Appalachian Trail Museum to Open
At Pine Grove Furnace State Park

The Appalachian Trail Museum, a decade in the making, has reached an agreement to occupy the Old Mill building at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania. The grand opening for the museum, which will be the first hiking museum in the county, is expected to be on National Trails Day, June 5, 2010.

The 200-year-old grist mill, in the historic district of the park, is within two miles of the current midpoint of the Appalachian Trail. The building is immediately adjacent to Pine Grove General Store and near the Ironmasters Hostel, both popular stops for hikers. The store is the location for the Half Gallon Club in which hikers attempt to eat an entire half gallon of ice cream in a single sitting.

Over the next year the inside of the building will be renovated to conform to the uniform construction code and to be adapted for use as a museum. The building is owned by the park and currently contains some displays and in the past served as a visitors’ center but has been lightly used for years.

Restoration work will be done largely by volunteers under the leadership of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club’s North Chapter “Yankee Clippers” crew. Other members of the trail community have volunteered to help and additional volunteers are welcome. Work is expected to begin this fall and be completed over the winter.

Preparations for the initial exhibits are also underway. Exhibits initially will occupy one floor of the building until additional renovations are completed. The opening exhibits are expected to feature the Earl Shaffer Shelter and artifacts from other early hikers including Grandma Gatewood. Also planned is a children’s discovery area to introduce children to the A.T. and outdoor activities. The museum will include an inside and outside story telling center to welcome hikers and give visitors a chance to hear directly about trail experiences. The museum’s current exhibit, featuring the artifacts of Myron Avery and Benton MacKaye, is expected to remain in Harpers Ferry.

The museum also will display on computers the more than 12,000 thru-hiker photos taken at ATC headquarters in Harpers Ferry since 1979. The photo project, with support from a grant by the Quimby Foundation and in cooperation with ATC, includes a website where all the pictures will be accessible.  The website is expected to be completed this summer and can be reached through the ATC site, www.appalachiantrail.org. Terry Harley-Wilson, the museum’s vice president and curator, arranged for the individual scanning and preservation of each photo. More information and forms granting permission to display individual photos are available by writing to atmuseum@yahoo.com.

At first, the museum will operate on weekends in the spring and fall and five afternoons per week from Memorial Day to Labor Day. This schedule is intended to match current park visitation patterns. Also, the building currently has only a portable space heater. The museum society is looking for volunteers to staff the building and others to do programs such as talks, nature walks and demonstrations of outdoor skills with an emphasis on programming for children. The museum society is continuing to collect artifacts. More information is available at the museum’s website, www.atmuseum.org, and info@atmuseum.org.

This summer the museum society launched a fund-raising campaign to pay for materials for the building renovation and for exhibits. Contributions can be made to the A.T. Museum Society, which is an independent, tax exempt charitable group.

Appalachian Trail at the Smithsonian

Earl Shaffer Exhibit

On Friday the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History opened an exhibit on Earl Shaffer and the Appalachian Trail. The exhibit features some of Earl's artifacts, like the boots he wore on his pioneering 1948 thru-hike of the A.T. and the journal he kept as well as the slides he took along the trail. The exhibit does a great job of capturing Earl's feat and his life. An added feature of the exhibit are several interactive maps of the trail. By touching a spot on the map one gets a diary entry and photo from that spot. The exhibit runs in the Albert H. Small Documents Gallery through October 11.

 
http://americanhistory.si.edu/documentsgallery/exhibitions.html

Great Saunter

Walk Around Manhattan

Since 1985, a group called the Shorewalkers has been holding a walk around the shoreline of Manhattan every year, in recent years on the first Saturday in May. The Great Saunter is 32 miles, mostly flat, and always interesting.

I've done it three times, including last year. I was younger and in better shape for the first two times. But last year I had my fastest time, 11 hours. As I walked I met someone and then another couple of people and the four of us walked much of the way together. I was the slowest in the group but the gravitational pull of the others carried me along.

In the early years of the Great Saunter, a lot of it involved walking on city streets and along railroad tracks. Even that was fun. It goes through all sorts of neighborhoods and you'd see lots of interesting characters. Now most of the west side is on good paths close to the Hudson. The northern end takes you through parks and some city streets. Once you get back by the East River, again most of it is close to the shore.

In total, probably two-thirds of the route is on paths close to rivers and much of it is surprisingly beautiful. It's a great experience, starting off with 1,000 people and running into all sorts of people along the way. The Shorewalkers usually end at a bar and even if you're a teetotaler after 32 miles the medicinal effects of a beer are substantial.

