Trailing On

George Washington State Forest, Signal Knob

2011-09-23T19:53:00.000-07:00

This post should be before the last one, as the last tenacious laurel blooms attest. Better late than never! A circuit hike on Massanutten Mountain, Virginia in George Washington National Forest was a perfect way to soak in one of the last remaining true summer days. George Washington National Forest During the Civil War, a charcoal-blast iron furnace at the base of Signal Knob, supplied pig iron to Richmond. Signal Knob was used as a Confederate lookout to monitor Federal troop movements in Shenandoah Valley. Signals relayed along the ridges sometimes reached as far as Richmond. Pretty rocky trail but plenty of Civil War ghosts to keep me company!

Catoctin Mountain State Park and Cunningham Falls

2011-09-17T18:55:00.000-07:00

Hurricane Irene brought more than extreme flooding, collapsed roofs, and downed trees. As I was hiking through Catoctin Mountain Park and Cunningham Falls State Park in Maryland, I noticed an abundance of gills, scales, and stalks. The fruit bodies of fungi were everywhere! I was amazed at how many different kinds I saw growing out of decaying logs, moss, and decomposing leaves.

The aforementioned parks were sites of Revolutionary and Civil War furnaces that produced large amounts of pig iron. The furnaces required wood to burn and the area was clear cut down to stubble. Under FDR and his Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps, many people were put to work during the Depression planting saplings and cutting many miles of trails through theses newly designated Maryland parks.

A hefty, jaunty, chunky, guy not sure what his name is.

You can see the ring under the cap of the shroomie on your left.

Maryland forest in September.

Looking down for mushrooms!

Hen of the Woods or Maitake, Grifola frondosa. Commonly clusters at the base of oaks and it's edible! Strangely enough, this fungus is native to both the eastern US and Japan, hence the two common names that are widely different. When Hen of the Woods ages, it becomes too tough to eat.

Jack-o-Lantern, Omphalotus, Clitocybe. These guys are poisonous and bioluminescent, glowing a subtle green color at night. According to Wiki, this mushrooms has a chemical compound that pharmaceutical companies are researching as a possible cure for some cancers.

View of Monocacy Valley from Hog Rock, elevation 1610 ft. I had to take out a few boy scouts to snap this shot.

Gymnopus subnudans. Little dainties with delicate stalks (or stipes). MushroomExpert.com calls them LBM's (Little Brown Mushrooms), not a very flattering name, in my opinion. They are edible, but the taste isn't distinctive.

Russula mushroom. Looking down on the cap from above. Apparently, these come in a variety of colors; I only saw the red.

A beautiful feathery purplish-blue wildflower that I haven't been able to identify with my two books on wildflowers of the eastern US or with any online identification guides. If anyone has a clue, lemme know!

I believe this is a type of Lepiota, not sure what species. It was a glowing beam on the forest floor on an overcast day.

This looks like Hygrocybe cantharellus. The Fungi-zette calls this, "One of the most jovial little mushrooms". This makes me love the Fungi-zette very much.

The most worthwhile thing to follow - a trail.

It had already been kicked over by another hiker. I was curious...

Beard. Union General John Reynolds whose corps marched past Catoctin Furnace on their way to Emmitsville and later to Gettysburg. How do I know? HISTORIC PLAQUE of course!

According to yet another fabulous historic plaque, this is "Isabella" the stack furnace, built in 1858 and the Casting Shed. Isabella produced 3300 pounds of pig iron annually that was used to make Civil War ammunition, guns, and a variety of other things to kill people. It blasted at 3000 degrees F and ran 24 hours a day. The furnaces employed deserters from the Union and the Confederacy because they needed workers so badly to keep up with production needs. An earlier furnace, built in 1776 was probably located very close by. During the time of production, the air would have smelled like rotting eggs (sulfur).

Cunningham Falls, the parks namesake.

Hello history, talk to me.

Shenandoah NP: Overall/Heiskell Hollow Loop

2011-05-01T16:07:00.001-07:00

"River flowing alongside high hills and mountains", "Sprucy stream", "Daughter of the skies", all theories about the meaning of the word Shenandoah. I took the perfect spring Maryland weather as a que to hike a 13 mile portion of Shenandoah and see the sprucy streams, rivers flowing alongside high hills and mountains for myself.

I decided to strap on my pack, complete with all necessary assorted overnight gear, and head out, braving bears and banshees for a solo hike. The loop I chose was the Overall Run/Heiskell Hollow Loop, (http://www.hikingupward.com/SNP/OverallRunHeiskellHollow/) that originates at a beucolic farm covered in soft moss and cactus, sunbeams and cow dung, a gurgling cool brook and junked, rusty, abandoned trailers; all common Maryland juxtapositions. Of course, I wondered who the Heiskells were, don't you?! I did some Googling and found this from the Madera County Library website, "Frederick Heiskell was born 1752 in Winchester, Frederick County, Virginia, and died 1815 in Stony Creek, Shenandoah County, Virginia. He married Catherine Von Steidinger 1774 in Virginia, daughter of Frederick and Magdalena Steidinger. She was born 1756, and died February 1818 in Shenandoah County, Virginia. Her father was from Wetterschaussen, Wurttemburg, Germany. Frederick Heiskell was a merchant, and the father of ten children."

I started off without a soul in sight and was immediately greeted by swimming holes that must have had some invisible sirens hanging out along their banks because I had to use some major willpower not to jump in - I had some miles to go first! I forded over 5 streams, first taking my shoes on and off and then not caring and sloshing right through. I saw my first Wood Thrush (Gondolina from the AT adventure). I swear one of the little brown sprites followed me the whole trail flickering in and out of low branches and sunlight.

Of course, I didn't bring a map, just wrote down the directions on a piece of paper. I took a wrong turn at the beginning and ended up taking a different route through the loop. I asked random hikers to see their maps and generally understood, that I was on the right path, just a little different from the one I had initially decided upon (that line is ripe for yoga teacher use). As night was drawing near and I started looking for a place to camp, I decided, last minute, to ask one more person if I could see their map to make sure I knew where I was before setting up camp. WIth this in mind, I passed a small campsite nestled back behind some trees. I barely glimpsed the tents from the path. "Um, excuse me...." I timidly asked the guy, about my age with cut-off jeans. He looked up and I realized, "Oh my gentle Jesus, I know this person." Turned out to be one of Mr. Mike Marks' best friends, Joel. We looked at each other, speachless and then we both laughed in disbelief. Out of all the places in the universe to run into someone, the odds of us happening upon each other in the backcountry of Virginia seemed one of the most unlikely. Joel's awesome girlfriend Kaitlin and his roommate Bert were both there too. Looked like I wasn't going to have to brave the wilderness by myself after all. A sign? Maybe. Awesome company. Definitely.

The aptly named, Big Falls

Page Valley with the Manssauntten Range beyond, view from Big Falls - yeah, seriously, good idea God

Greece and Turkey, eh?

2010-10-24T12:13:00.001-07:00

This entry is VERY late in coming, but, then again, writing it reminds me of the warm, indigo waters of the Aegean while sitting in a chilly apartment in Baltimore! In the name of George Fitz Simmons, the former Simmons family pater familia (a post currently occupied by my dad), the extended Simmons family embarked on a grand family adventure aboard an elegant four masted sailboat, the Windstar, and cruised around Greece and Turkey for 10 days in August, 2010. We were lucky enough to have the gallant company of Mister Mike Marks, banjo player and artist extraordiaire and enthusiastic wearer of flannel.

Indigo waters, white washed villages, ancient ruins and cloudless blue skies greeted us at every stop. Enjoy the slideshow!

Island of Delos, Birthplace of Athena and Apollo, close to Mykonos

Santorini, Greece

Santorini, Greece

Santorini, Greece

Volcano, Santorini, Greece

Deep blue view from Lindos Acropolis

Temple of Apollo

Lindos Acropolis, Temple of Appollo, Rhodes, Greece

Bodrum Castle, Bodrum, Turkey

The Damon brothers soakin' in the sun

Kushadasi

Kushadasi, Turkey

Ephesus, conservation of ancient apartment compound with in-tact wall murals

Sitting on an ancient toilet in the ancient city of Ephesus

The ancient city of Ephesus, Turkey

Hagia Sofia, Istanbul, Turkey

Medusa head in Basilica Cistern (Yerebatan Sarayı), underneath Constantinople,

Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey

View of Istanbul from ship, Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia visible in distance

Frankfurt airport, during layover, beer at 9am with the family - priceless

Old Speck and The Mahoosucs

2010-09-12T08:48:00.000-07:00

Well, it's been a full year since Lisa and I first moved to Maine! For Lisa, Maine is now her glorious vacation spot, her "Oh, I'll be spending the weekend at my glorious second home in Maine. Ta-ta, Baltimore!" So I've been holding down the northern stronghold for our adventures and spent much of the summer seeking out more and more areas for the taking, adventurously speaking in a bravado tone. This and the upcoming entries for Maine are really a re-cap of the summer and fall. And so we begin!

Last spring, while my good friend and adventuring chum in cahoots (Chris Cannon - http://bikingspain.blogspot.com/) was visiting, we decided to trek up from Portland to Grafton Notch State Park, about a 2 hour drive. The area, also known as the Mahoosuc Range, is a northern extension of the White Mountains straddling the Maine/New Hampshire border that marks the end of the Whites and the beginning of the Longfellow Mountains (see The Bigelow Range) that stretch up and across Maine's interior to Baxter and Katahdin. The Appalachian Trail enters Maine through the Mahoosucs via the Whites of New Hampshire, crossing several notable mountains in the Grafton Notch locale. And this is why Chris and I had come, to climb Old Speck (Ol' Speck) - Maine's fourth highest peak at 4180 feet, and a member of New England's "Hundred Highest" and "4000 Footer" lists respectively. The Mahoosucs are rugged and worn, steep and windswept. As part of the Appalachians, they are old mountains and evoke a grumbling old man in their persona.

Mountain stream along the AT, climbing Old Speck.

Looking northeasterly at Bald Pate Mountain, from Old Speck.

The climb of Old Speck begins at Grafton Notch, climbing the AT through thick forests, steep cliffs, and mountain streams. The day was sunny and warm at the lower elevations when Chris and I began climbing Old Speck in May, but this changes rapidly as you ascend. The temperature drops quickly and the wind was sustained around 40 mph with 50+ mph gusts that day (there were even higher winds along the coast that day when two young kayakers went missing in Casco Bay, sadly, to be found several days later). This is very characteristic of the Mahoosucs , as of the Whites and the Longfellows, and should be expected at about any time of the year. Extra clothes are a must! Plan well! The entire top quarter of our climb was in snow up to our mid-thighs where it wasn't packed down. There can be snow up top from October-June. And so, as we post-holed our way along the ridges the views widened and sprawled out before us. The final push to the summit, along with climbing the old fire tower up top, is filled with incredible views of the Mahoosucs reaching southwest into the Presidential Range of the Whites and northeastern views of the Longfellows reaching out across Maine.

Old Speck fire tower.

Chris Cannon looking east.

The Mahoosucs!

Grafton Notch State Park is also home to several impressive waterfalls (Screw-Auger Falls), Moose Cave, Table Rock, and old logging roads that wind their way through gullies and rocky ravines. On the eastern side of the Notch, the AT continues up Bald Pate Mountain (3790') - a grizzled old rock, hence the name.There is no camping in the park though you can reach camping via the AT and then really enter the Mahoosucs. Mountains like Goose Eye lie west beyond Old Speck, and there is a 40 mile loop that begins outside the park boundaries that is on my list to be had. Stay posted for winter hikes in this region, as we'll be snowshoeing our way through the blog soon enough!

Looking west/southwest into the Presidentials/White Mountains across the Mahoosucs.

Descending Old Speck.

Screw-Auger Falls, Grafton Notch State Park.

View from Table Rock.

The Bigelow Range

2010-07-05T05:38:00.000-07:00

For the 4th of July holiday we knew we had to do more than just drink beers, grill out, and sit around (though we love doing those things too!). We wanted sore muscles, tired limbs, and vast stretches of mountains before us - in other words, it was back to the Appalachian Trail. Lisa flew up to Maine to do just that, and we decided to do a backpacking loop on Bigelow Mountain using a combination of trails and, yes, the AT. The weather was perfect and whenever we started guessing that the heat might catch up to us, a cool breeze visited. And, unlike the swampy climate of Maryland, there was no humidity but there WERE baby grouse. Yes. (Lisa speaking) I was immobilized by the little puffs of mountain joy. (Mike speaking) She was. She really was.

My recent purchases of Maine's native bibles, the AMC Maine Mountain Guide and the Maine Atlas and Gazetteer, were our tickets to new destinations. That, and the endless amounts of mountain-information on the wonderful website www.summitpost.org
Bigelow Mountain is northeast of the Mahoosuc Range in Maine and southwest of Baxter State Park. The Bigelow Mountain Preserve and Maine Public Lands is a 33,000 acre conservation area established in 1976. The Appalachian Trail, meticulously cared for by the Maine Appalachian Trail Club (MATC) traverses its 12 mile spine before heading off into the 100 mile wilderness that leads bone weary hikers to Mount Katahdin.

Horn's Pond, elevation around 3600 ft.

Feral man with short shorts.

Two and a half hours after leaving Portland we arrived at the trailhead. Our loop began with a 2 mile hike from the Fire Warden's Trail to the Horn's Pond Trail, where we began our meandering ascent to reach the sub-alpine mountain tarn, Horn's Pond. After wading in the cool mountain water, we continued over the ridge line via the Appalachian Trail. Our route took us over one of 'The Horns', a pair of twin peaks. We scaled 'South Horn' at 3805'. The next several miles are known as some of the best ridge running in Maine outside of Katahdin's knife-like trails. We continued on towards Bigelow's West Peak - the highest point of the mountain at 4145' and with views of Maine's mountains, Quebec, and the hopeful vista of Katahdin in the distance (it's that one! NO it's that one!). At this point, it was a short distance to the Myron Avery Tentsite. Our legs were pretty thankful for the evening rest - seriously, Bigelow is one rugged mother. In the words of Lisa's brother-in-law, Josh, we "felt like piles." Happy sweaty piles.

After our gourmet Pad Thai dinner (freeze dried) I made a quick run up to the next summit, Avery Peak (4088') to watch the sunset and see the old fire tower watching over the valleys. The night was quiet and cool but we had visitors. Not in the form of feral goats like in West Virginia, or bears in North Carolina. We were visited by (insert heart throbbing pause here)..... visited by.....!!! MOUNTAIN HARES! AAAhhhh! It was bizarre. A warren of large, muscular, lanky jackrabbits had taken up at the top of a mountain in Maine. We couldn't figure it out. They would occasionally spar and were in no way afraid of humans. They hopped around the wooden sleeping platform on which we had pitched our tent. When we returned to Portland, we immediately consulted the great oracle, Google, to see what they might have been. Apparently, a population of non-native European Hares has grown in south eastern Canada and New England. They were brought over by a German farmer in the 1800s. We knew we had never seen cottontails that looked like these bruisers before. Mountain Hares! Weird.

The old fire tower with Flagstaff Lake below.

View of West Peak from Avery Peak.

In the morning we cooked oatmeal and got water from a nearby water box spring and headed out. Our descent took us down the Fire Warden's Trail. It was a grueling march directly down the face of the mountain on a boulder field. Ouch. By the time we got to flat ground our muscles were visibly shaking. The whole way up and down, by the way, we had great views of Sugarloaf Ski resort. It might be fun to cruise down it on a snowboard, and I'm sure it employs many people, but the runs looked like ugly scars on the second tallest mountain in Maine. Fortunately, there's enough space around to see past the resort and 360 degree views from the summit.

On the drive back to Portland, we stopped at our friend Kira's cabin on Salmon Pond (also called Ellis Lake) in the Belgrade Lakes Region. The cabin was adorable and we had Geary's New Hampshire Specials (perfect summertime brew) and then went for a refreshing dip in the perfect water. It was awesome - thanks Kira (and Kira's mom!).

Bunchberry (Cornus canadensis), the smallest herbal member of the Dogwood family

Yellow Clintonia (Clintonia borealis), also called Bluebead Lily after the fruits extraordinary true-blue color. Unfortunatley, the berries are poisonus.

Journey's End.

Union Mills

2010-06-20T18:55:00.000-07:00

I found peace close to Westminster in rural northern Carroll County this weekend. While slogging over creeks, steep switchbacks and upland forests, I felt solitude creep over me slowly. After wading through creeks, streams and bogs I entered the present, but only after I started sweating like a penguin in the Grand Canyon.

Sweet Cicely, Osmorhiza claytoni. "Before the days of mass-produced candy, the roots of Sweet Cicely, which resembled carrots, were a favorite treat among country people, when chewed, the roots released a refreshing licorice-like flavor." Wildflowers of the Appalachian Trail by Leonard Adkins.

Yes ladies and gentlemen, Union Mills was a scorching hike, lined with wasteside wildflowers, horses and yodelling mountain bikers. But, I didn't give a damn. I got to check out a grist mill and a Bollman-design bridge. Did you get to do that this weekend? I'd be 100 bucks not. What the heck is a Bollman-design bridge anyway? Union Mill house was built in 1797 by Andrew and David Shriver and has been continually occupied by the family. The mill itself, also built in 1797, is a large brick structure, built of locally manufactured brick. "On June 30, 1863, General J.E.B. Stuart of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia camped at Union Mills and was hosted by part of the Shriver family. On the following day Union troops arrived. General James Barnes of the 5th Corps of the Army of the Potomac arrived on the site and welcomed and entertained by other members of the family" - Union mill website, National Register of Historic Places. Most of the men from both sides died at Gettysburg the next day.

Milkweed for monarch babies.

Saw this little man while I was eating peanuts. HE crept very close but ran away right before I was able to pet him - probably very used to people.

