The annual Trail Days Festival in Damascus, Virginia is one of the outdoor world’s marquee events. For good reason. It was started in 1987 with the idea of bringing together hikers from previous years. It has succeeded signally in that regard; but it is also a lot more than that. The whole outdoor community seems to be on display. For starters, Damascus is the perfect place to have the event; it is widely known as the friendliest town on...

“I would definitely go to the Kickoff.” Time after time, when I asked ex PCT-hikers for advice, that was the first thing they suggested. They were referring to the annual Pacific Crest Trail Kickoff Party held every year on the last weekend in April in Lake Morena County State Park in the southern California desert. The PCTactually begins at the Mexican border; Lake Morena State Park is 21 miles north of the border. Thru-hikers...

Woo-hoo!  It’s opening day at Hiker Heaven, and there are two hikers in da house!  Volunteers Shelly Skye (aka Upside Down ’12) and Mike Shostak (aka Clutch ’12) have already made a big dent in preparations.  Cucumber Boy and Three Gallon (’07) donated a 27′ RV that will be used for volunteer housing.  There are so many amazing ways to “Serve The Herd!”  I am so grateful and full of anticipation for...

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-robert-redford-walk-woods-richard-linklater-20130403,0,3308669.story “Robert Redford just bought the movie rights to Bryson’s book,” someone reported to me at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in 2005 during my thru-hike. This, incidentally, is the halfway point on the Appalachian Trail. Thru-hikers are renowned for attempting to eat a half-gallon of ice cream in an...

Some have referred to the Pacific Crest Trail as the Appalachian Trail of the West. The Appalachian Trail is America’s trail of the masses; some three to four million people per year step foot on it at any one time each and every year. The Pacific Crest Trail does not have this feeling. For starters, it begins with 703 miles in the desert. The striking thing to me about that long, and sometimes brutal, march through the...

  The numerous readers of Bill Bryson’s Appalachian Trail narrative, A Walk in the Woods, will recall how he and his hapless sidekick, Katz, got bogged down in nasty, early springtime weather in the southern Appalachians. At one point, they were forced to take three days off in some out of the way hiker’s hostel. Of course, they began in March when the weather is notoriously dicey in these parts. I have been quite vociferous in...