The walk begins at the South Street Seaport and continues along the Battery passing the Staten Island Ferry and the Statue of Liberty. New paths take you through gardens in Battery Park City and by the Chelsea Piers. Along the way are views of Midtown Manhattan and the far reaches of New Jersey.

At the end of the walk the Brooklyn Bridge comes into view and no matter how tired and sore you are at that point you know you've just about made it. Of course, on any city walk, temptation lurks at every corner with buses, subways and taxis waiting to whisk you away. But even if you only make it part of the way, it's a fun event. It begins at 7:30 a.m. Saturday May 2 at the South Street Seaport.

Shorewalkers -- Great Saunter

Hiking the Long Path -- New York

Hiking in My Backyard

This weekend I returned to a stretch of the Long Path that I last hiked 25 years ago. I stayed away so long because on the surface, it's uninviting. For nearly two miles the trail runs parallel to the Palisades Interstate Parkway, a four lane road that is often within twenty feet of the trail. Even so, once I got into the woods I found myself on a soft surface of pine needles and then began crisscrossing pleasant streams. I was even amused to be on a hiking trail in the woods and watching the traffic whiz by while seeing hubcaps propped up against trees and a few burnt out wrecked cars.

Leaving this stretch, I began the steep but short climb up Cheesecote Mountain, partly eased when the trail took old woods roads. After passing a largely lifeless new housing development that now dominates the top of the mountain, I began circling Cheesecote Pond. Here I got my reward for tackling this stretch of trail: I came up close to three wild turkeys. I have never been so close for so long to wild turkeys in the woods. It was definitely the highlight of the day. Just beyond I saw my first blue jay of the season.

While it's not a stretch of trail that I'll tackle often, this experience drives home the point to me that every trail has something to commend it if we keep an open mind about the experience.

Harriman Hikes - West Mountain

West Mountain -- A Wild Part of Harriman Park

The hills looked so barren in Harriman Park only hours before the biggest snowstorm of the season. By today, there was close to a foot of snow on the ground. On this hike to the west of Bear Mountain, I climbed West Mountain on the steep Suffern-Bear Mountain Trail, covered the west ridge on the Timp-Torne and Appalachian Trails and descended by the equally steep A.T. It was quite a treat to see the icy cascades in the streams and hear the water falling freely. While it was a gloomy day, the views were good and I was able to see many peaks that will soon be obscured by the spring foliage. The second picture is of Bear Mountain.

A Great Project

(hiking on Howell Mountain in northern Harriman State Park, N.Y. photo by Charlie Duane)

For 2008, I set a goal of hiking all the marked trails in Harriman State Park. It was a goal that I set casually but it turned into a project that was one of the highlights of my year. In every way I miscalculated. The project turned out to be much, much harder than I expected. I also enjoyed it much more than I ever expected. I discovered the park -- a place I'd been hiking in for 28 years -- in a new and much more fulfilling way. I got in the best physical shape I'd been in for 23 years (I can date it precisely to the birth of my oldest child). And I hiked more and enjoyed it more than I had in a quarter century. Perhaps most unexpected, a group of friends hiked many of the trails with me and that made it an even more wonderful experience.

I began hiking in Harriman on Jan. 12 on the Pine Meadow Trail and finished on Dec. 14 on the Nurian Trail near Southfields. Other than January, I did at least three hikes every month and it took me a total of 57 hikes to finish all of the trails. Nearly every hike was harder and took longer than I expected when I studied the maps and looked over the guidebooks. Many times I grew exhausted and cut short a hike. Frequently I lost the trail and had to retrace my steps or had to search for the route. Finding the trailheads was often even harder.

My simple goal turned into a powerful motivator. On days when the weather was iffy or I was tired or it was getting late, I dragged myself into the woods to cover a blank spot on the map. After each hike,  I colored in that stretch of trail on the map and I always looked forward to that simple ceremony.

Few of the miles turned out to be disappointing. To the contrary, I gained a new appreciation for how wild and remote much of the park is and how varied is the terrain. In the past, like most visitors, I'd frequented a few sections of the park that were convenient to parking lots or had dramatic natural features. I was astonished at how many wonderful parts of the park I'd missed over the years. It never failed to surprise me how quickly I got away from the crowds and noise and into some really beautiful areas.

Often I hiked late in the day and then I had the woods to myself. Traveling alone I came across a lot of wildlife. I generally stopped counting the deer after I'd seen a dozen. I saw more wild turkeys this year than I'd seen in 30 years of hiking combined.

