyed to a waypoints reference file included with the map set. This is to say, the maps show only the waypoint names, which are shorter than the actual waypoint coordinates and so easier to display on the maps with clarity. The waypoints reference file lists the actual GPS waypoints. Note also that the online guidebook chapter descriptions reference waypoint names and not actual GPS waypoints. To obtain actual GPS waypoints, one must obtain the topo map set.

The G.E.T. topo map set is available on CD-ROM through the Simblissity online store. Click here for more information and to order.

In addition to detailed topo maps, you should also consider carrying broad overview maps for each area along the route. Such maps will allow you to see the proverbial big picture, providing the necessary information to make extended detours off the suggested route, for example to avoid snow, high water, or in an emergency. I also find such maps essential to my understanding of the landscape, and in this sense they heighten my connection to the natural world around me.

The US Forest Service (USFS) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) each produce large-area paper maps of the lands they manage, and collectively these maps cover most of the G.E.T. route. Again, these are intended as overview maps, and by themselves usually won't be adequate for navigation along the suggested route. For example, the scale of these maps generally lacks sufficient detail for trail hiking, (the exception being USFS Wilderness maps) and none of these maps explicitly show the route line of the G.E.T. (only the Topo Map Set does this). They can, however, be particularly helpful in terms of their road detail and in showing the locations of nearby towns and major travel roads.

A list of pertinent "paper maps" for the entire route is provided in a handy, at-a-glance format here. Overview maps for each segment of the route are also listed among the summary information within each chapter of the online guide. You can generally order these maps online from the Public Lands Information Center.

Other useful overview maps include those found in the DeLorme state atlases (Arizona and New Mexico), as well as state highway maps.

Since the Grand Enchantment Trail is a free (suggested) route, it is not marked with permanent and official "G.E.T." trail signs, blazes, or posts like the AT or PCT. The individual trails and tracks that it uses, however, do often feature various marking conventions, which differ from place to place in terms of style and frequency. This signage may help in following portions of the G.E.T. route, but it is the guidebook and maps that will keep you informed of each twist and turn in the route. Use the guide and maps as your virtual "trail blazes."

Visual confirmation of the route is certainly helpful, though, and so efforts are ongoing to mark the G.E.T. with flagging ribbon. As of fall 2007, the route has been marked, where necessary, the entire distance from the western terminus near Phoenix to the eastern terminus at Albuquerque NM. "Where necessary" is obviously subject to interpretation, but generally refers to trail or road junctions, along sections of vague treadway, and other areas of possible confusion. This blazing convention is intended only to provide occasional confirmation and reassurance, and in most cases does not occur with enough frequency to be followed from mark to mark. Nor does plastic flagging tape seem to have a lifespan of more than a year or two. Yet with the guidebook and map in hand, frequent route marking should be unnecessary anyway, and the current approach is notable for its impermanence on the land. To help in distinguishing G.E.T. flagging ribbon from other types, ours is often marked with the Grand Enchantment Trail monogram, or logo, as shown at left.

Cairns - piles of rocks that serve as markers - are sometimes encountered along the route. Some of these have been erected specifically to mark the G.E.T., such as at road or trail junctions in open terrain. Most, however, are part of an existing trail's blazing convention, and may have been enhanced for the benefit of G.E.T. hikers. As with other types of marking, use cairns primarily to confirm that you're on the route detailed in the guide.

A common method of marking trees on Forest Service trails is a pair of rectangles, one atop the other, cut from the tree's outer bark. The upper cut is smaller than the lower, so that the mark resembles an upside-down exclamation point. Older marks tend to become less conspicuous as the tree heals over, but any evidence of these marks is a sure sign that you're on trail. Whether or not it's the right trail is, again, a matter resolveable through guidebook and map.

The Arizona Trail and Continental Divide Trail each have their own blazing conventions and emblems. Look for such blazes on the portions of the G.E.T. that use these trails.

Please be aware that all mileage figures listed in the guidebook and on maps are estimates only. The mileage breakdown by surface type described earlier, mileage per segment and between town stops, and total miles for the route have all been determined via map measurement, and have not been verified in the field (wheel method, etc.) Trail and road signs encountered along the way may sometimes conflict with stated mileages in the guide and on maps, and generally it is impossible to determine which is most accurate, other than by gut feeling after walking it.

The G.E.T. 7.5' topo map set was developed using National Geographic's Topo! mapping software for Arizona and New Mexico. This software allows for a high level of precision in determining distances along a plotted route, however it can only measure the route line itself, which can never be drawn with the same detail as the actual roads and trails that it represents. In a sense, all map features are artistic representations of their real-world counterparts, and thus the herculean efforts sometimes undertaken to measure and "wheel" long-distance hiking trails in-the-field - up and over every rock, around every turn, and between each tree.

Having hiked the entire route nearly twice, it is my considered opinion that the map-derived mileages are, above all else, consistent. And it is this consistency that allows for accurate assessment and planning while walking the route between features. To the extent that the mileage figures may be inaccurate, they are at least consistently so, meaning that once you get a sense of what "5 miles" means on the G.E.T., you will be able to trust your "mileage instinct" for the duration of the hike, particularly when factoring in local conditions and terrain as detailed in the guide. How consistently inaccurate might the mileage figures be? My sense is that they may underrepresent actual mileages by as much as 5%. This implies that the entire route as currently laid out may be as long as 760 miles, rather than the stated 730 or so. But again, due to the consistency of this potential inaccuracy, the 5% additional mileage is spread over the length of the entire route, so has considerably less consequence for daily mileage estimates.