Big Gunpowder Falls State Park

2010-06-16T19:37:00.000-07:00

Now imagine for a minute that you've spent a summer hiking the ridgeline of the southern Appalachian mountains and then you find yourself in gorgeous Maine. Hills are lined with blueberries, endless rocky coastline, beer flowing from conch shells held by mermaids with seaweed bras... Now you may have an idea of how difficult moving to the big city of Baltimore has been. Yes the job is great, but I'm heart sick without a trail under my feet. Good thing medicine is close by - Maryland woodland here I come. Gunpowder Falls revealed vine-heavy sycamores and poplars, humid air thick with soon-to-fall rain, Day Lily's bordering a lazy shallow river, pollen floating from living thing to living thing, toads and frogs discussing amphibian things, and an all encompasing dark green... I was obviously in the South, wait...maybe the Appalachian lowlands, well, maybe the Ozarks? Maryland seems to have a little bit of it all.

Along the banks of Gunpowder Falls

Nope, there are no huge cascading, booming rapids here, but the hike was a wonderful 20 minute-away respite from the concrete and sprawl of Baltimore. (Insert banjo music here) Story goes, because the streams draining this 500-square mile watershed fell from the peidmont to the Tidewater, early settlers called this water system a falls. The gunpowder part of the name comes from the saltpeter-used to make gunpowder-found along the banks.

This is the guy who discovered the saltpeter.

Portal

Day Lily (Hemerocallis fulva), a native of Eurasia, introduced into our gardens and quickly escaped from cultivation. It reproduces vegetatively from the roots. Each flower only lasts one day. Every part of the plant is mild and edible. Apparently, the flower bud tastes like green beans when cooked and served with butter. - Audubon Field Guide to NOrth American Wildflowers: Eastern Region

Hostas (of the lily family, Liliaceae)about to explode their flowers unto Maryland, even though they are natives of northeast Asia.

Gunpowder Falls State Park (nearly 18,000 acres in Harford and Baltimore Counties) was established to protect the stream valleys of the Big and Little Gunpowder Falls. I hiked the Sweathouse Branch Wildlands Area because it was listed on the Maryland Department of Natural Resources as a place that birders and wildflower enthusiasts enjoy. My little sister Laura also copied me a page from a book on hikes close to Baltimore that was instrumental in helping me find toads and lilies. What a southern delight of a hike!

Grandmother - she'll point you in the right direction if you are lost.

Pot Rocks - I'm hikin' up my trousers and taking a dive in here next time!

Île des Monts Déserts

2010-05-04T18:03:00.000-07:00

(Better late than never - from April 2010)
Mike was awarded the honor of Artist in Residence of Acadia National Park and spent two weeks painting, hiking, drinking distilled mermaid tears (Maine beer) and painting some more. I was lucky enough to have the honor of being Girlfriend of Artist in Residence of Acadia National Park which allowed me to hike, watch Mike paint and get hypmotized by small things in tide pools - all in one of the most gorgeous places I have ever seen. If you will recall, we visited Acadia in January. The island, although still relatively unpopulated when Mike arrived on April 12, 2010,was visibly being innundated with tourists by the time we left. The permanent population of the island is 10,000, but there are an estimated two and a half million tourists each year. The islanders say they can actually feel the land tipping to the northeast, the location of Bar Harbor - the night life central for Down East Maine. The restaurants were fun and full of character, our favorite was blackened haddock at The Thirsty Whale washed down with Guinness and Bar Harbor Real Ale (for strength, of course).

The trails were literally void of people. We rarely saw a soul, and if we did it was typically when nearing the road. Folks don't like to walk much, it seems. There's certainly plenty to see if you want to stay in your car... but the treat is taking that climb to the top of the island. It's an incredible feeling to be both on top of a mountain and on an island. You don't realize this in most places on Mt. Desert unless you climb high and have the fog rolling past you and the summit and out to sea. Two weeks goes by quick when you're painting, hiking, and reflecting on all things around you. We saw the island awaken with spring - a fortunate stretch of weather for Maine. By the end, the park had opened not only its doors but all its buds, blossoms, colors, and eggs. Everything was alive and moving - from the tide pools to the marshes, from the people to the peregrine falcons.

We hiked mountains together and separately and between the two of us, we put our feet all over the following:
Dorr, Sargent, Cadillac (we got coffee at the top and drank it while taking in the view of the fog!), Acadia, the Beehive, Champlaigne, Pemetic, Beech, Bernard and walked many more trails.

The Wabanaki Indians knew Mount Desert Island as Pemetic, "the sloping land." Frenchman, Samuel de Champlain, who made the first important contribution to the historical record of Mount Desert Island. He led the expedition that landed on Mount Desert on September 5, 1604 and wrote in his journal, "The mountain summits are all bare and rocky..... I name it Isles des Monts Desert." Acadia National Park was the first national park to be created east of the Mississippi, in 1919. The park holds more than 47,000 acres, 30,300 of which are on Mt. Desert Island (the remaining acreage lies in Isle au Haut, Schoodic Penninsula, and several outlying islands). The island's Somes Sound is the only fjord in the lower 48. Technically a fjard, it is a similar geological feature to the fjord and defined as a submerged glacial valley.

We also visited the Schoodic Penninsula and were gifted with lively tidepools filled with creatures that belonged in the Moon Pool. Even less crowded than Mt. Desert Island, the Schoodic region demands as much time spent exploring it as the island. Mike would need a whole other residency just for it!

Popham Beach State Park

2010-03-10T17:53:00.000-08:00

Popham beach is a thick strand of soft sand studded with tree and ocean (and human) detritus that forms patterns left behind by tides. The beach borders the south side of the mouth of the Kennebec River, which, along with the Morse river, border each end of the beach. Fox and Wood islands are visible offshore and you can walk to Fox Island at low tide (our timing was off!). We were the only people on the beach, a common occurance during the Maine winter, which added to the foggy mystery of the morning.

The beach had been ravaged the night before by a terrific storm that sucked trees up by their roots and left them to dry in the gray morning. Lobster trap ropes in their myriad colors, sea bird feathers, toys, and plants were intertwined in the roots making cocoons fit for fantasy monsters. What a gorgeous place! We shall return in the spring to swim and try our muscles against the feisty currants.

Acadia National Park... in Winter!

2010-02-06T18:54:00.000-08:00

Two degrees out. Two degrees outside without the windchill. And there we were, sleeping in the snow, just up the hill from an old New England graveyard on Mt. Desert Island. Though the icy fingers of death were clasping us tight that night, we scoffed at her attempts, dear friends, for we had trekked to Acadia National Park with the sole purpose of braving the elements for a winter camping foray and by God, we were going to do it!

Island view from Cadillac Mountain

Despite the frosty weather, it made for one of the clearest nights yet beheld by us in Maine. And it was far too cold for any ghosts to be wandering from the snow covered graves.

Mike inspecting our green igloo

I don't think I was still smiling when it got to 2 degrees...

We awoke from our icy tomb/two person tent, proceeded immediately to the mini-van and blasted the heat. We warmed up just in time to go back outside into the cold wind and begin hiking Cadillac Mountain. The mountain is the highest point along the eastern seaboard, and thus receives the first glint of sunlight in the United States throughout most of the year. It was named for a man who swindled a Canadian governor into the land rights, naming it Cadillac Mountain under his fantasy for ruling the Land of Cadillac. He made it one year with his wife before tiring of his make-believe kingdom, going on to found the city of Detroit in Michigan (thus, the cadillac automobile is named after him and carries his invented coat of arms insignia). With the exception of two snowmobiles, we were alone on the mountain and watched the sun creep up over the ocean.

The island itself is a patchwork of national park lands and private lands, interspersed with several towns. Acadia National Park encompasses about 45,000 acres, distributed between Mt. Desert Island, Isle au Haut, several smaller islands, and part of the mainland. The landscape is ruggedly eroded and ancient in appearance, having been beaten down by glaciers coming and going over time. the result is a varied land with forests, meadows, wetlands, the ocean (of course), mountains and the only natural fjord in the lower 48 states.

Dawns first light on Eagle Lake

Looking for snow spirits

Evidence of evolution

Most of the park was frozen from our view, though, with areas closed off for the winter. The sacrifice of not seeing all of the park was gaining the solitude of the island. We may as well have had the park to ourselves, with the exception of some locals we very occasionally ran into cross-country skiing or snowshoeing. To go to Acadia in the winter is to have a quiet, meditative experience and see a face of Acadia most tourists never see. Being one of the top ten most visited national parks in the country, and subject to traffic jams from over crowding in the summer, winter was the way to go.

Bass Harbor

Bass Harbor Headlight

Picturesque...

Morse Mountain

2010-01-12T18:17:00.000-08:00

I only went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in. ~ John Muir, 1913

One of the self-proclaimed 'geezers' at the coffee shop saddled over to me one early morning and generally inquired as to how I came into existence and what brought me here to heaven to work in a coffee shop. I told him that I was 'in transition' a state I now realize will be my perpetual fate. But, I did manage to get out the fact that, "Well, sir, I'm here because of the land. In part." Well kid!, he said. You should check out...and he gave me a treasure map of Maine, including Morse Mountain. Rest assured you will see more of his advice later in the blog. He was a retired businessman turned nature lover/hiker and drinker of half decaf half dark because, "Anything else would kill me."

The place is absolutely beautiful. The full name is the Bates-Morse Mountain Conservation Area (500+acres)/ It's a nature preserve managed by the Harward Center of Bates College for environmental research and education. The mountain summitt is one of the highest points on the mid-Maine coast, rising 117 ft above sea level. A convienient by-product of the place is its unwitty ability to calm and nurture the soul of any visitor who finishes the 4 mile trek to the mountain summitt, through gorgeous saltwater marshes and out to Seawall Beach.

In every walk with nature, one receives far more than he seeks. ~ John Muir

Mackworth Island

2010-01-03T13:14:00.000-08:00

When Mike and I first visited Portland, we took a ride on an adorable antique narrow gauge railcar that worked its way across the city waterfront. The railcar was run by the Maine Narrow Gauge Railway Co. & Museum and our guide was either a direct descendent or illegitimate son of Santa Clause. It was our first long view of the waterfront and we were intrigued by all the Calendar Islands. What secrets did they hide and how the heck did we get out to them?

View from the narrow gauge

After nestling into the city for a few months, we finally decided to make our way to an island that promised birding, beautiful trails and views of Portland and Casco Bay. Mackworth island was our destination, it is the current site of the Baxter School for the Deaf which lies on the island's interior; the 1.25 mile nature trail encircles the outer perimeter. The island is a legislated bird sanctuary and is connected to the city of Falmouth by a drive-able causeway. A parking lot is situated at the end of the road that hikers and day visitors can park at free of charge. A wacky dude in the visitor booth will tell you jokes and hand you a map/visitor guide that outlines the bird and animal life and history of the island.

Causeway to Mackworth

Sunlit hiking trail through pine forest

Apparently, a man with the sweet name of Sir Ferdinando Gorges (whom Fort Gorges in Casco Bay is named after) gave the island to his deputy Arthur Mackworth and island has retained his name. The visitor guide will inform you that one of Maine's most illustrious governors, Percival Baxter, once called the island his home and even built a notable pet cemetery for his beloved hounds which still stands today. The island is located along the mouth of the Presumpscott River that was an important early native trade route for the Wabanaki Confederacy. Long before any white governors made themselves king of the island, a Wabanaki Chief, Cocoawesco, claimed the honor. The Baxters donated native artifacts they found on the island to the Maine State Museum.

Baxter's pet cemetery. Sometimes you can see the ghosts of the hounds walking along the trail at dusk...not really!

The most magical part of the island, however, are the fairy houses!

Burnt Meadow Mountain

2010-01-02T11:54:00.000-08:00

This particular adventure was planned after I obtained the holy grail of hiking guides, 50 Hikes in the Maine Mountains, from the Portland Public Library. Each little circle on a map of Maine indicated a glorious destination to which hikers migrate during different times of the year. Its a good thing Mike and I are so hard core - extreme seasonal fluctuations are no impediment to our massive muscles and steel minds. One circle in particular drew our attention because of its intriguing name, Burnt Meadow Mountain, and its promise of gorgeous views and semi-difficult terrain over a 2.4 mile hike that would take us about 2 hours, giving Mike ample time to paint en plein air and me ample time to explore the mountain nooks and crannies.

The history of Burnt Meadow and the adjacent town of Brownfield is tragic. (Source: www.nelsap.org/me/burntmeadow.html) In 1947 a large forest fire destroyed much of the area and town, resulting in the saying, "The Summer That Maine Burned" and, of course, 'Burnt Meadow Mountain'. It is estimated that 85% of the town was completely incinerated. Brownfield does have a cute little history museum that we plan to visit someday.

The town did not succeed in attracting industry back to the area so they decided to have a go at starting a ski resort. A state grant of $6200 was given to the town to study the prospects of a ski area and the report suggested that the area, "could become one of the top ski areas in Maine."

More money was allocated in 1967, unfortunately, heavy snows and generally terrible weather slowed down construction for years, although a 3400 foot lift was installed (which still stands in dilapidated form). The area finally opened for the 1971-72 season but more bad weather and competition from nearby already established resorts caused building and expansion to cease on Burnt Meadow. Ownership of the mountain changed a few times but it never did well as a ski resort and finally shut down in 1982.

Mountain summit

Today you wouldn't know the mountain was once burnt to ashes or made into a ski resort unless you catch glimpses of the old t-bar lift. Nature has taken back its own. Thank god for it - the place is incredible and the Presidential's can be seen in clear view from the top. The colors were what stopped us in our tracks. As you can tell, they were taken in late fall, not January, but we'll get back soon for a winter scape!

We took the blue blazed trail to the top but there were other trails with different colored blazes

On our way back to Portland we stopped to check out a beautiful pond as it was nearing twilight

God's Golden Shore (Well, maybe silver)

2009-12-06T14:55:00.000-08:00

I remember the first time Lisa and I walked down a path in Cape Elizabeth. The trail took us through a mix of forest and meadow, crossing streams that flow with the deep obscuring reds of tannins released by trees into the water. We could feel the mystery that comes with arriving to the edge of the coastline - catching small currents of salt in the air when no water is in sight. The meadow abruptly stopped at a crest of grasses and the sprawling sea suddenly appeared to lay out before us. This is how we were introduced to Crescent Beach State Park in Maine. It has become a frequent stop for me to paint at, think at, nap at, play at, and get my feet soaked in it. The park has become a special and close getaway for Lisa and I to walk for an hour or two. Lying only six miles from our apartment in Portland, it's surprising how often we have the area to ourselves.
Crescent Beach State Park is a pretty literal name for the area, being a Crescent [shaped] [rocky] Beach [owned by the] State Park [system] and all. The geology of Crescent Beach State Park begins approximately 500 million years ago at the end of the Cambrian Period. An ocean covered all of Maine at that time, and the shoreline of the North American continent was located almost 300 miles to the northwest. In what is now the Portland area a great thickness of mud, sand, and limy mud accumulated on the ocean floor to form the area we now frequently take walks at. The rocks are also quite weathered looking, resembling petrified wood in their appearance.

Is this Lisa laughing in the face of death? Quite possible. Or are we simply beach nerds?

Low tide.

Just up the road toward Portland lies a area of jagged rocks and cliffs called Two Lights State Park. (All of you loyal readers out there,meaning our families, see an image from Two Lights at the header of the page every time you access this blog.) It is here that Lisa found a nesting spot in Maine - the perfected idea of a flat, hidden bed of rock that sits above the ocean but remains out of view from visitors. On sunny days when the rocks trap heat you can't even budge Lisa from this nook. It is also here, at Two Lights, where we have seen the largest waves of our lives! Sixteen foot high waves smashing into the rocks, sending spray to the level of most houses! Amidst both the turbulence and the calmer days we can always spot common eiders surfing the waves, diving for food. When the larger waves approach, some of these members of Anatidae will simply float over the crests while others dive beneath the surface, remaining visible through the pipelines.

There's that nook I spoke of.

Bradbury Mountain State Park

2009-11-30T20:44:00.000-08:00

Please excuse the late posting of this adventure, an obvious relapase on my part as evidenced by the bright fall colors no longer existant this late in the season. Bradbury Mountain State Park was a destination suggestion of a member of the Peregrine Press, a printing co-op that Mike is hoping to be involved with.

We embarked upon Bradbury Mtn. in late October and were rewarded with magnificent views of 800+ acres of forested land dressed in bright reds, oranges and yellows stretching out towards the ocean.

Sculpted by a glacier, Bradbury Mountain itself is the park's most outstanding natural feature. A great variety of plants and animals call the mountain home and it also offers views of migrating hawks and eagles, much like Hawk Mountain in PA, except the best time to view the migration is Spring instead of PA's fall.

Before the first Europeans arrived, Wabanakis camped on the mountain on trips to the coast. In the early 1800’s, the Cotton family raised grapes on terraces still visible on the mountain. To hold stray cattle, sheep, and pigs, the early settlers built the cattle pound that still stands on Rt. 9 near the Northern Loop Trail. Near the ball field visitors can still see where feldspar was mined in the 1920’s to make crockery and china.

Acquired from the Federal Government in 1939, Bradbury Mountain became one of the five original state parks. In the 1940’s, it offered downhill skiing with a rope tow. In the 1990’s, the park added 250 acres.

The $3 to get into the park and the 30 minute drive was well worth it. We plan on doing some winter camping on Bradbury soon before I head out to El Paso!

Scarborough Marsh

2009-11-22T16:24:00.000-08:00

Today, the estuary is 3,100 acres and it is considered the largest salt marsh in Maine. It was once much, much larger. Imagine auburn grasses and countless birds flying over the myriad pools reflecting the mood of the sky from dawn to dusk and then at night, reflecting the stars.