One thing I learned early and often. The terrain in Harriman is rugged. My wife, Frieda, often requested flat or easy hikes. Rarely could I comply. There are some easy miles in the park but many of these are on unmarked woods roads and these I used only to connect to sections of marked trails. More often I faced steep and rugged climbs on rocks. Some climbs, like the one up Pyngyp Mountain, are quite steep for hiking trails. Many other sections have frequent short and rugged climbs on rocks.

On the steep climb up the Cornell Mine Trail on a hot day in June we worried that one member of our group might have a heart attack. But he made it through in fine shape. We did take the precaution of bringing a cardiologist along. Later in the hike we spent 15 minutes watching a snake climb up a tree in the abandoned hamlet of Doodletown. That day we celebrated two birthdays, including mine, with a surprise treat of watermelon and brownies at the end of the hike. The week before we'd ended a hike at St. John's in the Wilderness, where they were having a strawberry festival and making strawberry shortcakes.

In between those two wonderful hikes, my son Eli and I got caught in a fierce downpour on a stretch of the Appalachian Trail south of the William Brien Shelter. After not seeing anyone for awhile, I told Eli that we won't see anyone on an evening like this unless it's some thru-hikers. Sure enough, in a few minutes three thru-hikers without rain-gear and laughing rounded the bend heading for the shelter.

Another highlight for me was doing a few hikes with my oldest son Seth. He'd just graduated from college and was heading for two years in Africa with the Peace Corps and this was treasured time. I was also pleased that after six months of frequent tough hikes I could keep up with my sons at least for a few hours.

Early in the year I thought that I could complete all the trails in twenty hikes and that I would be finished by mid-summer. Gradually that kept getting pushed out. I kept trying to fit in two hour hikes during the long days of summer and doing longer hikes most weekends when I was free. By August, I began to think that this would stretch well into mid-fall. By September I began thinking I'd really need to push to finish in November.

I set a goal of finishing on the Saturday after Thanksgiving when much of my family and many of our friends would be around. I decided to do a last hike of climbing up Bear Mountain from the south on the A.T. It's a sentimental favorite of mine: we got married on top and I've hiked it frequently over the years. We did do the hike that day and it was a beautiful and sunny day with a brisk wind. We climbed the Perkins Tower on top and had great views. Afterwards, we had a party but I wasn't done just yet.

I still had many more places on my map to fill in. There were lots of little stretches of trails scattered about. For some I had to hike several miles in before I got to the missing stretch. I got to one trailhead and found it plastered with no parking signs and had to go in from the other side of the mountain.

I began using every minute of daylight on the weekends as the days grew short. Because of other commitments I realized that Sunday Dec. 14 would be the last day I could count on. The final weekend I ended up doing five stretches each day and driving in between and covered 16 miles a day.

With daylight fading I had trouble finding the trailhead for the Nurian Trail in Southfields, my final segment of trail. I finally stopped at the police station to ask for directions. With only 45 minutes of daylight remaining, I set out for the last stretch, crossing the railroad tracks, the swollen Ramapo River and the New York Thruway on a high pedestrian bridge. I only had a stretch of several hundred yards of the Nurian to complete and I grew excited at the prospect of finishing. It had been a tiring day of many climbs on icy and snowy trails but as dusk settled in I was pleased at what I'd accomplished and glad that I'd stumbled into a great project.

A Powerful Experience

Appalachian Trail Talk

This Saturday I will be giving an A.T. talk and slideshow in Manhattan at the Appalachian Mountain Club annual dinner at Connolly's Pub on East 47th Street.

In thinking about what to talk about, I've realized how my presentations over the years have gravitated to one theme-- how an A.T. thru-hike for many people is a life-changing experience. I enjoy dayhiking and get to the woods as frequently as I can. Last year that was every weekend that I was at home. And I enjoyed nearly every minute of it. But a series of day hikes simply isn't as powerful and intense an experience as being isolated in the Appalachian Mountains for months on end.

Harriman Park Hike -- the Irish Potato

A Pleasant Surprise

After several long hikes alone it was a pleasure hiking with my son Eli today. We hiked a 5 mile stretch of the Suffern-Bear Mountain Trail and the miles flew by. We started by climbing up to the Irish Potato, a giant free-standing rock on the top of the mountain. The trail then curves along a ridge overlooking the Pound Swamp (looks like a pond to me) before making a long descent to the stream and the Palisades Parkway.

