If you asked 100 Appalachian Trail hikers which was the most difficult state on the AT (Appalachian Trail), fifty would probably say Maine and fifty would say New Hampshire. That fits my attitude. In fact when I’m in New Hampshire I’m prone to say it’s the toughest state, and likewise with Maine. Having said that, most AT hikers would state their preference for Maine as being their favorite state. “It is almost 300 miles...

“I would never do the Appalachian Trail any way but northbound,” I have told many people. “I just love the way the hike develops with a crescendo effect in the final two states of New Hampshire and Maine.” Well, I have now broken that pledge. A friend asked me to accompany her (only to have to cancel at the last minute!) for the first part of her southbound thru-hike. Like many southbounders, she was beginning in the...

“I have become obsessed about reading the Appalachian Trail,” Jennifer Haig wrote in my 200th Amazon book review. Good for you, Jennifer! Honestly, there are few things worth getting obsessed about in life. But this storied national scenic trail running through fourteen states from Georgia to northern Maine may be one of them. What a success story it is, with 3,000,000 hikers per year, whether day hikers, section hikers, or...

http://www.amazon.com/review/R2YMND3ZT5J323/ref=cm_cr_pr_perm?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B004HZXYX4 Thank you for this kind review. I’ve learned to be thick-skinned about book reviews, especially in the Amazon era. For while most of my book reviews have been positive, you occasionally get the horrible review. That’s fair enough. Heck, the reader has a million options on Amazon alone to choose from, so they can be forgiven for being demanding....

“This is the most realistic look at the tough slog that is an Appalachian trail thru-hike,” a recent book reviewer wrote on Amazon.com. Those words were music to my ears. For that is the exact purpose I had upon setting out to thru-hike the 2,180 mile Appalachian Trail, which runs 14 states from Springer Mountain in north Georgia to Mount Katahdin in northern Maine in 2005 despite never having even spent a single night outdoors. My...

Bill Walker, author of the popular Skywalker hiking book series, will be having a free Amazon Kindle upload (as well as other handheld devices) of his popular Appalachian Trail book, Skywalker–Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail. This is the story of his thru-hike of the 2,180 mile Appalachian Trail which runs fourteen states from Georgia to northern Maine. Walker is also the author of Skywalker–Highs and Lows on the Pacific...