The waters, influenced by the moon, cause the pools to fill and empty like giant lungs making the marsh a place of constant change. Food was plentiful for the Sokokis Indians who hunted, trapped, clammed and fished on the wetland. Then, in the 1600s, white men came and pushed out the native people, they used the salt hay to feed cattle and sheep and used the marshland as summer pasture for livestock.

With the 1900's came an apparent increased need for the destruction of the natural world, especially places that were the most beautiful and important for wildlife. True to form, ditches were dug, pannes were filled and tidal gates were installed, thus preventing the tides from doing their eternal duty by flooding portions of the marsh and bringing nutrients to the wetland. Deciding that not enough damage had been done, it was determined that channels were to be dug to allow boats built inland to float through the marsh out to sea. When haying declined in the 1900s, people began to view marshes as sacrifice areas for airports or cheap space on which to fill and build. Finally, the most brilliant plan of all for this gorgeous piece of earth - make it a town dump! That very plan was proposed in the mid 1950's, as was an airport.

Evidence of plans, now foiled, to destroy the marsh

Then some humans, apparently lacking the destroy the earth gene, decided that an important coastal wildlife habitat was threatened, and in 1957 the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife began the twenty-year process of acquiring the marsh. In 1972 Maine Audubon initiated a partnership with the state to convert into a nature center an old clam shack at the edge of the marsh. Now, fast forward to 2009 and Lisa and Mike arrive on the scene at Scarborough Marsh and are awe struck by the vastness and beauty of this huge wetland.

The painter in his natural habitat

We saw egrets, herons, grassland sparrows, buffleheads (Mike's new name for me). On a previous scouting mission to visit the outskirts of the marsh, Mike saw thousands of American Eels congregating around a deep pool, writhing and wriggling all over, he said it was awesome to see! Apparently, muskrat, mink, otter and snowy owls frequent the marsh but we weren't lucky enough to see those this time.

Stars on Monhegan Island

2009-11-18T16:42:00.000-08:00

Maine is a state for artists and Monhegan Island boasts an extraordinarily dense population of the rare, elusive and often cranky species. The light that glimmers and glints off the rocks that encircle this 1.75 mile wide island makes the place twinkle like stars in the daytime and the preserved wilderness areas that blanket the interior are gorgeous and can be seen via 17 miles of hiking trails.

Sunlight off island on the way to Monhegan

Mike was lucky enough to see extra stars as we were leaving the island when three middle aged women with glorious bosoms flashed the boat. Yes... it was a good day, for an artist. Monhegan has been a destination for us since we arrived in Portland and visited the Portland Museum of Art to view a Mainecenntric exhibition entitled, 'Call of the Coast: Art Colonies of New England'. Ever since Mike has had a glint in his eye to see the island on which the illustrious likes of Andrew, Jamie, and N.C. Wyeth have lived (Jamie is still a year round resident). Other notable residents include Edward Hopper (think Nighthawks), Winslow Homer and Rockwell Kent. Captain John Smith even stayed on the island for a time in 1614, but only long enough to ravage a native woman and bring death and enslavement to her community (just kidding, but probably true). Monhegan is accessible post-tourist season only by Monhegan Boat Line (est. 1914) out of Port Clyde Harbor which boasts a fleet of two handsome ships, the Laura B. (from WWII) and the Elizabeth Ann that function as supply and mail boats.

Gangway onto the Elizabeth Ann

Ready for a boat ride in a dorky hat!

One of these two boats is sent out to the island only three times a week and immediately turns around after unloading so if you aren't planning on staying at least two nights at one of the two B&B's open year-round you are out of luck. There are no cars or paved roads on the island either; the year round population hovers at around 65 enlightened souls, many with big boobs.

Old New England fish houses off an island on the way to Monhegan

Arrive at Monhegan

Are one of these a Wyeth house?

Island across from Monhegan with some sort of conveyor belt running up the side - for lobsters perhaps?

The name Monhegan derives from Monchiggon, Algonquian for "out-to-sea island" and it is fairly far from shore, a 50 min ride out and a 50 min ride back. We met two fine gentlemen from Ohio aboard ship, a strange coincidence because they were the only other people there simply for the boat ride. The two men were best friends and avid birders, one a biologist and the other, a manager for one of the departments of the Ohio State Historical Society. They knew the names of every bird we saw along the way and I have recorded them here faithfully:

Common Loon, Northern Ganet, Herring Gull, Great Black Backed Gull, Eider Duck, Phalaropes (a variety, can't remember the exact types), Shearwaters (ditto for them), Double Breasted and Great Cormorant, Raven, Black Guillemot, Common Murre (unconfirmed but possibly sighted), Dovekie

I was amazed at the huge array of bird life that was floating, skimming, diving and soaring below, on and above the dark blue Atlantic. It was a birders paradise and Mike and I were lucky to have been in the company of such expert birders, and from Ohio! More than anything, however, more than an artist colony, Monhegan, like most of coastal Maine pays homage to king lobster and clustered all around the island are fish and lobster houses used to process catches. We can't wait to come back during the spring and camp, hike and flash people!

Cool lobster boat close to Port Clyde

An army duck parked at Port Clyde Harbor

Marshall Point Lighthouse in Port Clyde, Mike painted it.

Plaque dedicated to fishermen who lost their lives while working

Sleepy Booth Bay Harbor, a sweet town on the way to Port Clyde

Saint George and the Dragon sculpture on Rte. 131

Sound the Fog Horn! You're Smashing Into a Lighthouse Blog!

2009-11-01T17:34:00.001-08:00

You can't tell someone you live in Maine without being asked about the lighthouses, and I guess you can't really go anywhere in coastal Maine without seeing the whole lot of them anyway. Yes, the lighthouses are alive and abound here - more than 60 of them. Lisa and I encountered our first lighthouse while we were still just visiting Maine - Spring Point Ledge Lighthouse in South Portland. Under a brilliant setting sky with Portland beginning to glow across the Bay, we decided Maine was a pretty great place. It was one of our last days visiting and I had been meaning to call a friend of a friend, Chip, who lived in town. As I was reminding myself to do this we walked out along the rocks to the lighthouse where a young couple sat. I thought, "Wouldn't it be funny if that was Chip? I wonder if that's Chip?" I then turned to Lisa and exclaimed, "Wouldn't it be funny if that was Chip? I wonder if that's Chip?" We then turned toward the shadowed figure A N D .... well, it was Chip. He said he hadn't visited that spot in about four years! Uncanny! Since moving here, we've been wondering whether to call him back or try and run into him unannounced at other historic landmarks (we'll give him a call).

Perhaps the most infamous of all the lighthouses is the Portland Head Light, built between 1787 to 1791 under the directive of the early American poster-boy himself, George Washington. Two hundred eighteen years later, Lisa and I have joined the ranks of visiting the "most photographed lighthouse in America," quite unavoidably. It's actually pretty impressive, and the cliffs are exactly what come to mind when you think New England coast and then say, "New England Coast" to your family and relatives from the midwest. I particularly enjoy the painted lettering on one of the rocks nearby, stating, " Annie C. Maguire Shipwrecked Here, Christmas Eve 1886, R.D." Apparently, everyone aboard the British ship survived despite a massive storm carrying the vessel away piece by piece. The waves and rocks all along the coast are absolutely incredible in their smashing and exploding power. Lisa and I frequently see notices in the more public areas concerning "rogue waves," unexpected wave monstrosities that swallow up the unexpected rogue wave "viewer." Fortunately we still remain, oh worried families! There are countless other lighthouses up and down the coast - we've seen several more since the initial writing of this very blog! From the Bug Light in South Portland to the Marshall Point Light in Port Clyde, we've seen a few. But the tales that go with them will have to wait for future blogs....

Maine. Portland that is...

2009-11-01T16:28:00.000-08:00

Howdy all. Mike and I have now followed the winds up North to a land known by many names, including, The Pine Tree State, Vacationland (our favorite), The Evergreen State, Maine: Where America's Day Begins (best to declare loudly while sipping black coffee in the morning), The Border State and The Old Dirigio State (state motto is Dirigio - 'I Lead' in Latin). All of these names are swell, but Mike and I prefer to call the state AWESOME and HOME. We have put down little root tendrils in the rocky soil of Portland, Maine's largest city, and we are hoping they grow into something magnificent, and, preferably with flowers in the Spring. We have a wee little one bedroom house from which we can see Casco Bay and some of the Calendar Islands, so-called because there are 365 of them.

(Casco Bay)

We watch huge cruise ships disgorge their loads of thousands of people into the city to buy artwork, beer and t-shirts. We are also visited by lobster boats, oil ships and ferry boats (some of which go to Nova Scotia!). We like to crawl out our window onto the rickety, rusty fire escape and watch the boats, and at night, the city lights.

(View of a big cruise ship from our window)

The huge "Time and Temperature Building' is also within view it is a neon blinking sign that displays the time and temperature is ever present outside our kitchen window thus rendering obsolete the need for clocks inside the apartment, which is nice, but in the winter we will always be reminded of how freezing cold it is outside (at least we have heat included with the rent!) - brrrr! Our place is in a nice location between the Arts District and Commercial Street on which most of the tourism is focused.

(Congress Street, also called the Arts District - the Portland Museum of Art is barely visible on the far right)

(Commercial Street - main shopping and restaurant area)

The city is peppered with art galleries small and large, not to mention warm, snuggy bars that celebrate live local music almost every night of the week. We've managed to stumble upon a full Irish music party one night at a bar called Blue. Many people were sitting around a large table eating cake and drinking Guinness when suddenly, bagpipes appeared under a hefty bearded man's arm and then a bazouki (an Irish banjo-like instrument) manifested itself in the hands of another man and all around the table instruments popped out of nowhere and were played incredibly well, and all sitting around a table - not even on stage! We've had similar like-encounters of the musical kind at other places around town; hopefully someday soon it will be Mike rendering his musical charms upon a rapt audience sipping on dark delicious Maine brews (Geary's and Bar Harbor's Cadillac Mountain Stout are particularly good). When Mike and I came out here to scope out the scene in early October, Mike's college friend Katie and her German-speaking boyfriend Luke (both of who recently moved to Boston after spending a year teaching English in Thailand) drove up to check out the city with us.

(Top of City Hall)

(Mike and Katie outside Brian Boru)

(Lobster-Kong!!)

We had a blast and decided that Portland offered everything we needed: affordable living, as vibrant an art and music scene as a small city with a population of 62,875 can have, and, of course, a landscape that we suspect is projected down daily from a camcorder in heaven. Yes, it's true, 3,500 miles of coastline to explore, 6,000 lakes and ponds and 17 million acres of forest. Basically, this constitutes all the food our eyes need to survive, and for our bellies, it's fresh and oh soooo good seafood all the time! Now about some jobs...we are confident that they are on the horizon and we're on the hunt!

The Migration

2009-10-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. Thousands of raptors riding wind thermals as they migrate south, following their food source towards warmer climates for the winter. Camping. Campfires. Pennsylvania Mountains. NEED I SAY MORE?? That's right folks. Your heros have finally answered the call of one of the finest refuges for birds of prey. From www.hawkmountain.org, "To advance the mission, a full-time staff of 16, assisted by a 200-member volunteer corps, carries out integrated conservation programs in education, research, and monitoring, including operating a Visitor Center and the Acopian Center for Conservation Learning, and managing the 2,600-acre Sanctuary, a portion of which is open to the public year round. More than half of the Sanctuary's property is used for scientific monitoring and remains closed to public for habitat preservation."

Peak migration occurs in mid-October when the greatest variety of avian species can be seen; golden eagles, red-shouldered hawks and more are common. The migration pears down in mid-December although some eagles, goshawks and rough-legged hawks have been sighted even in January. The birders have it down to a science, "in mid October, you have a 96 percent chance of seeing a sharp-shinned hawk. In early September, you have just over a 50% chance of seeing a bald eagle." (www.hawkmountain.org). Even if you don't manage to make it during peak migration, the hiking trails and views of the Pennsylvania countryside are well worth the trip. In fact, 8 miles of trail can be taken from the base of Hawk Mountain, the Skyline Trail even connects to the Appalachian Trail, our old friend.

The sanctuary offers a great many lectures and programs led by distinguished ornithologists and biologists so check out the program list before you go. Mike and I simply notified the gift shop attendant that we would be leaving our car in the parking lot overnight and headed on up the mountain to the key birding spots. On the way up from an overlook we saw the River of Rocks, a mile long glacier deposited boulder field (some boulders over 20 feet long!)

(You can see the River of Rocks here in the distance)

We joined about 20 other birders at the top who quietly waited for those traveling on wind currents to pass overhead and then someone bedecked entirely in khaki, with hair protruding impossibly far from random orifices (it's how you know they are wise and expert birders) would quietly say, "Osprey above peak number 4, to the left of the large cumulus," or, "Sharpy (short for Sharp-Shinned Hawk) at 2:00 directly above the North Ridge," and then everyone would swivel their heads, binoculars attached at all times, to get a look at the beautiful visitor from above. Even monarch butterflies and flocks of jays were noted. A large stuffed Great Horned owl stood watch atop a tall post, causing raptors to dip low and challenge the foe over the heads of the onlookers.

Hawk Mountain wasn't always a place of study, reflection, repose and calm. No Sireee. Before it's inception as a refuge in 1934, Hawk Mountain used to be a death trap for migrating birds. Men found sport in shooting them out of the sky until the land stunk with the rot of thousands of hawks, eagles, osprey and falcons. The devils disguised in overalls would get $5 for every raptor shot because they were deemed as pests that would eat crops and damage livestock. The idiots didn't even stop to notice that the birds were passing through, not coming over for an extended stay. Why this lunacy? I believe that the fact that this genocide occurred can be summed up best by Hobbes, ""...in the first place, I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death." Story goes, as the conservation effort was just getting off the ground, photographer Richard Pough came to Hawk Mountain and photographed the carnage resulting from the massive slaughter of the birds. His photographs were seen by, among others, New York resident and conservationist Rosalie Edge who founded the sanctuary.

Hawk Mountain holds in it's history the best and worst of the human spirit and shines as a light for future conservation efforts to aspire towards. Animals are never the enemy, if they don't fit in with man's plan, it is because he has disrupted the harmony in which they exist.

Good Luck on the Horseshoe Trail

2009-10-04T20:20:00.000-07:00

Adventures can start in your backyard if you know where to look. Our new adventure did just that, well, actually it was a few blocks behind my parents backyard, but it's basically the same thing. It all started before embarking on the AT when some of my parents neighbors, who interestingly fabricate extremely realistic prosthetics, invited me over to see their African art and the original 1948 National Geographic that featured Earl Shaffer and his historic complete trek from Georgia to Maine. While I was visiting, they said, 'Ya know sweetie, I think that there is a trail right here in our backyards that hooks up with the AT. I wouldn't swear it, nope. But we've heard tell of it." I let this unconfirmed statement slip from my brain for a time. After all, it sounded to awesome to be true and I'd never seen a trail around. Now, fast forward a few months, post AT, on a warm evening walking home after working at the Wharton Esherick Museum (aka the dean of American craftsman's abode that looks like a fairy tale house) I noticed some yellow blazes painted onto some trees, and then some more and then some more.... A TRAIL! Right in my backyard. Rob, the awesome Director of the Esherick Museum (shout out also to Paul, the awesome Curator!) confirmed my neighbors statement and my own suspicions. In fact, he not only knew the name of the trail, but had hiked the whole thing! Dear readers, introducing THE HORSESHOE TRAIL; a Pennsylvania hiking and equestrian trail stretching 140 miles from Valley Forge to the Appalachian Trail on Stony Mountain. According to Rob, in the 60's, the trail was campable from start to finish (sometimes on the property of friendly farmers). Unfortunately, suburbia's ravenous appetite has devoured large swatches of forested land, leaving a small tract which the trail delicately traverses through large subdivisions. Luckily, once the intrepid hiker gets closer to western PA, greater views and more camping is afforded.

(HST trail head)

How crazy that these little used footpaths for those who seek companionship with the wilderness are in league with each other - maybe not that crazy... The Horseshoe Trail Club, founded in 1935, has a website that alerted me to the fact that a complete trail guide exists and I bought one from a Revolutionary War re-enactor working the museum bookstore at Valley Forge park. Now I was set all I had to do was call upon my trail companion Mister Mike Marks. We set off down my parents driveway to follow the trail which once connected the various Pennsylvanian forges and furnaces, leading through the charcoal forests between them. The trail helped to fuel the iron industry of the East in the late 18th and early 20th centuries. Portion of the old iron trails have survived to become today's Horse-Shoe Trail.

(An old trickster crow watches us from a pear tree)

(Old spring water bottling plant - the stream runs right through the building)

The trail was a vital supply chain, bringing cast iron and pig iron supplies to soldiers and colonial era families. According to the HST guide, "William Penn encouraged the mining and manufacture of iron in the PA colony. In the early days, the forges were built to produce finished goods, such as cast iron stoves and other simple castings." The only downside to the modern trail is that urban sprawl has relegated large portions of it to neighborhood sidewalks and edges of lawns causing old people watering their yards to stare at you strangely when you trek by with a huge backpack on and people in cars to stare at you even more strangely - where would we be going and where the hell did we come from? It was obvious that the trail probably didn't get much use. Hiking suburbia is a strange experience indeed. Much like my own parents, it was obvious that many people didn't even know the trail was in their backyards.

(Who knew we'd see chinchillas at Great Valley Nature Center along the way!)

We were afforded leaf cover most of the time, however and saw some beautiful PA countryside, an old spring bottling plant, horse farms, and Historic Yellow Springs a mecca for people seeking healing of a wide variety of bodily ills from its iron-rich "yellow" water since Native Americans inhabited the region. Hopewell Furnace was an awesome stop along the Horseshoe Trail. It is an excellently preserved furnace who's flame ran strong from 1771-1883. The furnace was a major supplier of canons for the Union Army during the Civil War. Today it is owned by the National Park Service and is still in action, worked by men in period clothing who demonstrated the making of cast iron stove doors. Park rangers rode huge work horses around, women in long skirts and bonnets sold us root beer and we picked our own apples from the on-site orchard from which a delicious southern-style apple pie with sour cream was made upon return to the Simmons' abode - yummmmm.