I hadn't hiked this stretch since the 1980s and didn't have high expectations for it. I've also not been a fan of the SBM trail. It's the longest in Harriman Park at 24 miles and goes over many hills and it's quite rugged, in places needlessly so to my way of thinking. But this piece and one I did yesterday morning on West Mountain are certainly beautiful stretches of trail.

In many ways this is a classic beautiful hike in Harriman Park: several climbs, some woods roads, big rocks and a stream and a pond and some good views. With the trail full of brown leaves, it's a little difficult to find the footway and some of the turns were more abrupt than we anticipated. Still, it was a pleasant late afternoon stroll and a chance to walk off some of the excesses of Thanksgiving dinner.

Harriman Hike -- Timp Pass 2

Harriman Hike - Timp Pass I

A Steep Climb in the Gathering Darkness

For the third weekend in a row, I found myself in Timp Pass late in the afternoon and with darkness approaching. Each week I'd approached Timp Pass from a different direction. This time I had planned an escape route that on the map looked flat. Standing in my usual spot in Timp Pass, I realized that the trail had other ideas. My route home was going to be steeply up for quite a while. This was not a welcome bit of news coming at the end of my longest and toughest hike in a long time.

Still, this week I thought I had enough time before dark. I was in Timp Pass 45 minutes earlier than the week before and I'd gotten out then just as darkness was settling in. As I climbed the ridge of West Mountain on the Ramapo-Dunderberg Trail, one that I had never covered before, I found that it was a beautiful stretch of trail but treacherous in places as the wet leaves and precarious ledges made a bad combination. I was rewarded with outstanding views of the Timp and Haverstraw Bay with alternating hills and valleys in and out of light. Again, it was dark when I got to my car.

Once again I was reminded that my project to complete all the trails in Harriman Park this year has had unexpected rewards. It has taken me to many places that I'd never been before and nearly all have been exciting and rewarding. Some of the ones I've left until the end have been among the most remote and rugged and best trails in the park. Nearly every mile has been worth it. The project has gotten me out ten times as much as I would have in a normal year, often when I've been tired or the weather has been iffy and I've enjoyed nearly every minute of it.

Harriman Hike on the Nurian Trail

On a rainy Saturday I hiked in Harriman Park on the Nurian, White Bar and Dunning Trails. I wasn't expecting it to be hard or especially beautiful but I was wrong on both counts. It had been many years since I'd hiked parts of these trails. I didn't remember how many beautiful streams or waterfalls there were and that was a pleasant surprise. The recent rains meant all of the streams were flowing fast and added to the attraction.

I did have a dim memory of the Valley of Boulders, a rock formation with similarities to the nearby Lemon Squeezer. The trail besides Green Pond feels especially rugged and remote. This section even had some views and that is definitely something I hadn't expected. The whole area is rough and rocky but rewarding. It's also far enough from parking lots that while we saw other hikers, it never felt overcrowded.

Hiking Books

AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

I've read a lot of books on hiking the Appalachian Trail and the variety of new and different stories is endless. Because each person is different and each trip is different, there's always something new and exciting in each book.

I do have to confess that I've been reading fewer A.T. books in recent years. But this spring I met AWOL at Trail Days and read his book. I consider it one of the best accounts of a thru-hike. He had an unusual story, a middle-aged father with young daughters breaking away to do a thru-hike in mid-career.  Naturally, being away from his family affected every part of his trip and he was candid in his portrayal. He seemed to suffer more than his share of injuries and pain and took more than his fair share of joy from the thru-hike. I also found it unusual that his younger brother had thru-hiked several decades before.

AWOL's descriptions of the trail were fresh and original and brought me back to experiences of many years ago. Some things about the trail are timeless and some are new with each fresh class of thru-hikers. I  took a great deal of pleasure in this chance to spend vicarious time in the company of AWOL and his companions.

http://www.awolonthetrail.com/

Linda "Earthworm" Patton has put together a great site on hiking books across the U.S. There's no more comprehensive listing online that I'm aware of and Linda's site is also filled with links and information on the trails as well as lively features.

http://www.booksforhikers.com/

A good source of hiking books and maps is the book department at Campmor, Inc. in Ramsey, N.J. and in their online catalogue. Their selection is as comprehensive as I've seen in recent years and includes books on hiking in all 50 states as well as related topics dealing with the outdoors and nature. Their book buyer , Roger Williamson, is one of the real experts on hiking literature.

www.campmor.com

A.T. Museum Update

Walkin' Jim Concert

We were excited about the great Walkin' Jim benefit concert last weekend. It was wonderful seeing Jim back on tour and we really appreciated him doing the benefit. The final numbers aren't in yet but we sold about 215 tickets. Half the crowd came in at the last minute and we were sweating till then. Special thanks go to Karen for three months of hard work in organizing the concert and arranging publicity and sponsors; and Bill, who did a great program (hand printed), poster and press release and redid the display board. Gwen showed up with half of York County. Laurie and Rich participated as readers in the show. Bruce, Erich, Pam and several others pitched in.

