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...

“There is nothing Warren likes more than watching a hiker who is vomiting, to then stand up and start hiking again.” I offered this quote from a longtime friend of Warren Doyle’s in my Appalachian Trail narrative, Skywalker–Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail. I had been taking Warren’s Appalachian Trail Institute class, which helps ready wannabe’ thru-hikers for the long journey ahead. Given that Warren...

Me giving advice on walking in the rain on the Appalachian Trail is like the captain of the Titanic giving advice on navigation. Well, not quite that bad. I made it, while the Titanic’s skipper didn’t have any such luck. But those of you who have read my Appalachian Trail book, Skywalker–Close Encounters on the Appalachian Trail, know that I was an unapologetic fair weathered hiker. However, the stark truth is that even...