West, By God, Virginia!

2009-09-07T07:19:00.000-07:00

A trip to Mike's spawning grounds, ole West Verginie yielded incredible views from the North Fork Mountain Trail, running 24 miles mostly along a sandstone ridgeline, but also through hollows and valleys. The North Fork Mountain area is part of the Seneca Rocks Unit of Monongahela National Forest in the Potomac Ranger District and as its name suggests, gives the hiker a view of the snaking North Fork of the South Branch of the Potomac River. The trail is gorgeous but almost completely devoid of a combination of hydrogen and oxygen molecules that our bodies needed to survive so we had to bring a lot of water which made for super heavy packs. The trail also gave us a wonderful birds-eye view of the Dolly Sods Wilderness Area, one of our most favorite places to camp and a favorite of Mike's to paint.

We connected to North Fork Mountain's ridgeline just before dusk, eating our dinner over a sweeping vista of West Virginia's rolling moutains and rocky faces. The katydid chorus came out early and blasted us all night long. Then, a strange company of curmudgeonly grizzled beings approached our tent from all directions. Slowly, they came closer, and in Lisa's head, the owners of the grumpy sounds outside our tent belonged to, first, deer, then bear with hooves, then centaurs led by satyrs. But they were none other than a herd of feral goats, munching grasses and butting heads against fallen trees and each other - we had unwittingly set up camp in their favorite grazing grounds along the ridge, and they would continuously approach the tent, eating of course, and flee quickly when arriving too close, simply to repeat this routine all night. The next morning, we tromped along through blueberry and huckleberry bushes that were already yielding berries because of the elevation. A quick handful here or there stained our fingers and mouths as we walked and gorged ourselves like our visitors from the night before. We did a loop of the trail, starting at Redman Run trail and following the North Fork Trail to its Northern terminus ( Mike to Check). On our way back, we followed CO28/11, also known as Forest Road 79. Although road hiking isn't normally something we plan for, we hoped to get glimpses of West Virginia countryside and private land. Our hopes were well founded because it seemed like we had traveled back in time. Countryside vignettes of old barns, ancient family cemeteries, horses grazing in pastures, sun glinting off wheat fields and old fences running far into the distance hid evidence of a modern world, save for the telephone lines, Milwaukee's Best beer cans, broken down cars from the 50's,60's,70's, and 80's, tires in the ditch, and the road sponsored by the Allegheny Bear Hunters Association.

On the way back to Maryland, we stopped at Seneca Rocks, a holy place for the Seneca Indians and also a holy place for hippy rock climbers (it's one of the rock climbing meccas of the east). We watched an educational video about the site in the National Park's educational center that told us of the very hilarious story, likely made up by white men to give an air of noble savage romance (a genera known to many curators of Native Arts - shout out to Sue) to the location. The legend is about "The Betrothal of Princess Snowbird" and it's even written on a historical plaque by a gas station. The legend goes that Chief Bald Eagles daughter, the "Princess" (note Native American's didn't have princesses because they did not operate under a feudal system of government)Snowbird declared that any Indian brave that followed her to the top of Seneca Rocks would have her hand in marriage. The video shows Snowbird, short deer-hide skirt waving in the wind, ascending the ridge top followed by about five braves all staring up her skirt. She reaches the top and pulls a handsome, strapping young man up with her and they live happily ever after. CHEESE CITY. It's the most "Walt Disney" that West Virginia will ever be.

West Virginia, throughout its history as a state, has always been the target of outside interests, especially in exploiting its natural resources. Coal and timber, at the expense of folks' lives, have always been the two big ones. By the beginning of the twentieth century something like 95% of West Virginia's old growth forests had been clear cut down to their stumps leaving behind a dry expanse that would ignite in forest (or forestless) fires, burning mountains down to their bedrock at times. The barren hills, now devoid of any rain barrier all the way down to riparian watersides in the valleys caused major flooding -- the water simply poured off the mountains all over the east. The WPA CCC group, along with the budding National Park and Forest systems eventually realized the desperate need to conserve the land and Monongahela National Forest became a reality in 1920. The forest is an example of a major turnaround in preservation within the eastern United States. This continues even today as Monongahela National Forest's 910,155 acres absorbed 37,000 new acres of designated wilderness within its boundaries as a result of the Obama administration signing into law the landmark Wild and Scenic Rivers Bill of 2009.

Clear cutting mountaintops in the early 1900s - courtesy of Seneca Rocks Discovery Center.

Removing the timber from the hills - courtesy of Seneca Rocks Discovery Center.

Flooding in Pittsburgh due to clear cutting and resulting runoff - courtesy of Seneca Rocks Discovery Center.

Sunset along North Fork Trail

The North Woods

2009-08-18T07:00:00.000-07:00

Lisa and I made the long trek up to northern Wisconsin, driving from Maryland to Cleveland (six hours), and then on up through the Upper Peninsula of Michigan into Wisconsin (thirteen hours). The U.P. offered Lisa her first glimpses of a strange and new land much like the midwest she once knew, only farther north and with a peculiar culinary delicacy - Pasties, an old fisherman's meal of meat and vegetables wrapped in dough. The "Pasties For Sale" stands speckled the dunes of the U.P., appearing only after, and never before, driving across the Mackinac Bridge, the third longest suspended bridge in the world stretching five miles across Lake Michigan.

Lighthouse at Manistique, Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

Our Great Lake Michigan!!!

We were traveling to Eagle River, Wisconsin, where many of my family's roots began with my great-grandfather Joseph Weber moving his family, including my grandmother, to the area in 1917. My grandmother, Martha Weber (Judge), now 95 years old, has always returned to live there every summer and fall while spending the winters in Milwaukee. The original farm house and barn are still there, though she has lived for many years just down the road from it along the Wisconsin River in a small cabin my grandfather built. Through the words of my grandma as published by the Eagle River Historical Society:

"We arrived by train and were met by Norman Kinney, who unfortunately was bitten in the leg by our family dog. He drove us in his horse and buggy to our land located on a rutted, nameless dirt road which is today known as Illinois and Drager Roads. The house's exterior was red tin brick siding. The outside pump was out source of water and kerosene lanterns were our source of light. The kitchen wood stove and the potbelly stove in the living room heated the home. There was no heat upstairs and there were times in the winter when we would wake up in the morning with frost on our blankets. We would quickly run downstairs and dress in front of the wood stoves."

My great grandfather, having bought the land sight-unseen for farming, quickly found out the land was not fit for making a living off of. They were able to grow only enough for themselves, supported by subsistence fishing in the Eagle and Wisconsin Rivers. Eventually, Joseph Weber was forced to find work for his/our family by working in the Wisconsin/Minnesota lumber camps. As Lisa was to find out, the two traditions of fishing and lumberjacks were huge influences on northern Wisconsin, from the historically fascinating to the kitschy decorating of restaurants and pubs (i.e. paintings on saws and canoe paddles of moose, ducks, and especially fish). I had traveled to the San Juan Islands with Lisa and her family to experience her childhood retreat that was so impressionable on her, and now she was going to experience where my family and I were linked together, in Eagle River, Wisconsin. I was also planning on properly initiating her by the ol' welcome "push in the river" gesture.

Our Eagle River home.

View of the Wisconsin River from our tent on my grandma's property.

Our 1950's vintage low cruising sweet rides, previously owned by mom and uncle.

A painting of a lumber mill by a turn of the century mill worker - taken from the Eagle River Historical Society.

Family history aside, here's Lisa to tell you what we actually did during our week in the North Woods: We camped on a soft bed of pine needles on the far point of Martha's property, frequented by eagles with a fine view of the Wisconsin River that reflected a variety of moods on a daily basis. At night we dined on delicious walleye tackled out of the river by Mike's mom, a 28 inch long beauty, expertly and delicately cooked in a light batter that fed four people two nights in a row! The dessert was blueberry pie (actually three of them over a week!), with berries picked in Martha's backyard by Aunt Cathy and cooked by Mary Ellen. The conversation flowed over a particularly delicious Wisconsin brew, Fat Squirrel, made by the New Glarus brewery, and I enjoyed hearing about the history of the area from Martha and stories about when she was young. Kayaking was our sport of choice and we meandered down Rice Crick (covered in wild rice) and Mud Crick, tributaries of the Wisconsin River. We also traveled North to the U.P. to the Sylvania Wilderness to kayak the remote Helen Lake that was occupied only by a family of otters (I've never seen one in the wild!) that we were lucky enough to watch nab fish and eat them in front of us, barking at us and playing all the while. We also caught a glimpse of a HUGE beaver and a pair of lonely loons that watched us with their red eyes. SWEEEET TRIPPP!!! Ohh yeah - we also saw a flower that was on my 'bucket list' of flowers to see before I 'kick the bucket' = Indian Pipe, a plant that lives off a parasitic fungus that in-turn lives off the roots of oaks and pine. They turn black and wither away when you pick them, so best to leave them for others to wonder at...

Kayaking the Wisconsin River in front of my grandma's house.

Lisa, Paul and Babe in Sayner, Wisconsin, getting ready to spend a day of logging up in the U.P.

Evening on Rice Crick.

My destiny complete, I catch an 18 inch walleye and enter the final realm of manhood.

Lisa's trophy kill (he didn't really die).

An eastern painted turtle sunning on a bull-lily pad.

In the woods of my grandma's property.

Where the Indian Pipe roam, next to our cabin.

Summer in the Sound

2009-07-26T17:10:00.000-07:00

The adventure continued on Lopez Island after the Appalachian Trail this summer as mentioned in the last post. Some of the pictures we took in Lopez were too good not to share in our adventure blog.

Flying to Seattle with Mount Rainier in the distance.

From the mainland, you can take a 45 minute ferry from Anacortes to Lopez Island. Mike painted some cool interior light studies on the ride and we taught baby Henry to fly just in case Peter Pan decides to borrow him for the evening.

Loading onto the ferry to Lopez Island.

Everyone was impressed when Steve Simmons managed to catch a young manta ray with his bare hands from the top-deck of the ferry. Here he is swimming.

Inside Lisa's grandfather's house - I mean inside the ferry.

Lopez is the most rural of all the San Juan Islands, covering over 35 square miles and it has a population of around 2,200 who are all closer to heaven. There are many gorgeous farms and a stellar farmers market but also plenty of artist, musicians and general bohemian types.

Lopez is also known as the friendliest of all the San Juan's. You can always tell a native by the classic two finger wave that I learned from my grandpa.

Lopez has plenty of public beaches. We visited Shark Reef and observed the land lubbing seals. Mike and his buddy Tom shimmied down some rock-sides and heard barnacles hissing ancient truths while the kelp forests swayed in the current breezes.

Stay tuned for the next posting which will be from Eagle River, Wisconsin, Mike's family retreat!
Ahoy maytees!

Our heroes, remaining mild-mannered under the guise of unemployment, enjoy the Northwestern weather.

At the base of Lisa's grandfather's property looking out over the sound.

Several amazing starfish were hanging out among the rocks at low tide, when one said to another,"Hey buddy, you ever think that maybe the tide won't come back this time?" to which the other starfish exclaimed, "AHHH! A talking starfish!?!?"

Moments later, we gaped, gasped and stared as Lisa's sister, Laura, was swallowed by an orca trying to retrieve some souvenir bull-kelp (see below).

Bull-Kelp.

Pictured: One-third of the official three-time state winning Maryland yelling champions. (Mike,Tom, and Waldo).

Our mystery lunch-guest is revealed! Mr. Mistoffelees emerges from a quiet life of retirement on Lopez Island to offer dining suggestions to Tom.

The Oregon Junco, aka the Ol' Northwest-Salty-Grizzled-Mariner Bird

The end is just the beginning

2009-07-11T13:20:00.000-07:00

The fact that I'm writing this with a beagle's head in my lap, watching Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets in Harrisburg, PA will probably lend you the hint that I am no longer on the AT. Mike, now bereft of his ticket to Valhalla (beard) is sitting next to me so that will lead you to believe that he isn't hiking up steep inclines, wiping away spiderwebs in Nike running shorts while itching mosquito bites either. But, of course, we both wish we still were tickling the backbone of the Appalachians with our worn out hiking shoes... I shall now begin the tale of the end of our hike, starting where I left off last time.

After Bears Den, we trekked through the eroded vestiges of once awesomely tall mountains and were rewarded with views quite different from the sister mountains that we already visited further south.

The valley's of Virginia spread out before us and the farmlands divided up by fences, rivers and roads like a giant jigsaw puzzle of greens, yellows and browns depending on the growth season of the crop being planted.

Battlefields such as Antietam were visible from rocky outcrops that went by names such as Weverton Cliffs, Annapolis Rocks and Raven's Cliffs. During the evening hours the shelters were more crowded than the South, evidence of higher population densities in the area and easier, more gentle hiking terrain.

Please enjoy this interesting picture above of a beetle on a tree fungus. We were lucky to see some of the first lightning bugs - also reminding us that their namesake was threatening constantly from the skies. Indeed Mike and I had to run, sometimes miles, to get to a shelter in order to escape the earth shaking thunder and viscious lightning storms that were going to stick around for good. These storms were the reason we decided, after a few days into the Shenandoah, to retreat back to dry roofs in order to plan our future life-paths. In typical Appalachian style, during the last downpour-day we waded through in Shenandoah, we were rewarded with the sight of a brilliant-red Northern Red Salamander, a beautiful and elusive creature that was glowing like a jewel in our path. The guy had come out because of the rain and would likely not be seen in other weather conditions. If we hadn't sweated and cursed our way through the storm, we wouldn't have had the supreme pleasure of seeing the salamander.

It was with wet tent, shoes, and well, everything that we piled into a taxi-van that took us to a small town in Virginia from which we then took an AMTRAK train back to Maryland. After Maryland (Mikes abode), we drove to PA from which we left for Lopez Island, WA for the Simmons family reunion, plenty of bald eagle sightings, motor bike rides around San Juan (the largest of the San Juan islands), a salmon bake and hippy parade, lavender fields, and of course, a 12 mile walk around the island to remind us that we still had our hiking feet! This trip also included a dance contest involving the Simmons' family girls. My mom and aunt Marianna won with their rendition of 'The Jerk', a painful looking giration that was apparently popular in the 70s. Because of this, I have decided that given the opportunity of time travel, I will NOT visit the 70s. Now we're back and in Harrisburg watching Mike sister Ann's two adorable dogs Simon and Oliver for the weekend. On Monday I'll be headed out to Stroudsburg, PA to work as an apprentice on the Josie Porter Farm, a biodynamic farm that hosts the 80-member Cherry Valley CSA for the summer/autumn growing season and harvest. Interestingly, the AT runs through the farm's property! Mike will be working on a host of commissions for patrons across the US and completing grad school applications and possibly applying to some artist residencies. So, we'll be apart for a time now, but hopefully we'll be able to reunite and join forces once again, after I've got a season of farm work in me and Mike has a new body of work to unveil to the universe.

The Original Appalachian Gang

Lisa and Mike - signing off for now...more adventures to come!

454.5 and counting!

2009-06-11T16:55:00.000-07:00

It is with a belly full of Ben and Jerry's Mint-Cookie icecream, half a large supreme pizza, some lemonade, Sprite and a few chunks of beef jerky that I write you this blog entry. This conglomeration of food may seem repulsive to some, but to the hiker it is a fat/calorie packed, uncomfortably delightful mixture that will fuel our drained energy reserves and prepare us for 16+ mile-days of hiking where we will burn an average of 4-5,000 calories - 2x a normal day. And, because I'm eating like this, it will also clue you in to the fact that Mike and I are back on the trail - 'SoBo' - or southbound in AT terminology. Mike's parents dropped us off in Blue Ridge Summit, PA five days ago (thanks again for the ride, delicious apples and even more delicious dinners Mary Ellen and Dick!). We can now check off Georgia, NC/TN, Maryland and West Virginia off our lists.

We're now in Virginia, Bear's Den Rocks Hostel to be exact. This place is very cool, built right out of the surrounding rocks and originally run as a summer home for wealthy folks who paid high dollar to stay here and take in the view of the Virginia countryside while hanging out in the petting zoo on site and listening to the wife of the owner sing Wagner operas (apparently she did this while hiking, too - probably would scare away all the wildlife - I wouldn't hike with the lady). Now it's run by a young couple (thru-hikers 2x) and their little girl (Hikling) who runs around laughing and playing while we talk, eat, shower and eat more.

Harpers Ferry was a great history lesson for us nerdy lore buffs. We learned all about John Brown and how the Civil War 'began' in this little town that sits above the intersection of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers - it's a hell of a climb out of it though - especially in a hail storm (ouch).

Thomas Jefferson said of the view from his favorite rock adjacent to Harpers Ferry that, "The passage of the Patowmac through the Blue Ridge is perhaps one of the most stupendous scenes in Nature. You stand on a very high point of land. On your right comes up the Shenandoah, having ranged along the foot of the mountain a hundred miles to seek a vent. On your left approaches the Patowmac in quest of a passage also. In the moment of their junction they rush together against the mountain, rend it asunder and pass off to the sea. The first glance of this scene hurries our senses into the opinion that this earth has been created in time, that the mountains were formed first, that the rivers began to flow afterwards, that in this place particularly they have been so dammed up by the Blue Ridge of mountains as to have formed an ocean which filled the whole valley; that, continuing to rise, they have at last broken over at this spot and have torn the mountain down from its summit to its base. The piles of rock on each hand, but particularly on the Shenandoah, the evident marks of their disruptions and avulsions from their beds by the most powerful agents in nature, corroborate the impression."