There was also great support from the local hiking and environmental groups. The main sponsor was the Susquehanna A.T. Club. Other sponsors were the Appalachian Audubon Society, Canoe Club of Greater Harrisburg, John W. Gleim Jr. Inc., Susquehanna River Trail Association, Pennsylvania Parks and Forests Foundation and the Manada Conservancy.

Also, a reminder that the next meeting of the board will be Sunday April 5 at 9 a.m. at Iron Masters Hostel. All museum meetings are open. Once again we will be coordinating our spring meeting with the ALDHA steering committee and the Earl Shaffer Foundation.

Immediately ahead, we'll be working on our year-end fundraising letter. Maurice has agreed to work on that again. Terry is actively working on the photo digitization project and will be going to Harpers Ferry next month to make arrangements. She's looking for volunteers to help out. We're also still working on the Old Mill project.

www.atmuseum.org

Pushing the Envelope

(Top left: view of High Tor and Manhattan skyline from West Mountain. Top right: tree on West Mountain. Middle: West Mountain Shelter from behind. Bottom: West Mountain Shelter one week before from the Timp)


Racing Against Darkness

It's easy to get into trouble in the woods when you are pushing to achieve a goal. This year I've set my sights on hiking all of the marked trails in Harriman Park during the calendar year. I'm getting close to my goal but running out of weekends that I'm free. This past weekend I got back from a trip early Sunday afternoon and tried to squeeze in an ambitious hike before dark.

By now I've hiked most of the easy sections. Often I have to hike quite a ways to get to an interior stretch that I haven't covered before. On this hike, I climbed West Mountain on the Appalachian Trail, a section I'd hike this summer. It was beautiful with views of Bear Mountain, the central area of Harriman and even a clear view of the New York City skyline. By the time I got to the West Mountain Shelter, I figured I had an hour and a half of daylight left and I had just reached the new trail I needed to cover.

The descent took me longer than I thought. The entire time I'd been pushing myself to go fast even though I knew to be careful on the wet leaves and I didn't want to take a spill on the rocks. As I finished the hard descent and walked through Timp Pass, I knew it would be tough to get out in daylight. I took out my map and calculated that I could probably pick up a new stretch of the Ramapo-Dunderberg and the Suffern-Bear Mountain Trail and be back on the ridge of West Mountain with a little less than half an hour of daylight to do.

I figured that would leave me doing a hard descent for fifteen minutes in the dark. I've hiked enough in the dark to want to avoid that situation. After dark, it's a much slower walk with a much higher chance of getting hurt. In the middle of Timp Pass with high ridges all around me, I kept looking at the alternatives and decided the best was give up on trying to cover new trails. I'd try to follow an old woods road into Doodletown and out to the parking lot on the 1777 West Trail, one I'd hiked on several weeks before. Everything worked perfectly and I got out just as it was getting pitch black -- the only thing was it was a half hour earlier than I'd thought.

Golden Era of Trail Building

National Trail Efforts

This has been a golden era of trail building nationally. For the major national trails, much progress has been made toward completing them, protecting their routes or improving their marking and footway. Several new national trails have come off the drawing boards and are starting to take shape. Until recently, I wasn't aware of two big ones, the Great Eastern Trail and the Great Western Loop. The Great Eastern is a formal effort that will tie together existing trails plus some new ones to form a giant loop with the A.T. and provide an alternative along much of its route. I'd heard about similar ideas for a loop for many years and Earl Shaffer had long talked about it. But the organization and name are relatively recent. The Great Western forms a loop with the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trails with east west connectors. Versions of it have been hiked by Andy Skurka and Nimblewill Nomad although I'm not aware of any effort yet to formalize it. The International Appalachian Trail continues to extend its route through Canada and is now investigating geologically related routes in Europe and Africa. The Ozark Highlands trail is featured in the October issue of National Geographic which also has an article and map on the 40th anniversary of the National Trails System Act.

