Appalachian Trail Hikers Streaming North
I stopped off at the Standing Bear Hostel just north of the Great Smoky Mountains yesterday and was pleased to see hordes of members of the Appalachian Trail (AT) thru-hiking class of 2014 streaming by. According to the Standing Bear owner, Curtis, this is on record to be the busiest year on record. And once again the AT staggers the imagination with its diversity. The man I dropped off is 71 years old and hoping to do the trail in ten different sections over as many years. Meanwhile, there are solo-hikers with their race shoes hoping to summit Mount Katahdin in northern Maine by the end of summer.
My attitude is more power to all of them. One is immediately struck by the sensation that if more Americans (remember we have a 30% obesity rate) joined them, we would live in a more civilized, humane country. As that great chronicler of early Christianity, St. Augustine, famously wrote, Solvitur ambulando.
Bill Walker is the author of the Amazon #1 bestseller, Skywalker–Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail.
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