I think the view of the pizza for dinner was better, but... Mike and I also got our pictures taken at the Appalachian Trail Conference Headquarters (the mothership of the AT) as 'eventual thru-hikers' and Mike talked with the folks working there about the artwork he's been creating of the wonders we've seen along 'the trail' - good networking :)

So, now Mike has more paintings and drawings in his sketchbook and I have more pictures of wildflowers (all of which I will be reading about tonight - medicinal uses and biology) and handstands on rocks. We have all that and the incredible gift of being able to put our feet on the sublime (and soggy) gardens of the earth for three more weeks.

Special shout-out to my dad. Can't wait to hang out with you on Lopez and thanks for driving up to see Mike and I after work - it meant alot and it was so good to see you. Thanks also for the support (on the trail and in 'real life'). Soak up some sun for me in Puerto Rico. Laura - so glad you're coming to Lopez!

Mary Ellen and Anne - Buon viaggio and enjoy your awesome trip to Italia!

Shenandoah here we come!!!

Lisa signing out

AT Fire Towers

2009-06-06T15:31:00.001-07:00

Here are some views from fire towers along the AT, once used for (you guessed it) look outs for forest fires and beat poets. Because Kerouac and Ginsberg no longer walk the earth and because of airplanes, the fire towers are no longer used, but lucky hikers can still climb up their rickety metal stairs and gaze out at the heart stopping views.

Flip Flop, Sort Of

2009-06-06T14:51:00.000-07:00

Like many explorers and adventurers, Mike and I have decided to alter our course in order to accommodate an illness, the Appalachian God of Rain (*I shall not name him for fear of his wrath), and a dwindling monetary situation. I will first let Mike, the unhappy receiver of a happy colony of bacteria, describe the situation from his own skinny perspective:

"Twenty pounds lighter and later, my curse lifted, and finally some sunshine - my body had to leave the trail and now will return. Of the former, I somehow managed to consume contaminated water, likely in town where we weren't purifying our sources, and became ill in the mountains after walking up Unaka Mountain in hypothermic conditions. We managed to conclude the night in a warm tent, but I became afflicted with violent fevers. We walked eight miles the following morning with my fever worsening and vertigo setting in. We boarded in at the Mountain Harbor Hostel in Tennessee where for three days I sweated out the fever. Then, the bug unexpectedly shifted to my gut, and I became preoccupied with getting to know my insides for days. Test results are still awaiting a name for this beast (or possibly THE BEAST?), but after a week without appetite or sleep (from my busy meetings), and not knowing whether or not a relapse of the bug would occur, we had to leave the trail, having walked 400 miles of the Southern Appalachians to Virginia's back door.

BUT.......Now - having eaten lots of food, regaining my sleep and strength, we are heading back out, though not where we left our journey. The new goal is to meet our departure point, beginning by walking Maryland, West Virginia, and on south through Virginia's Shenandoah National Forest. Yes, dear friends, we will be a-walking, walking with a ferocity that can only be found in the hearts of scalywags, thieves, storytelling murder-creeping pirates, and..... hikers. Because now, and I will enjoy writing this with a smirk, it is personal."

Sums it up nicely I think - thank you Mr. Marks. Now we gain the perspective of the "south-bounder" and we can check off two of the most beautiful National Parks the south eastern US has to offer. This flip-flop was unexpected but necessary and we will be back on the trail tomorrow morning. I'm excited to learn more from the earth and to emphasize this point I will leave you with a quote from the Tao of Pooh by Benjamin Hoff, a book I read while Mike was languishing in the hostel watching shoot em' up movies between bathroom breaks:

"Lots of people talk to animals," said Pooh.
"Maybe, but..."
"Not very many LISTEN, though," he said.
"That's the problem," he added."

Now, back to listening and it's time for you guys to do some looking - HERE YA GO!

Sunset after the rain on the Nolichucky River.

The tree of knowledge.

Mike passed out and sick as a dog at Iron Mountain Gap before a shuttle picked us up.

Big Bald - aka gateway to Scotland.

Soft and beautiful evening light after the rain.

Mountain Laurel gracing the trail before the descent into Erwin, TN.

PICTS UP!

2009-06-05T16:15:00.000-07:00

We've got pictures up now. I've updated past entries with pictures (see the Smokies and the 'Things that crawl...' entries) and added some new ones. The new title image is from Max Patch.

Max Patch: Bald and Beautiful

2009-06-05T15:30:00.000-07:00

Some pictures from Max Patch, a bald that spans the NC/TN border along the AT and gives the lucky traveller a 360 degree view of all the mountains in the universe (at least it seems like it). The pictures pretty much say it all. The mountain is a naturally occurring bald, scientifically unexplainable for the absence of trees - today it is kept clear of trees by mechanical mowing, however. We heard Bob White Quail and Banjo Music up here. During sunset and sunrise no one spoke because the experience took the words out of our mouths. We spent the night up here, enduring 40 mph winds and temperatures in the mid-30's. OF COURSE it was worth it!

An ode to William Bartram

2009-05-28T12:23:00.000-07:00

William Bartram (1739-1823) is considered by many to be America's first naturalist. His illustrious portrait, painted by Charles Wilson Peale, hangs in the portrait gallery in Philadelphia down the street from the Liberty Bell. Interestigly, his father was a good friend of Benjamin Franklin and Bartram even named a plant species after him that is now extinct in the wild.

Bartram travelled along a similar path that Mike and I are following, collecting plant specimines. We noticed a side trail with a yellow blaze along Wayah Bald in NC and promised ourselves that we would look into the meaning of it (any blaze other than white catches our attention b/c that's all we've seen for over 300 miles). Turns out we saw part of the Bartram Trail that extends 90 miles of the total 2000 Bartram travelled through the southern US in search of botanical specimines and Seminoles and Cherokee, many of whom he befriended. The Alachua Seminole Chief, Cowkeeper, named Bartram Puc Puggy "Flower Hunter" - sounds like Bartram and I have something in common. Bartram's poetic writings sum up the landscape better than I could. Here is an excerpt from his Travels that describes the view from Wayah Bald that Mike and I also beheld. Wayah means "the place of the wolf" in CHerokee:

"It was now after noon; I approached a charming vale, amidst sublimely high forests, awful shades! Darkness gathers around, far distant thunder rolls over the trembling hills; the black clouds with august majesty and power, moves slowly forwards, shading regions of towering hills, and threatening all the destructions of a thunderstorm; all around is now still as death, not a whisper is heard, but a total inactivity and silence seems to pervade the earth; the birds afraid to utter a chirrup, and in low tremulous voices take leave of each other, seeking covert and safety; every insect is silenced, and nothing heard but the roaring of the approaching hurricane; the mighty cloud now expands its sable wings, extending from North to South, and is driven irresistibly on by the tumultuous winds, spreading his livid wings around the gloomy concave, armed with terrors of thunder and fiery shafts of lightning; now the lofty forests bend low beneath its fury, their limbs and wavy boughs are tossed about and catch hold of each other; the mountains tremble and seem to reel about, and the ancient hills to be shaken to their foundations: the furious storm sweeps along, smoaking through the vale and over the resounding hills; the face of the earth is obscured by the deluge descending from the firmament, and I am deafened by the din of thunder; the tempestuous scene damps my spirits, and my horse sinks under me at the tremendous peals, as I hasten for the plain.

I began to ascend the Jore Joara (Nantahala now) Mountains, which I at length accomplished, and rested on the most elevated peak; from whence I beheld with rapture and astonishment, a sublimely awful scene of power and magnificence, a world of mountains piled upon mountains. Having contemplated this amazing prospect of grandeur, I descended the pinnacles..."

Unfortunately, Mike and I didn't get to see exactly that view because (according to the Park Service) 70% is obscured by a haze caused by air pollution, Bartram would have been able to see the Smokies but we couldn't even see to the Cheoahs, ten miles away. The great and massive tree giants that Bartram saw will also never be seen by Mike and I - the size of the trees (mostly re-growth from clear cutting) pale in comparison to the old growth forests of Bartrams day. This is an incredible thing to contemplate judging from the size of some of the tulip poplars we've seen.

Lewis and Clark brought along Bartram's Travels to consult during their explorations and I think that I'll buy a copy when I get back into the civilized world I have had the pleasure of escaping for a few months.

Thanks to the folks!

2009-05-28T08:45:00.001-07:00

Just a quick note to thank Mike's mom and dad, Mary Ellen and Dick for all they have done for Mike and I this past month. They've shipped us a new mansion tent - unfortunately, Mike's one person tent (although fabulous in it's own right) didn't do the trick. Oh my lands the new mansion tent is fabulous - I go to sleep with a smile every night and Mike can even play his dulcimer in it and draw in his sketchbook as the sun goes down... Also kindly mailed was my old backpack because the new super duper 8000 mega-flex-tron that was supposed to be better busted at the seams and gave me back spasms. Needless to say, the new pack and tent are doing wonders for moral and overal wellness :)

And my own mamma - the new shoes have enabled my toenail blisters to heal and dry incredibly quickly, which is good because this part of the country has gotten more rain in the past month than the past three years combined. I love them!! The bone spur and inflamed bursa (no, it's not a parasitic attachment that sprouted from a tree stump and attached itself to my leg, but it kinda looks like it) have started healing (albeit very slowly - 15 miles a day doesn't do wonders for my stick legs and feet).

Thanks to both of these wonderful women for the delicous and healthy foods they've been shipping to us in our important mail drops. They keep us going every day and we love you for it!!!!!!!!!! Keep them cookies comin'!

Love you guys,
Lisa and Mike

Things that stalk in the night and things that flit in the light

2009-05-28T07:25:00.000-07:00

And now, dear readers, now that we've finally arrived at Uncle Johnny's Nolichucky Hostel in Erwin, TN after hiking 338 miles (wahhhoie!), it is time for an accounting of the slimy, hairy and feathered things, beloved of Banjo (formerly known as Cougar) and I. Salamanders are an indicator species, meaning, when ecosystems are deteriorating they are the first to suffer, giving you an idea of the overall health of a forest. The amount of salamanders we've seen has boggled my mind and I wouldn't have noticed half of them if it hadn't been for Mike who has eyes specially engineered for glimpsing the little wigglers in forest streams and springs that flow liberally out of the mountainsides. The slimers even stalk around our tent at night slurping up delicious worms and bugs. They come in the most amazing array of spots, stripes and colors and they have huge bulging eyes and long dragging tails. We take pictures of the creatures we see, if possible, and later ID them with a pocker-guide of reptiles and amphibians of the southern Appalachians. Mike is well versed in the bird-business, but also carries a small field guide to help him with identification.

Here is a species list from Mike:

Birds: The southern highlands hold and receive a diverse array of bird species, sometimes familiar and sometimes unique to the higher elevations of the east. One such group, as I've been finding out, are the Warblers - a family of small song birds who migrate from Central and South America to the United States and Canada, and are found only in the New World. Warblers that we have sighted:

Yellow Rumped Warbler, Hooded Warbler, Yellow Breasted Chat, Chestnut-Sided Warbler, Black and White Warbler, Black-Throated Blue Warbler, Black-Throated Green Warbler

Other bird sightings, from Northern Georgia to Erwin, Tennessee:
Pileated Woodpecker, Red-Bellied Woodpecker, Red-Tailed Hawk, Sharp-Shinned Hawk, Turkey Vulture, Wild Turkey, Ruffed Grouse, Dark-Eyed Junco (known as Snowbirds down here), Blue Jay, Eastern Peewee, Rufuous-Sided Towhee (also known as the Eastern Towhee), White-Breasted Nuthatch, Solitary Vireo, Carolina and Black-Capped Chickadee, Golden-Crowned Kinglet, Scarlet Tanager, Barred Owl, Great Horned Owl (heard only), Eastern Bluebird (only one), Brown Thrasher, Ruby-Throated Hummingbird, Gray Catbird, Northern Mockingbird, Blue Gray Gnatcatcher, Common Bobwhite (heard only), Mourning Dove, American Robin, Northern Cardinal, Belted Kingfisher, Barn Swallow, Bank Swallow, Tree Swallow, American Crow, Common Raven, Common Grackle, Rose-Breasted Grosbeak, Indigo Bunting, American Goldfinch

Salamanders sighted:

Southern Appalachian Salamander

Red-Spotted Newt (immature or Eft phase - an incredibly bright and beautiful guy who the field guide describes as "incredibly bold" - they aren't afraid of nothin!)

Shovel-Nosed Salamander

Santeetlah Dusky Salamander

Blue Ridge Two-Lined Salamander, Spotted Dusky Salamander, Seepage Salamander, Northern Slimy Salamander, Southern Gray-Cheeked Salamander (maybe - not positive on the ID), Blue Ridge Spring Salamander

Snakes sighted (and caught! - by Mike) :

Northern Watersnake

Eastern Garter Snake, Northern Ringneck Snake

Frogs/Toads:

Eastern American Toad (one so huge the earth shook as it hopped)

Fowler's Toad, Eastern Cricket Frog (heard only), Cope's Gray Treefrog (heard only)

Others: Common Five Lined Skink, Eastern Fence Lizard, Broad Headed Skink

Giant Millipede

Furry Beasts: Bears, feral hog, squirrels galore, smelly hikers, chipmunks, deer, fox (heard only -an inhuman wailing). And, of course the mice. We've seen the deer and harvest mouse (both native species). The house mouse (an Asian import) has flourished in the region and has more than flourished in the AT shelters, this is the species that visits our food bags and chews holes in our socks.

One day, a fellow hiker who we shared a shelter with woke up to find his backpack stuffed about 1/4 full of acorns - a squirrel had apparently decided his bag was a fine place to do some food accessioning for the winter. The dude woke up in the morning and yelled at all his buddies "Hey guys - who the hell stuffed all this crap in my bag?!!" All of his friends and us started laughing because no one had done it - it was the squirrel. Finally, the acorn laden hiker accepted his new food as a gift from the forest.

The Smokies gave us EVERYTHING

2009-05-21T11:17:00.000-07:00

The awesome power of the Smoky Mountains was unleashed upon Mike and I day after day during our five night, six day trek across the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Apparently, Old Man Smoky decided he would give two skinny, bedraggled hikers ALL the best and worst his mountains had to give - probably chose us becuase he was impressed with Mike's beard which has reached epic and lustrous proportions. Even the old timers in the small Appalachian towns we stop in give him nods of appreciation.

It must first be mentioned, however, before embarking on the tale of the Smokies that Warbler has been given a new name to befit the incredible strength and prowess he has shown upon this trek. His new name is COUGAR, given to him by our fellowship of Padre, Jeff (the most hilarious man on earth) and Melski. Unfortunately, I am now referred to as "Tater", short for small potato (instead of Ramps) more befitting of my small size in comparison to the mountain men I travel with. I'm sure our trail names will morph with the terrain, but as of now we're Cougar and Tater.

Before we got to GSMNP, we had to walk over Fontana Dam, the highest dam in the eastern US.

Now on to the Smokies... The great adventure is best begun with an eloquent excerpt from Mike's journal:

"Like silent brushes of a drum, the mists, the fog, the tumultuous waves of mountain wind - they are like apparitions that filter through the laurel, somewhere between the past and what lies ahead out of view. And as ghosts of man or beast, the obscured shapes that flutter behind and in the fog cry and whisper out, immeasurably, the mournful and sublime soul of the mountains."

This fog that Mike speaks of follows us, sometimes for days. It's a marker of the beginning and end of the harsh, torrential, freezing spring rains that we have endured at all times of day and at all elevations. One particular storm two days ago gave me a nasty head cold that makes hiking from sun up to sun down thousands of vertical feet most unpleasant. When the fog breaks, however, the views are so gorgeous and breataking, we stare for minutes, not talking, to take the view into our minds and souls.

The fog is most dream-like when the bleached bones of the conifers peer out against the gray, thick fog that is sometimes so dense, you can't see but a few feet in front of you. A sad, but very evident death of large swaths of conifers in the Appalachians is due to the hemlock wooly adelgid, a North American intruder that rode in on timber shipped across the sea from Asia. The small insect devours the sap and fluids of the hemlock trees and leaves behind little cotton-swab looking deposits on the trees it attacks - all of the once magestic and ancient hemlock trees that we see are either dead or have the tell-tale signs of the adelgid all over them. Park rangers say it was probably introduced into the eastern US in the 1950's and the damage it's done since then is incredible; whole mountain sides lay bear of hemlocks due to this infestation. The drought that has plagued this region for the past couple years (trust me - it's not troubling anyone this year) has caused fungus to grow on the trees which makes them even more susceptible to the adelgid.

Despite the wars that this great forest must fight on all fronts every day, it is still one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen. Mike and I saw a vast array of all things green, furry, scaley, slithery and feathered. We also saw (dad - close mom's eyes for this) five black bears. Three up close and personal from the confines of Russel Field Shelter that was gated in order to protect the inhabitants from the bears. When dinner was being made by the six or so people who were staying there a large mother bear and her two older cubs came ambling out of the woods to sit down and share our meal. They slowly circled the group and all the humans immediately put down their food. Did we run? OH NOOOooo. We immediately picked up our cameras and snapped as many photos as possible which didn't discourage the bears in the least. They kept approaching and one even bluff-charged Mike, who bravely stood his ground and was the only member of the group to do what is supposed to be done in such circumstances - he yelled and threw rocks to shoo the bears away. Unfortunately, this group of bears had been doing this for quite some time - this would be their last. A ranger and an intern (a 21 year old girl who was about 4 feet tall and weighed about 80 pounds - not the type you'd expect to handle bears) spent the night in the shelter with us. Their goal was to tranquilize the bear from the shelter while the bear was wandering around the perimiter so that she would associate the negative experience with the shelter in-particular. The bear would then be re-located in an attempt to stop her from coming to parties she wasn't invited to. The cubs would be caught and re-located with their mother. Although the bears did pace the shelter, about 5 feet in front of us for a couple hours that evening, we didn't get to see the ranger tranquilize the bear. We did hear down the AT grapevine that he did it a few hours after we left in the morning and it was a success. Another younger male also made a visit, but wasn't considered a 'problem bear' and so was ignored by the ranger. Upon descending from Cosby Nob Shelter, the day before we left the Smokies, we saw another bear drinking from a mountain stream just off the trail - this one skeedadled up the mountain side faster than you could blink. I also think I saw the rump of a feral hog that day - actually, I'm sure of it.

