“To be or not to be. That is the question.” Of course, those words are famous to all of us with just a morsel of knowledge of the Bard. And it’s all in the realm of fantasy, except for a few select people around the globe. Especially us Americans, for whom suspicion of royalty runs through and through our very DNA. But several years ago, I faced a question of direct relevance. Upon reading Bill Bryson’s...

“Why go northbound?” many potential thru-hikers ask me. Good question. Approximately 15% of Appalachian Trail thru-hikers  do choose to go southbound. But the rest walk from Springer Mountain in north Georgia to Mount Katahdin in northern Maine. Why? Some say it is because the first thru-hiker, Earl Shaffer, established the tradition of the northbound thru-hike in 1951. But surely there are more profound reasons that that....

  “Better than Bryson” was the Title of a Review I got for Skywalker–Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail. My first reaction was I’m glad it was somebody that said that! But secondly, I am glad he did say it, just because of the relevant discussion it brings about. What this reader-reviewer was referring to, of course, was the iconic Appalachian Trail book, A Walk in the Woods, by renowned travel writer, Bill...

Immediately butteflies wafted through my stomach. Why? Because when I turned on the computer this morning, I saw that I had 88 reviews on the Amazon page for Skywalker–Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail. This compared to 84 the previous day. The obvious question was whether the four new reviews would be good or bad. Lo and behold, all four were five-star reviews. Ultra-cool. Now I don’t want to get cocky. This book isn’t...

“I’m giving up my lease in February,” a 2013 Appalachian Trail thru-hiker wannabe recently told me. “Why February?” I wanted to know. “Because I’m starting on March 4th, my birthday.” “Wow.” Let me say that again. Wow. Because I started the Appalachian Trail (AT) two times–once on April 5th, and the other on April 10th. And if I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t begin a...