Why would a middle-aged businesman who had never even spent a night outdoors attempt to hike the entire Appalachian Trail in one year? Bill Walker, a former commodities trader in Chicago and London, and an avid walker, had developed a virtual obsession to hike this 2,175 mile trail in one hiking season. So in the spring of 2005 he set off, determined to hike this Georgia-to-Maine wilderness trail before the arrival of winter. Immediately, he...

The PCT’s calling card is its stunning beauty. It has a diversity of geography unequaled by any footpath in the world. Haunting and beckoning the PCT hiker are the implacable desert, the towering majesty of the so-called High Sierra, and the ruggedly bleak, northern Cascade range. Indeed, the PCT hiker faces much greater extremes of terrain and climate than on the famed Appalachian Trail. Completing this demanding challenge calls for...

Height–the great talisman. Surveys consistently show that 98% of people want to be taller. And this national trend plays out in microcosm on America’s hiking trails. I am 6’11”. When I am out hiking, countless people ask me what my exact height is, almost always followed by lamentations they aren’t taller themselves. But is it possible that great height is nothing more than a talisman?  The answer is a resounding...

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Hikers are serious people. No, they aren’t serious in the Mitt Romney, Donald Trump, or Bill Gates way. They have a different focus. It’s a broader one–theGreat Outdoors. Hikers, pilgrims, and of course, outdoorsmen and outdoorswomen don’t like to be confined inside for too long. Their central nervous system thrums at a higher pitch when engaged deep within wilderness, scaling peaks, or perhaps even slogging dutifully...