Mike and I made a small detour into Gatlinburg to get sleep that we hadn't had in 3 days (as you can imagine, lack of sleep is as dangerous as lack of gear and food). This sleeplessness was due to a symphony of snores and air exchanges, passed through every human orifice possessed by old male hikers who shared the shelters with us (yes, we have since purchased ear plugs). Gatlinburg had more fast food and Ripley's Believe it or Not venues than we imagined possible. We got there by hitch-hiking from Newfound Gap, first with a nice couple who spoke only of their love of panda bears and the Biltmore Estate - they couldn't decide which they loved more, and back to the gap with a large family packed into the front of a big pick-up that was so much fun to sit in the back of and ride to the top of the mountain, wind in our hair and waterfalls around every turn. Mike sums up the Gatlinburg experience well in his journal:

"Gatlinburg represented the greasiest, most excessively novel and fried vulgarities of rural America's tourism industry, and as such, found its way into the most guilty pleasures of every southerner's artery-clogged heart. For us, there was a sense of shock and awe, but we found ourselves playing along to at least one of Gatlinsburg's offerings, the sought after treasure of travelers entering civilization - beer."

I wanted to get an apple in Gatlinburg so I asked a woman working at Subway. This is how the conversation went:

"Excuse me ma'am, where can I buy an apple in this town?"
"Darlin, you c'aint buy no apple in Gatlinburg. The nearest place is a grocery stoare 'bout seven maaailes by trolley."
"Um, there's no place in this whole town I can buy a piece of fruit?"
"Well, dang...um - LEEEROY, you know whare this here lady can buy an apple?"
Leroy - "No."
"Ok, thanks anyway ma'am."
"Well, darlin, ya mightn' try the candy store. I know they sell them candy apples, you mightn' get one not candied?"
"Oh, yeah, I'll check - thanks."

So, I was able to procure an apple at the candy store for $0.54 that had not yet been fried, candied, or goobered in any way. We decided to leave the all-you can eat buffet and country shows for our next visit. We were AT hikers and the trail was a'callin, despite our swollen feet, tired eyes and weary bones. Come to find out it was a good thing we rested the night in Gatlinburg - upon meeting up with our friends here in Hot Springs, NC (After 271 miles and our first 20-mile day - yeeeaaahh!!) they had to run full speed over a mountain summit the day we left them because of an intense lighting storm that they did NOT even laugh about for an instant - they said they all feared for their lives, threw down their poles and cowered for some time until the storm let up...

Mike and I are staying in an old Victorian home that holds many tales of Appalachian lore, myth and music (and magic). Technically, what we are staying in is a farmhouse built in 1840 that was combined with another house on the property built just a few years after the Civil War. It has gone in and out as a retreat location, eventially going in and out of ownership but eventually maintaining itself as an inn for travelers - many visiting the healthful natural hot springs in town. Once it was owned by Jane Gentry, a noted musician and folklorist from the end of the 19th century. One of the travellers that came through was the infamous British folklorist Cecil Sharpe. He was coming through the region to compile songs for a book entitled, English Ballads of the Southern Mountains. He stayed at the inn and Ms. Gentry contributed 64 songs to Sharpe's collection and was later herself recorded for the Library of Congress folk archives. The inn nods back to its musical history with a music room well equipped for travelers - Mike has taken full advantage of a banjo he's fallen in love with that sits on a velvet cushioned chair in the room. He plans on recording himself on it tonight after the vegetarian feast that will be prepared for us and our hiking friends at the inn, now known as Elmer's Sunny Bank Inn - not bad for $20 a night! Mike and I also spent some of the day helping Elmer himself re-paint the finials of the house that had been built in the 1840's while we talked about Appalachian music...we're thinking about staying and working for him for a day to get a free night's stay and learn about the history of the town - haven't decided about this yet.

Miss everyone and we're thinking about all of you all the time! Grandma - I'll be calling you in Erwin, TN, the next town we come to about 5 days from now- I've been thinking about you, especially since the sky is so often your favorite color of soft bluish grey.

LOVE
COUGAR AND TATER

Characters in the Appalachian Play

2009-05-11T18:53:00.001-07:00

ALthough me and Mike's favorite beings on this trail are not human, we have encountered many a variety of interesting hominid. Here is an accounting of our interactions with two of these hairy mammals:

Trail Name: Crawl
First Name: David

We met this man at Plum Orchard Gap shelter, GA. Mike describes him best as a 'bumbling character destined to be an AT folk icon'. The reason we know so much about him is because he didn't stop speaking (*or snoring)the whole time we were blessed with his company. I'm not sure how he manages to breathe and talk so much at the same time. At least his stories are quite interesting... Crawl is a retired truck driver and looks every bit the part. At 290 pounds, with a pack that weighs at least as much as me - full of food, even though his goal is to loose 60 pounds and walk to Maine. The only catch is, that he walks about 5 miles a day due to a 'bum leg' - he literally walks with two canes and at a hobble (think 5000 feet of wet Appalachian mountain - every day). He has three kids, one of which is getting married in June, he's 18 and his wife-to-be (17) wants 7 kids - I choked when I heard this, which is bad because i had to spit out my food and ALL food out here is more precious than gold. He recently found Jesus and quit trucking, he's been married three times and recently returned from Ukraine where he traveled for a week to go on bowling dates with brides to be. Unfortunately, as badly as those women want to leave Ukraine, and despite Crawl's awesome bowling abilities that made him the talk of the village, none of them wanted to leave badly enough to live with Crawl. Everyone we've met has run into him and remembers him best for his ear splitting snores that crack the night - due to sleep apnea. He warns everyone that strays to the shelter "I'm a snorer (chuckle), mighta wanna sleep in yer tent'. You have to give the guy props for his determination, though. Mike and I have recently decided that a constellation should be dedicated to this man - perhaps a semi truck, the headlights gleaming and glinting in the moonlight. This wish is due to the musings of us and everyone else that has met Crawl along the trail. Every night we all mention something like, "I wonder where Crawl has gotten to today???"

Trail Name: Croc
Real name: David (MIke and I call him Padre Dave)

Croc immediately jumped into step with us one day, explaining how lonely he was and how his feet had hurt so badly for the first week of his journey in GA, he wore only Crocs on the trail until he got new shoes - hence the trail name. Here is an excerpt from Mike's journal that explains the encounter:

" R A I N... again. It rolled back in with the fog a little before noon, but never escalated beyond a steady rainfall. Shortly before summiting Albert Mountain, we saw a local man with a truck full of hounds - dogs that were intended to scour the hills and frighten bears away from people-frequented sites. But this truck held something else, a man, and not just a man, but a hiker, and not just a hiking man, but a hiking minister. His name is David (Croc) and we joined paths for a brief moment before becoming separated in the mountain laurel of Albert. But it would not be the last we saw of the minister from the northeast...."

We've ended up sharing many a night in a shelter with Padre, and, of course, his newfound hiking buddy Mel who's trail name is Melski because he's a great skiier. Padre is in his 50's and Mel is in his 60's - both are in incredible shape and plow along the trail like no one's business. Padre always talks about how good a can of smoked oysters, a shot of scotch and a cigar would be at night. Most of all though, he LOVES to hear Mike play his dulcimer and always nudges me after dinner nodding at Mike's instrument, gives me a knowing look, and says "Work on him, will you - I'd love to hear his music again tonight." He has two son's - both working for noble causes and he wants Mike and I to stop by his church in Vermont (United Church of Christ) and meet his family who he obviously misses dearly. He's hiking the trail in order to get a fresh mind-set and decide whether or not to stay with the congregation he loves. Apparenty UCC ministers change churches every 7 years or so and he's been with his for much longer than that and can't decide whether it's best for his congregation for him to stay or impart his gifts upon another group of god-fearing Vermontiners (Vermontites)?. Another quest that the Padre is embarking on is MUCH more difficult... He's determined to see the Ivory Billed Woodpecker, or as it's called in Appalachian-talk, 'The Lord God Bird'. Mike says it's called so because when it was observed in flight, it's head was crowned in a red circle and the pattern of its feather pattern made a white cross from head too tail. Padre always says, anyone seen the Lord God (pause) bird today?" And, of course, we chuckle. No one's seen the ivory billed (at least confirmed sighting) for over 60 years and it's thought by most to be extinct except for a few random "maybe" sightings in Georgian swamps, but by darn it, if anyone is going to catch a glimpse it will be Padre.

More soon...Mike and I are exhausted and will wake up bright and early to traverse Great Smoky Mountain National Park... 5 nights and 6 days of a forest renowned for the greatest amount of diversity of plant and animal life in the Southern Appalachians. The parks 75th anniversary is this year - maybe some bears will share a glass of champagne with us. Some 1,500 bears live in the park, even elk are said to reside here. I'm most excited about the 1,660 species of flowering plant and Mike will be searching for mole salamanders and interesting reptiles galore. He caught an Eastern Ring Necked snake yesterday and pondered a salamander for over 20 minutes, smiling for hours after we left the little guy under a rock in a stream. Then, he painted a picture from his head of the little guy - it's a beautiful study - It's been a special treat to watch Mike paint throughout this trip...

Be in touch with y'all again soon. - Laura MISS you and been thinking bout' you today - how is the Squish/Tula??? Save some painting and weeding for me in Martha's house!

Love Lisa and Mike (Ramps and Warblers)

Over 100 miles and DRENCHED - but DETERMINED!!

2009-05-06T17:34:00.001-07:00

The one immutable force out here in the Appalachians that never evades the hiker is TIME. It lays heavy on these mountains. Eroded, carved, etched, scraped, and decomposed elements of every portion of rock, root, sky and spirit stare you in the face as you walk every day. If it's not how fast you can high-tail it to the next shelter before the skies open upon you and make your boots slosh for days, it's the geology. Unlike the pervading youth of the Rockies where the mountain spines grow straight and strong, the ancient bones of the Appalachians are bent and burdened with age. The mountains here are playful and light at times with bird song and the play of light amidst the mountain laurel, but in an instant they pour out huge, angry bursts of rain and wind. Mike and I have been at the mercy of these grandmother mountains, the oldest moutain chain in the world (maybe the Urals are a tie), for the past four days. Holed up in a one man tent, shaking too and fro like a ship on the ocean, we have weathered torrents of moutain storms that don't promise to let up for weeks. A hell for us (not to mention an inseperable part of the quest!), but a heaven for those who call these mountains their home. An unforgiving drought has been plaguing the southern Appalachains for three years and the rain has been bringing smiles to the faces of the town folk (although the bedraggled hikers have a different face to show). Life is coming back to these hills in the form of bright green sprouts, Spring, wildflowers in every color and crops that are doing better than they have in years, not to mention the reservoirs that are filling back up from dangerously low levels. All that AND all the hidden creatures of the undergrowth and detritous that creep up to the surface during times of drenching. Think salamanders galore (much to Mikes happiness), snails crawling on every rock, millipedes the size of your hand, jack-in-the-pulpit coming out to preach and the very wet, sometimes frustrated, sometimes smiling faces of Mike and Lisa peering into the fairy mists that follow the life-giving, Spring calling, hiker wearying rains.

I'm writing this from the little 'hiker-hotel' Ron Haven's Budget Hotel in Franlin, NC. We visited a Civil War Museum today (after ICE CREAM - raspberry cobbler flavored) that advertised reinactments of Southern Surrender due to the War of Northern Aggression. The museum started with the Cherokee people's habitation of the area with LOTS of collected arrow heads - in fact the site of Franklin was the ancestral capital of the Cherokee people. The Nantahala State Forest, where Mike and I will be hiking (5,000 feet above sea level), means "the land of the afternoon sun" in Cherokee because it takes until noon for the sun's rays to penetrate the deep forest floor and extend to the mountain streams that feed and nourish the valleys of the Nantahala. The valley's have recently been layed seige to by hordes of feral hogs - groups of which have spread from domesticated hogs raised by yeoman farmers when they came to settle Appalachia from places like Scotland (we visited a Scottish Tartan Museum today - NO McGraths - we looked Maura - butt it's Irish then in'it Lassie?) and England. The hogs are HUGE and are regularly killed by bowmen for sport - there are postings on trail heads that advise hikers to wear orange b/c hunting is allowed in all wilderness areas along the trail. The evidence of the hogs is VERY obvious - whole swaths of forest floor are dug up, ripped, and uprooted by little snout and hoof prints. This is even more obvious in the clear cut areas where the forest has re-grown but only with one type of tree (poplar seems to do well in clear cut conditions) that grows but all others are conspicuously absent or filled with cankers and cancers that are obvious signs of forest sickness even to the non-biologist.

North Carolina's forests have been noticably healthier than Georgia's (although there is a reverse correlation with their shelters - yech). The following is a list of all the flowers that I've seen, common and Latin name included. Mike's awesome and talented friend Charlie will soon recieve a CD of all the pictures we've taken so he can use his photo-skills to post them to this blog - picts should be evident in a week or so (THANKS CHARLIE!!). For those who are pseudo-plant freaks like me, just google the name and you'll see a pic of the beauts that Mike and I have - or just wait for the picts (none of the computers we've been on so far have let us download images...). PS - Sue - in a 'Gem and Mineral Museum' there was a whole back room with a case of pre-Columbian artifacts - one Wari piece (not display worthy but I thought of you looking at your whipped frosting deserts of Peru).

Appalachian Flowers - the complete list (so far and in no particular order of incredibleness):

1. Toadshade (Trillium sessile) - Lily Family
2. Turkeybeard (Xerophyllum asphodeloides) - Lily Family
3. Squaw Root (Conopholis americana) - Broomrape Family
4. Large-Flowered Trillium (Trillium grandiflorum) - Lily Family
5. Flame Azalea (Rhododendron calendulaceum) - Heath Family
6. Cutleaf Toothwort (Cardemine concatenata) - Mustard Family
7. Crested Dwarf Iris (Iris cristata) - Iris Family
8. Common Blue Violet (Viola sororia) - Violet Family
9. Bluets (Houstonia caerulea) - Madder Family
10. Star Chickweed (Stellaria pubera) - Carnation Family
11. May Apple (Podophyllum peltatum) - Barberry Family
12. Catesby's Trillium (Trillium catesbaei) - Lily Family
13. Nodding Trillium (Trillium cernum) - Lily Family
14. Common Strawberry (Fragaria virginiana) - Rose Family
15. Daisy Fleabane (Erigeron annus) - Aster Family
16. Mountain Laurel (Kalmia latifolia) - Heath Family
17. Hobblebush/Moosewood (Viburnum lantanoides) - Honeysuckle Family
18. Pink Lady's Slipper/Pink Moccasin Flower - biggest Orchid in N/A - yeah! (Cypripedium acaule) - Orchid Family
19. Plantainleaf Pussytoes (Antennaria plantaginifolia) - Aster Family
20. Golden Ragwort (Senecio aureus) - Aster Family
21. Trout Lily/Dogtooth Violet (Erythronium americanum) - Lily Family
22. Smooth Solomon's Seal (Plygonatum biflorum) - Lily Family
23. Painted Trillum (Trillum undulatum) - Lily Family
24. Dwarf Ginseng (Panax trifolius) - Birthwort Family
25. Jack-in-the Pulpit/Indian Turnip (Arisaema triphyllum) - Arum Family

Birds coming soon.... PS - most of the flowers are edible in some sense (mom - don't worry, i'm not doing the eating).

Also, Mike has recently been given a trail name, so decided by a special congregation of Appalachian gods, called for the grand purpose... his NAME is WARBLER!! Perfect, I'd say. He's always looking up for the myriad colorful feathers that flit around us and I'm always looking down for a unique flower or, of course as my trail name implies, RAMPS. RAMPS and WARBLERS it is from now on! Mike likes to call it a spin off of the Nintendo game Wizards and Warriors.

List of unusual and interesting people to come too - soooo many - will take another hour to compile and once more - another person needs to use this technology besides me.

Goodbye and wish us sun!!

Love,
lisa

Over 50 miles and still counting!!

2009-04-29T12:17:00.000-07:00

HIIIII EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mike and I are sitting in the little tiny Hiawassee, Georgia library in the children's section, updating our blog so you can see what we have seen on our quest for Pennsylvania.

We made it to River Forks Campgrounds on April 24th. It was an interesting place. The Army Corps of Engineers flooded a huge valley in Gainesville to create a water reservoir - the campsite was overlooking the man made lake. After talking with Mr. Suites, the ranger/caretaker and his wife, we discovered that the ACE flooded the valley with churches, farmsteads and even a race track which are now all under water. A man (extremely racist) we met told us that his "diddy" - southern talk for "daddy" used to row food out to the ACE workers when he was young and he tells stories of church steeples sticking out of the lake. The beaches are also dark red and look something like you would imagine from mars. Apparently, Congress just approved a project that will pump (according to Mr. Suites - this sounded incredible to Mike and I) billions of gallons of water a day to Florida and Atlanta. Why? To use for the fish and muscle farms in Florida and for drinking water for the city of Atlanta. They don't have a stopping point either, so the lake will be pumped until it's dry. The floating docks were already grounded when we were there. The dogwoods were incredibly beautiful though and we got a taxi to ship us to Springer early in the morning.

Day 1: 17 miles Springer to "Devil's Kitchen" campground that runs through Justus Creek

Mike and I could spend hours making up stories to go along with those names. We were astonished that we were capable of so many miles, but also decided that we would NOT repeat so long a distance. If you are travelling so quickly and determinedly that you don't have time to appreciate everythind the forest has to offer, then it isn't worth it. We met the only through hiker we've seen so far during the whole trip. Graig (Poseidon), an ex-Navy dude, older 30's. He had a very kind face and heart to match.