I'm including links for some of these trails as well as a new site on ultralight-hiking by Linguini.

http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2008/10/ozark-trail/white-text

http://www.andrewskurka.com/skurka.php

http://www.nimblewillnomad.com/gwl_2002-2008.htm

http://cduane.net/ultralight-hiking.html

http://www.internationalat.org/Pages/index

http://www.greateasterntrail.org/

Harriman Park New York Fall Folliage Hikes

 

Taking advantage of the spectacular fall weather and remaining folliage, I hiked in three separate parts of Harriman Park over the weekend.  The picture of the reservoir is along the Long Path on the southern boundary of Harriman Park. Several shots of yellow leaves are in the Doodletown area. The pictures of the Hudson River are from the southern end of the Timp-Torne Trail. I'm nearing completion of a project to hike all of the marked trails in Harriman Park in one calendar year. This goal has gotten me into the woods more than at any time in years. It's also taken me to far-flung corners of the park that I've never seen before. I am amazed at how many great stretches of trail the park has and how few bad trail sections I've seen. Despite how densely populated Rockland County is, I'm also impressed at how quickly the trails get away from the roads and how quickly I feel I'm in a remote stretch of woods. I've done 43 hikes (mostly short) in the park so far this year and I figure it will take another 8 or 9 to finish. I'm hoping to finish by the Saturday after Thanksgiving with a hike up Bear Mountain.

Harriman Hike on Dunderberg Mountain

Harriman Hike

This Saturday, Nov. 1, we'll be having another in our series of Harriman Park hikes on Dunderberg Mountain and the Timp. While fall foliage is past peak, the colors should still be good. The pictures above were all taken on Dunderberg Mountain this month.

For more information on the park, see the websites below:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harriman_State_Park

http://nysparks.state.ny.us/

http://www.nynjtc.org

Pennsylvania Forest Fire Museum Meeting

Museum Meeting

A half dozen small museums gathering at the Pennsylvania Forest Fire Museum Association annual meeting this past Saturday. It was encouraging to hear how determined each of the groups are to establish a museum and how seriously they take their efforts. The most advanced is the National Museum of Forest Service History in Missoula, Montana. They are hoping to break ground this coming year and use the museum to teach visitors about some of the major problems in the national forests.The A.T. Museum Society presented and we explained how the museum will attempt to tell the story of the entire A.T. community and how the trail has a powerful hold on so many people around the world. The A.T. Museum's exhibit was judged the best, thanks to the work by Bill O'Brien, including a new section on the Earl Shaffer Shelter project, and the photos of Charlie Duane.The A.T. Museum is hoping to cooperate with many of these museums and has been in touch with the Pennylvania Forest Fire Museum for several years.The Forest Fire museum is hoping to open in a renovated building in Caledonia State Park, across from Park Headquarters, by mid-2009.

Fall Colors at Harriman Park New York

Sunday was a spectacular day to be hiking in Harriman Park. The sky was crystal clear and the fall colors were still bright even if they were a little past their peak. I climbed the Kakiat Trail in the southwestern part of the park and had a clear view of the Manhattan skyline (barely visible in the last photo). When I missed my intended turnoff, just short of Grandma and Grandpa rocks, I came across a Korean hiking group that was way off course. They had no map and no plan for getting back. My route on the SBM trail coincided with theirs for a mile and I was able to put them on course for Pine Meadow lake and their cars. With the views and mild weather, it was one of the best days of the year to be out hiking.

New Appalachian Trail Books

Two recent Appalachian Trail books have surprised me quite a bit. In both cases I had known the authors for many years and thought I knew their stories well. In neither case am I impartial and I've enjoyed both books. In one case I wrote the forward and in the other, I wrote a pre-publication blurb. Still, without hesitation, I can heartily recommend both books.The first, by Gene Espy, the 1951 A.T. thru-hiker, is "The Trail of My Life: The Gene Espy Story." www.geneespyhiker.com. Over the years I have heard Gene tell his trail stories many times but most of the material in the book was knew to me. It is engaging and in places hilarious and is a faithful account of a unique life. The other book is "Racing Light: The Soft Power of a Day's Walk" by Charlie Duane. www.cduane.net. It is an account of his walks covering the entire East Coast. Charlie is also a highly skilled photographer and blends photos and text in a distinctive way. I had read an early manuscript of part of the story and had heard much about it. Even so, most of the material was new to me, so much so that it compelled my attention. After reading many dozens of trail books over the years, I still find it astonishing that authors continue to find dramatically fresh approaches to trail accounts. These are two books that will find a distinguished place in the trail community for many years.