Marston Trail distance inconsistent, AMC Maine Mountain Guide

Thursday July 23, 2009, we set out on the North Brother, South Brother and Coe loop with Fort as an option. All summits were in an out of the clouds and it was windy, cold, and very wet on the top of North Brother. We found the start of the Fort Mountain herd path but it was looking like we would be doing more swimming than whacking through the brush so we decided to bail. We'll be back!

Of course, the clouds lifted for South Brother and Coe although it was still wet. Then we got the going down the Coe slide surprise.

Anyhow, the 9'th edition of the AMC Maine Mountain Guide 9'th edition has the Marston trail distance from trail head to summit at 4.5 miles where the accompanying maps show it was 3.7 (1.3 + 1.6 + 0.8). I would suspect the longer distance is correct.

topic previously discussed here:
http://www.vftt.org/forums/showthread.php?t=8298&highlight=guide+marston

We noticed the exact same thing yesterday. According to the GPS - the 4.5 miles marked on the sign is correct. The section of trail that seems to be incorrectly labeled on the map is the 1.6 miles from the junction with the Mt. Coe trail to the col between the Brothers - that should be approximately 2.4 miles.

I emailed the AMC's errata address when I got back from Baxter in 2007 and haven't heard back...it's not on their publications errata page, either.

I assume the mileage on the map is from the old route up the slide.

Likewise...I noticed the same thing this past week.

I wonder how many other errors there are.

One thing I always believe in is the map over any printed words.
This includes trail signs.

When I compared the book to the map numbers...I chose to believe the map.

The map shows the correct mileage.