Day 2: 13 miles from Devils Kitchen to Woods Hole Shelter

Whew! The blisters on my feet are so huge and gross even Frankenstein would puke. My thighs are giving out and I have a sunburn - but my oh my, the Chatahoochie National Forest is heaven on earth and we get to walk the expanse of it to take in every Mountain Laurel, violet, trillium, False Helioborus, iris, warbler, vireo, hawk, owl, turkey, bear and poplar the forest has to offer. We've already started talking about what we can mail home from our packs. I brought too many t-shirts. It's easier and efficient to pack two, wear one and wash another in a mountain stream (with vegetable-based soap, of course - Dr. Bronner's has turned out to be indespensable) then let it dry off your pack while you walk. Weather has been high of 80 and low of 50 at night. It's incredible to hear the breeze at night when you are camping high in the mountains. The howl starts low in the valley then works its way slowly up the mountains until it streams over the tent in a gush.

Day 3: 10 miles Woods Hole Shelter to Whitley Gap Shepter

Climbed Blood Mountain today - highest peak in Georgia at 4,470 feet. Met some 19-20 year old guys who were hilarious and made comments about which mountain peak might be Mordor in the distance. I swear you can see to the Gray Havens anyhow - Middle Earth talk. Mike painted some beautiful watercolors on top and I did handstands for the yoga gods on tall rocks. Mike was able to record some warblers. There seem to be so many species of them and they are all so small and beautiful with trilling songs that last all day - we are surrounded by a symphony of forest sounds all day and night. It's the night sounds that we have to get used to. Although we haven't seen any bears (and neither had anyone else we've talked to), bear warnings were in effect for a 6 mile portion of our walk today through which no camping was allowed. It's easy to see why though, especially near gaps (where a road - either forest service road or highway cuts through the trail) trash is prevalent. It baffles me how anyone could throw their Cheeto bag away in heaven... Mike and I spent this night wide awake and shaking in our tents. Forest night noises take a lot of time to get used to and animals ALWAYS come by the tent to sniff - they have every night. Sometimes you can tell they are big, sometimes it's just little mice. The shelters are infested with them - they crawl all over you. Normally I would think this was fun but if you are desperately trying to fall asleep, it's hard to do it with mice sniffing around your hair. Mike and I will opt for the tent, thank you very much. We also had a Barred Owl visit us this night (Tehnyat - weird coincidence - they've been following us, I think!). Their wings are designed for soundless flight but it was flying so low around our tent that we could hear the leaves whoosh up under the huge wings that were flapping just inches above the ground so it's talons could scoop up mice - it sounded so strange and incredible to hear, all night, the flight of an owl above and around your head mixed with the valley winds and creaking of the trees...

Day 4: 12 miles Whitley Gap Shelter to Blue Mountain Shelter

We have basically run out of food. I've never been so hungry, tired, and sore but seeing how my muscles are growing, lungs are getting stronger, determination is becoming more hardened and my fear of the unknown is evaporating. I know they are called Power Bars, but I've never experienced their true powers. After hiking 10 miles, almost all up a rocky mountain path and you have only eated a little Cream of Wheat for breakfast and some instant potatoes for lunch, I almost passed out on the trail. I became light headed and woozie so Mike stopped and handed me a Power Bar, our last, but I needed something to keep going. After I ate it (an apricot Cliff Bar) I was albe to walk another two miles, super speed, while laughing and joking and taking pictures of waterfalls. My body responds so much more quickly and efficiently to food, water, sleep and companionship on this trail than ever. We met a bunch of people tonight at the shelter: Cool Breeze (knows the guy who hiked the AT with his cat - 37 confirmed shelter-mice kills in one night), Tiger Lilly, Ink (tatoo artist), Mayday, Llama Legs (long hairy legs), and some other people without trail names. Mike gave me a trail name today: RAMPS. Ramps are the famous North American onion/leek that are celebrated in festivals throughout the Appalachians and Candada. I've been obsessed with finding them to the point of jumping on all fours and digging up the roots of leek-looking plants to sniff them to see if they taste yummy. I talk about adding them to our potatoes all the time. So far, no Ramps, but the False Helioborus tricks me every time. The onion is so popular in Canada, it's been banned to pick. Mike still doesn't have a name...it's coming though!@

Day 5: Blue Mountain Shelter to Hiawassee via Unicoi Gap

More to come - I'm getting kicked off the computer!!!

Love you all - pictures won't download here - they will come soon though!!!!!!

lisa

THANK YOU AND GOODBYE

2009-04-23T10:25:00.000-07:00

Now that you all have my blog address, I want to take this opportunity to thank and re-thank everyone, CMA co-workers, family, and others (Maura, Bridget, Maria, Craig, Brooke, Chris, etc.) who were so generous and amazingly supportive of me and Mike's endeavor to take on this huge distance of forest, hill, mountain, glade, and town via the strength of body, mind and soul. I love you all and your support has helped us more than any of you can know. Like I've said before, the real trailhead was in Cleveland, Ohio...

Much love to you all and we'll be thinking of you all every step of the way.

Lisa and Mike (trail names to come...). My dad suggested Cereal Killer for me and Mike is thinking of "The Great Aurobindo" but we'll probably go with something else...

Mail Drops

2009-04-23T09:35:00.000-07:00

Mike and I are fortunate enough to have great mom's who will send us 'mail drops' along our path so that we can be sure to have enough of the appropriate supplies to nourish our muscles to work well enough to escape from bears and bobcats.

Here is an example of a most energizing food, beloved of hikers everywhere:

The following is a list of locations that they will send the packages to, as well as daily supply of food in each and the date we anticipate picking them up (averaging a 10-15 mile a day schedule). Post offices don't accept Fed Ex or UPS, only USPS. All packages will read 'Hold for AT Hiker' and the date we expect to pick up the package. If the package contains a fuel canister, it must read 'ORM-D, Consumer Commodity' or 'Surface Mail Only' or both. Our mom's will have to mail parcels about a week and a half in advance of our arrival. They'll ship food enough for two, in its original packaging and when we get the package, we'll re-house most of the food in plastic bags to make it lighter and easier to smash into our packs. This list is considering a mid-point destination for the hike. Pending everything we'll consider hiking to Katahdin and this list will grow.

Blueberry Patch Hostel, Hiawassee, GA

7 day supply, pickup May 2

- We found out that Blueberry Patch was closing the day after we arrived in Hiawassee, so we stayed at the Hiawassee Inn and the owners of the Blueberry Patch were kind enough to drop off our package to us on the way to church

We resupply in Nantahala Outdoor Center for 7 day supply around May 9

Fontana Village Resort (we won't be staying at the resort itself, unfortunately), Fontana Dam, NC

3 day supply, pickup May 12

Here is the mail drop we picked up in Fontana Village. We spread it all out on the ground and then divide the food up into days to determine how much we need and how much we can carry. There are 'hiker boxes' at every hostel and hotel along the trail. If people have too much food they can lighten the load by putting it in the hiker box and can be assured that a hiker in need will pick it up along the way. Almost everyone experiences both situations along the trail - having too much food or too little.

Mountain Mama's Kuntry Store and Bunkhouse, Newport, TN

4 day food supply, pickup May 16

We found out that Mountain Mama's had closed, so we stayed at a nearby hostel called Standing Bear that was VERY fun. Luckily the Newport P.O. had been getting enough hiker mail to know to drop off the packages at Standing Bear that were addressed to Standing Bear.

Hotsprings, NC Post Office

9 day food supply, pickup May 19

Uncle Johnny's Nolichucky Hostel, Erwin, TN

7 day food supply, pickup May 26

Here is a link with a good list of mail drop sites and food amounts. We are not planning on living entirely off drops, so we're not sticking to a comprehensive list like this, but it's a nice way to see the possibilites:

http://www.hike-usa.com/a-mail.htm

Getting to Springer

2009-04-23T09:18:00.000-07:00

Mike and I have rented a car, Hertz economy size, to pickup in Rockville, MD today, Thursday, April 23. We will drive down to Gainesville, GA, leaving tomorrow morning around 5am in order to get there (10 hour drive) before 6pm so we don't have to pay for an extra rental day. Hertz will drop us off, free of charge, 2 miles away at at River Forks Park campground. We'll pay $15 for a site, pitch tent, play banjo and recite lines from the RYME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER, go to sleep, and then wake up bright and early to be picked up by UNITAXI, which offers services to the Springer Mtn. trailhead for $65. We hope to be on the trailhead before noon on April 25th.

Tent set up in River Forks Campground

Distance from Rockville to Gainesville: about 10 hours

Distance from Gainesville to Springer Mountain: about 1 hour

There are many other ways to get to the trailhead, including flying to Atlanta, spending the night and then taking a bus to Gainesville and then a UNITAXI to the trailhead. Or, we could drive to Dahlonega, GA, stay at a hiker hostel and get a taxi to the trailhead from there. Our way, as far as we could figure, was the cheapest and easiest.

GPS - Where in the world is...

2009-04-18T19:53:00.001-07:00

Follow this link to find us via our hand-held GPS unit:

http://share.findmespot.com/shared/gogl.jsp?glId=0xcF6fDRt1WuSEb0rJlLhVL1JVMXmuarR

We'll be checking in every morning!

The AT Conservancy

2009-04-17T06:27:00.000-07:00

The Mission of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy:

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy is a volunteer-based organization dedicated to the preservation and management of the natural, scenic, historic, and cultural resources associated with the Appalachian National Scenic Trail in order to provide primitive outdoor-recreation and educational opportunities for Trail visitors.

Their website: http://www.appalachiantrail.org/site/c.mqLTIYOwGlF/b.4805859/k.BFA3/Home.htm

Check this site for trail updates, an interactive trail map, trail history, AT merchandise, conservation updates, state by state trail details, staff blogs, ways to volunteer, job listings, etc. It was a great place for Mike and I to get started acquainting ourselves with what will be our new home for a time.

Why

2009-04-09T16:44:00.000-07:00

I was lost in an old car assembly plant that was the new home of young artists with skinny jeans. The hallways were long and there were many studio spaces decked out with everything from illustrations of vampires to clothes sewn together with trash picked out of dumpsters. Interesting stuff, but none of it was of the stock created by the particular skinny artist I was searching out. We weren't actually 'going steady' yet so I was a bit nervous to impose upon his art domain, but I was also excited. After wandering around looking for his studio without much success, I finally heard lilting banjo music emitting from a distant studio space; a dead give away. I followed the old time music and discovered a small square covered in birds, trees, boxes, books, paintbrushes, a dodo bird head sculpture, a crocodile and a Mike. Yup, this was exactly what I expected - the natural world reconstructed in an old car assembly plant. Before interrupting Mike who was busy hunched over a goauche piece, scratching his head with one hand and pulling up his tight (art-guy) pants up with the other I noticed a large poster hung up directly in front of his drawing desk. The poster was of 'The Great Eastern Trail' that stretched from Springer Mt., GA to Mt. Katahdin, ME, or vice versa whichever way you want to look at it. "Howdy", I said, startling Mike out of his meticulous drawing of a king salmon. "Hey!" Mike said, eyes lighting up, smile stretching from Georgia to Maine - mine might have been farther, maybe to Labrador. "I'm going to hike that trail someday," I said, matter of factly. "Oh man, me too." Mike said with excitement, I've already hiked parts of it, but doing the whole thing would be incredible." "We should do it someday," I said, "Together." "That would be awesome," Mike said.

That was more than two years ago. I had never stated out loud my desire to hike the AT and actually suprised myself by saying it and knowing that I meant it. It's hard for me to express the reasons for wanting to hike the trail, I always feel that when people ask "why?" I choose an answer that the person asking would most understand and I usually end up with faces showing confusion, concern, or a conspirational wink. I could start broad and spiritual and say I'm looking for an inner quiet, the stillness within that many great cultures believe is the piece of you that continues through the ages while your different bodies give way to their cycles of life. The Buddah teaches that his great mistake was believing that this quest for inner light (some say this is God which exists in all of us) was only possible as a "quest", a journey all over the world, when he could have found it within himself anywhere, even in an office cubicle. Ok, I get it, however, he only realized this AFTER he had embarked upon his own great journey, I think my own revelation has to come during or after a similar quest of my own. I know that beyond a one hour yoga class, the natural world is the only place where my mind will be able to connect with my soul and my body. I cannot see any other way I can find any twinkling of sprituality without using my body, whether it be moving through yoga poses or up and down mountains.

Then, there is the question of things dissapearing. Bobwhite quail, Elms, Oaks, Ash, Chestnuts, Wolves, species of frog and toad, even the very tops of mountains are being blasted into oblivion by mountain top removal mining. Whether these irreplaceable wonders are being collected by the gods to re-model their back yards or whether they will be forever gone is a hard guess. Either way, I'd like to see them and say I've seen them - I want to really SEE WHAT I SEE. After the emerald ash borer has mashed its ugly head into the living flesh of the last Ash tree, people will say, "You've seen one, a live Ash, not in an arboretum?" And I will solemly nod my head yes, like I do when I say I saw the resting place of Bernini in the Basilica di Santa Maria Maggiore. After all, the great buttresses and columns of ancient churches were meant to emulate the magestic trees in the old growth forests of our ancestors. I do not want to live my life knowing I only experienced the seasons through window panes or short walks to the mailbox. As Thoreau said, "Live each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each." Grow with Spring, up through the Appalachian ridgeline, through Georgia and into NC/Tennessee, sweat with Summer through Virginia and Pennsylvania and if I'm lucky, I'll change my colors with Fall up through the northlands. Re-connect. I don't have a house, a mortgage, a baby (excepting a small cat that my sister and husband are (better be) snuggling with right now). I want to spend four months out of my life simply existing and being amazed at the fact I exist and that my body works like it does and that nature works the way it does and that they are the same. I know it's not all going to be idealistic with gorgeous weather and birds alighting on my spork when I eat oatmeal in the morning. I'm in it for the downpours, the mud, the mosquitos, the lightning, the creepy dudes, the shelter-mice and the LOVE.

Of course there are MANY more reasons than that, but it will take me too long to type them...

Hopes of an Amateur Ornithologist

2009-04-07T18:21:00.000-07:00

The following is the result of an interview I conducted of a famous amateur ornitholoigst and professional boyfriend, Mr. Mike Marks. The interview resulted in the following list of birds that Mr. Marks would like to see along the trail (and two I would like to see). Various reasons for our choices are included as well as some interesting facts (thanks to Wiki and All About Birds.

1. Northern Bobwhite Quail
Lisa: Why do you want to see one of those, Mike?
Mike - Becuase they are small and plump (mike loves anything that fits that description). They are also one of the few quail species that consistently inhabit an entire region - Ohio included. I've never seen one, though. There's also some interesting conservation issues that have recently come up involving these guys. They are endangered of becoming extinct in the wild.

Interesting Facts: The bobwhite's mottled coloring serves a protective purpose. When the bird is threatened or alarmed, it often "freezes," allowing its camouflage coloring to blend into its surroundings. A stout beak and powerful claws are excellent adaptations for finding and eating seeds and fruits. Their name comes from the sound of their whistle which sounds like, "Booobbb Whhhitiittee". It is becoming increasingly popular to raise Bobwhite quail for release in hunting or conservation areas and for sale to the gourmet food market. Bobwhite quail are the most popular game birds in the southeastern United States, and some farmers raise them for sport or additional income. They are also number one on Audobon's endangered bird list.

2. Eastern Screech Owl
Mike: These birds are adorable."
Lisa: Are they loud for their small size? Do they really screetch?"
Mike: No, they whinney.
Lisa: Um. So they are whinneying, tiny, adorable owls? I see why you want to get a look at one.
Mike: Yeah. They aren't threatened but they are uncommon to see.

Interesting Facts: The Eastern Screech-Owl is found in nearly every habitat throughout the eastern United States and southern Canada. It is common in urban as well as rural areas and readily nests in nest boxes, although the little buggers are notoriously hard to spot, mostly because of their excellent camoflauge. The commonly eat 1/3 of their body weight each night, not so bad when you know they weigh an average of 4.5 ounces. The Eastern Screech-Owl is known to eat a variety of songbirds, including the European Starling. Despite this fact, the starling regularly displaces the owl from nesting sites and takes over the hole to raise its own brood.

3. Loggerhead Shrike
Lisa: Do you want to see one because they are part turtle?
Mike: Their beaks kind of look like heads, but I dunno if that's where the name comes from. I find them interesting becuase of their feeding habits. Their legs are too weak to rip at their prey so they impale it on thorns or barbed wire, stuff like that.
Lisa: COOL!

Interesting Facts: These birds regularly rip to shreds, insects, amphibians, small reptiles, small mammals, and birds. Scans for food from perches. Kills by biting prey in back of neck, cutting the spinal cord. Impales prey on thorns so that it can be torn apart. These birds were once abundant, but declined drastically through last half of 20th century. Essentially gone from northeastern part of range and they are continually declining throughout their range. The subspecies on San Clemente Island in California is listed as endangered on the federal list. We'll be lucky to see one of these guys; I hope we do!

4. Pileated Woodpecker

This is one of my choices. These birds are the biggest woodpecker species in the world and they make the funniest sounds, their call is likened to a wild laugh and their drumming is very loud, like a hammer striking a tree. Their tongues wrap all the way around the back of their skull to absorb the shock of their beak slamming into wood all day. I've only seen two - a pair flying low together over my head at Jackson Field MetroPark. I want to see more!

Interesting facts - The only birds from North America with similar plumage and size are the Ivory Billed Woodpecker who's range is the SE US and Cuba (now thought to be extinct), and the Imperial Woodpecker of Mexico (extremely endangered). They are known in the south as an Indian Hen.

5. Golden Crowned Kinglet

Lisa: Why them?
Mike: They are hilarious little balls that fly through the air with little orange caps on. There is a permanent population in northeast Ohio, but there are gaps all around the area with no kinglets. However, there is a line running through the Appalachians that they inhabit because of the trees they prefer, spruce and other conifers.
Lisa: You wanna see your flying ball friends in the mountains too, huh?
Mike: Yeah.

Interesting Facts: These birds are almost as small as hummingbirds, but they winter in Alaska and Canada. They are becoming rare in the West, but interestingly, their populations are increasing in the East. The female of the species feeds her babies only on the first day they hatch. After that, she lays another batch of eggs and sits on them while the male feeds the first babies, himself and occasionally the female. The total amount of young averages around 9. These little flying balls (seriously they are almost spherical) have a single, tiny feather covering each nostril.

6. Blackburnian Warbler
Mike: These guys have a summer range in the Appalachians. They are incredibly long-distance migration birds that belong to a large family with lots of variation which is why it's always such a challenge for me to identify them. I feel like I never see them so I'm picking this one, it's a beautiful bird, and I'll try to spot some individuals along the trail.

Interesting Facts: These birds are brilliantly colored, especially during the mating season with neon orange and dark black feathers. These birds will join foraging flocks of chickadees, kinglets and nuthatches after its young fledge. Its winter range extends into the Andes and it breeds through the Appalachians down into Georgia.

7. Baltimore Oriole
Mike: Even though the first time I saw one of these was in Ohio, they remind me of Maryland
Lisa: Remember when I saw one of these in a tree when we were camping by Ithaca, NY for Ned's graduation? I started screaming that someones pet parrot had escaped and then you started laughing and told me I'd seen my first oriole.
Mike: Yeah, hehehe.

Interesting Facts: Mike must like orange and black birds, because the Baltimore Oriole has the similar neon orange and black plumage like the Blackburnian Warbler. This bird received its name from the fact that the male's colors resemble those on the coat-of-arms of Lord Baltimore. These birds migrate in flocks to southern Mexico, Central America and northern South America. Some birds may remain near feeders in winter. Baltimore Orioles forage in trees and shrubs, also making short flights to catch insects. They mainly eat insects, berries and nectar, and are often seen sipping at hummingbird feeders.

8. Peregrin Falcon

The Peregrine's breeding range includes land regions from the Arctic tundra to the Tropics. It can be found nearly everywhere on Earth, excepting extreme polar regions, very high mountains, and most tropical rainforests; the only major ice-free landmass from which it is entirely absent is New Zealand. This makes it the world's most widespread bird of prey. Both the English and scientific names of this species mean "wandering falcon", referring to the migratory habits of many northern populations.
While its diet consists almost exclusively of medium-sized birds, the Peregrine will occasionally hunt small mammals, small reptiles or even insects. It reaches sexual maturity at one year, and mates for life. It nests in a scrape, normally on cliff edges or, in recent times, on tall human-made structures. The Peregrine Falcon became an endangered species in many areas due to the use of pesticides, especially DDT. Since the ban on DDT from the beginning of the 1970s onwards, the populations recovered, supported by large scale protection of nesting places and releases to the wild

9. Wild Turkey
My choice. They are awesome and the males have a carbuncle. Also, male turkey's don't have penises, just a cloacha. Wild Turkeys are surprisingly agile fliers and very cunning, unlike their domestic counterparts. Turkeys are very cautious birds and will fly or run at the first sign of danger. In flight they can reach a speed of 50 miles per hour (80 km/h). They usually fly close to the ground for no more than a quarter mile (400 m). Turkeys have many vocalizations: "gobbles," "clucks," "putts," "purrs," "yelps," "cutts," "whines," "cackles," and "kee-kees." In early spring, male turkeys, also called gobblers or toms, gobble to announce their presence to females and competing males. The gobble can carry for up to a mile. Males also emit a low-pitched drumming sound. Hens "yelp" to let gobblers know their location. Gobblers often yelp in the manner of females, and hens can gobble, though they rarely do so. Immature males, called jakes, yelp often. Turkeys are omnivorous. They mostly contain mast, but are also occasionally known to consume small vertebrates like snakes, frogs or salamanders.

Pennsylvania Stats

2009-04-07T18:20:00.001-07:00

Trail Miles: 232

Trail Maintenance: Cumberland Valley AT Management Assoc., York Hiking Club, Susquehana AT Club, Brandywine Valley Outing Club, Blue Mt. Eagle Climbing Club, Allentown Hiking Club, Philadelphia Trail Club, Appalachian Mt. Club, Batona Hiking Club, Wilmington Trail Club

Highest Point: Big Pine Flat Ridge, 2,080 ft

Parks/preserves: Caledonia State Park (Hey Angelo!), Michaux State Forest, Pine Grove Furnace State Park (Halfway point - will we stay or will we go?), Swatara State Park, Hawk Mt. Sanctuary

Trail Towns: Boiling Springs, Duncannon, Port Clinton, Delaware Water Gap

West Virginia Stats

2009-04-07T18:19:00.001-07:00

Trail Miles: 2.4 in West Virginia, shortest one-state distance on AT, within 23-24 miles sharing the border with Virginia in two places

Trail Maintenance: Potomac AT Club, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park

HIghest Point: Peter's Mt., 3.484 ft

Parks/preserves: Harpers Ferry National Historical Park

Trail town: Harpers Ferry (AT Headquarters)

Virginia Stats

2009-04-07T18:18:00.002-07:00

Trail Miles: 544.6 (including about 21.5 miles on WV border) or about 25% of the entire AT, the longest section is Virginia

Trail Maintenance: Mt. Rogers AT Club, Virginia Tech Outing Club, Roanoke AT Club, Kanawha Trail Club, Natural Bridge AT Club, Tridewater AT Club, Potomac AT Club

Highest Point: Mt. Rogers, 5.729 ft (trail bypasses summit)

Parks/preserves: Mt. Rogers National Recreation Area, Grayson Highlands State Park, Jefferson National Forst, George Washington National Forest, Shenandoah National Park, Sky Meadows State Park

Trail Towns: Damascus (home of Trail Days Festival for AT!), Troutdale, Pearisburg, Troutville (wonder what fish is good here?), Waynesboro, Front Royal, Linden

Tennessee Stats

2009-04-07T18:18:00.001-07:00

Trail Miles: 69.5 in Tennessee, 207.7 shared with NC

Trail Maintenance: Tennessee Eastman Hiking Club

Highest Point: Roan Mt. , 6,285 ft

Parks/preserves: Great Smoky Mtns National Park, Cherokee National Forest, Roan Mt. State Park

Trail Towns: Erwin, Roan Mountain, Hampton

North Carolina Stats

2009-04-07T18:17:00.001-07:00

Trail Miles: 95.6 in NC/207.7 shared with Tennessee

Trail Maintenance: Nantahala Hiking Club, National Park Service and Smoky Mts Hiking Club (in GSMNP), Carolina Mt. Club

Highest Point: Clingmans Dome, 6,643ft (Highest point on AT)

Parks/preserves: Nantahala National Forest, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Pisgah National Forest, Cherokee National Forest

Trail Towns: Franklin, Wesser (Nantahala Outdoor Center), Fontana Dam (biggets dam in eastern US), Hot Springs

Georgia Stats

2009-04-07T18:16:00.001-07:00

Trail Miles: 75.4

Trail Maintenance: Georgia AT Club

Highest Point: Blood Mt. 4,461 ft

Parks/Reserves: Amicalola Falls State Park, Chattahoochee National Forest, Vogel State Park

Trail Towns: Suches, Dahlonega, Helen, Hiawasee

A Bottle of Electrically Conductive Media

2009-04-07T18:12:00.000-07:00

My doctor told me that I needed to bring powdered Gatoraide on the trail in order to replenish my electrolytes. I said "Oh, of COURSE, I will replenish my electrolytes. What would I do without them? I won't let them get away!" Of course, I was thinking that electrolytes were some sort of crystaline structure within my brain that increased my chances of gaining telepathic abilitites later in life. But, just in case, I decided to double check what they were anyway. I was close, kinda.

Scientifically speaking, an electrolyte is any substance containing free ions that behaves as an electrically conductive medium.

Turns out electrolyte drinks must contain sodium and potassium salts. They are used to replenish the body's water and electrolyte levels after intense excersize or dehydration caused by diarrhea, vomiting, intoxication, and starving - all states I anticipate experiencing on the trail. Also turns out that I could concoct my own oral rehydration therapy system by mixing correct proportions of sugar, salt, and water. But, I'd rather let Gatoraide do it for me with their "Ultimate Ice Warrior" and "Super Mega Explosion Muscle Craze" flavors.

Doctors recommend drinking sports drinks if you are anticipating engaging in extreme exercising conditions over 5 or 6 hours (like climbing up huge mountains all day). If some sort of sports drink isn't embibed, one runs the risk of hyponatremia. WHAT! That is possible? Yes. It is an electrolyte disturbance of the blood which lowers sodium levels to an extreme and can make your brain swell and explode. Don't want that! So, we'll be taking powdered Gatoraide to sprinkle in our freshly UV filtered water...

The Balds

2009-04-07T18:11:00.000-07:00

My mother's father's mother's maiden name is Ballard which means bald men in some language, I forget which one. Indeed, all of my mom's brothers are very bald. Most of the mountains we'll be hiking are also Ballards, but unlike my uncles' conditions, the mountain 'balds' cannot be explained by modern science. A hiker will have been trapsing through dense trees for days and then all of a sudden, angels sing and they will stumble out onto an opening that graces the hiker with an awe-inspiring view. How did this forest curtain open and why? Botanists think that the balds are bare of trees because there have been no seeds to reforest them. In the wake of the last glacial epoch there existed a warming period that nearly eliminated spruce and fir from the lower summits of the southern Appalachians. When the climate cooled again, spruce did not recover on these summits because of the absence of a nearby source of seeds. Severe attacks by wind, ice and insects didn't help their chances, either. But these are all just theories and no one really knows why the mountains loose their green hair in certain spots. One bald in particular that Mike and I will be excited to hang out at and air our stinky feet is Gregory Bald Mountain along the AT on the TN/NC border in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. The mountain is known as a grassy bald because unlike most of the Appalachian Mountains, its top is covered in thick wild grasses, not trees. The mountain is naturally de-treed, for reasons unknown but in this particular time and climate, the National Park Service has to struggle to keep the area free of trees which is an unusual situation, usually it's the other way around. Gregory Bald's grasses grow on the mountain 5000 meters above sea level. The Cherokee called it Tsistuyi, the rabbit place, because the sly and trickey king of the rabbits ruled there on this grassy heaven, he his called The Great Rabbit, naturally. I hope we meet him. The Cherokee who inhabited this area in America's early history had a name for balds more generally, it is udawagunta. They believed that long ago, hornet like monsters called ulagus swept down and snatched up unwary children travelling in the mountains with their families. The Cherokee people called a meeting and prayed to the Great Spirit to help rid them of these beasts. He acknowledged their cries and sent a huge bolt of lightning to shear off the cliffside when a host of ulagu were gathered on it, destroying them. The Great Spirit decreed that the summits would remain deforested so that the people could station sentinels to keep lookout for other ulagus.

Trail Food

2009-04-07T18:10:00.000-07:00

Highest amount of calories and least amount of weight. The calories have to be in the form of carbs to be of use b/c we will need to replenish the 3000-4000 calories/day (about 300/hr) we'll be burning. We'll have to eat roughly 2 lb of food a day if we hike about 15 miles. We'll stock up in towns for about a weeks worth of food at a time and pick up 'trail drops' of food Carol and Mary Ellen will ship us at strategic post offices.

GORP - Good Old Raisin and Peanuts or as Mike says Granola Oats Raisin and Peanuts

Rice and Pasta - Lipton's instant rice and pasta meals (backpackers swear allegiance to them)

Mac and Cheese (venerable)

Ramen (the Ra part means it was given by the sun god himself for use among weary hikers)

Instant dried soups of various sorts

Power Bars of various types, preferrably without the word muscle or intense in the name

Dehydrated Milk - to mix with cream of wheat, oatmeal, and mac and cheese (added calcium)

Dehydrated potatoes (sweet and regular)

Sweet potato pancake mix - the preferred breakfast of Jesus Christ

Peanut butter - lots of it

Jelly - experiment with how long it stays good

Powdered Gatoraide or Pedialite for electrolytes

Bread

Granola

Buffalo Jerkey, Tofu Jerkey

Dried Fruit

Dried Veggies

Cheese - Kraft slices we ate when we were kids works best b/c it is processed and virtually immune to outdoor temperatures

Drink Mixes - Gatoraide and Poweraid or Emergen-C drink powders for electrolites (whatever the hell those are)

Drying Food

2009-04-07T18:09:00.000-07:00

When thinking about ways to reduce food weight, an important factor is how much water it contains. Water is the heaviest item that takes up space in your pack. The idea is, since we'll be drinking tons of water anyway, there's no need to carry it within our food.

Fresh fruit meets many of the criteria of good ultralight food - high nutritional content, good taste, easy to prepare, and cheap. But fruit has a high water content, which means it's heavy. This is where dehydrated fruit comes into play. All of the fruit's nutritional content remains intact, making dried fruit as close to a perfect ultralight food as you'll find. I've discovered that many hard core backpackers use dehydration machines to suck water out of everything they bring. This immediately brough to mind the Dark Crystal and sucking the water/essence out of those muppets with the big purple crystal. Then, I stopped thinking about that and realized that in order to be a really 'hardcore' backpacker, I had to buy my own fruit vampire device and it wasn't going to be Bunnicula. SO, I ordered a dehydrator. Every day I feel like I'm undertaking a middle school science experiment. It's really awesome. I choose a fruit or veggie, either parboil it or dunk it in lemon juice (to prevent browning), cut it up, arrange the pieces in nice geometric designs on the circular drying racks, turn on the switch, go to bed, wake up, smell the inense flavor of whatever is being water vampired and then VOILA! Little shriveled remnants of the once glorious fruit or veggie that weigh almost nothing and can be put in little plastic baggies. The only problem is, I can't stop munching on these dried goodies and so I've succeeded in saving about 10 pieces of dehydrated food-stuff out of the countless things I've shriveled. I've got to make myself stop eating all of it before the trail! Hopefully I can bribe my mom into dehydrating food while we're gone to pack in our mail drops...I LOVE YOU MOM!!!

Whats a hillbilly

2009-04-07T18:08:00.000-07:00

We all know that ordinary rural Appalachian suffers from deprecating stereotypes, as in "THe Beverly Hillbillies," "Hee-Haw, " "Lil-Abner", and "Snuffy Smith". Of course, it's not the "hillbillies" themselves who see the profit of these stereotypes.

According to Wikipedia "The origins of the term "hillbilly" are obscure. According to Anthony Harkins in Hillbilly: A Cultural History of an American Icon, the term first appeared in print in a 1900 New York Journal article, with the definition: "a Hill-Billie is a free and untrammeled white citizen of Alabama, who lives in the hills, has no means to speak of, dresses as he can, talks as he pleases, drinks whiskey when he gets it, and fires off his revolver as the fancy takes him." The site goes on to explain, "The Appalachian region was largely settled in the 1700s by the Scotch-Irish, the majority of whom originated in the lowlands of Scotland. Harkins believes the most credible theory of the term's origin is that it derives from the linkage of two older Scottish expressions, "hill-folk" and "billie" which was a synonym for "fellow", similar to "guy" or "bloke"."

Beyond stereotypes, regional historians have assigned four regional characteristics of the Apalachian people: Individualism, Traditionalism, Fatalism, and Fundamentalism.

In 1996, a grant from the Appalachian Regional Commission enabled the Center for Appalachian Studies at East Tennessee State and the UT Press to create an Encyclopedia of Appalachia, the goal of which was to fight stereotypes and to reveal the true complex and revealing nature of the region: http://utpress.org/Appalachia/

Check it out for more info...I gotta go fill up my coffee.

Aniyunwiya (Cherokee)

2009-04-07T18:07:00.000-07:00

Clear archaeological scholarship traces Cherokee beginnings back at least to the beginning of the Mississippian Period, or to about A.D. 1000. By 1650, the Cherokee economy had developed on a varied agricultural base and had a sophisticated trade system that dealt with Europeans and a wide variety of Indian nations - some very distant, like the Iroquois Nation to the north.

When Europeans came into these mountains, the Cherokee dominated the Southern Appalachians by means of a loose confederacy held together by ties of language, kinship, trade, and custom. The Cherokee were surrounded by hostile groups that shared a common temple mound culture, but belonged to different language families, the Creeks, Catawba, and Chickasaws. In fact, Cherokee is Creek for 'people who speak another language" although they call themselves Aniyunwiya, meaning "the principle people". After 1600, until about 1780, the Cherokee were the dominant power in the Southern Appalachians.

For most of the period of their major influence, the Cherokee were situated in some 70 towns, with a total population of around 20,000, though some estimates exceed ten times that population before European contact. The Indians that de Soto encountered when his expedition of 1540 came through to do the usual, look for gold and utterly destroy native peoples in the name of god, they undoubtedly encountered hosts of Cherokee. Probably, they had moved their southern home from the north, where they had been part of the powerful Iroquois people. The Cherokee speak an Iroquoian language, and linguists believed they separated thousands of years ago. The Cherokee believe that their original principal town in the south was Kituwah in Swain County , NC.

Theodore Roosevelt described the Cherokee as, "a bright, intellegent race, better fitted to follow the 'white man's road' than any other Indians." This was intended as a compliment, but regardless of their supposed ease of acculturation, they were still ultimately forced off their ancestral homeland in the southern Appalachians, the very land Mike and I will be walking, to make room for the cows, pigs and god of the white man. Of course, when the whites first made a treaty with the Cherokee in 1798, the Indians surrendered a part of their land to the Government, who pledged to 'guarantee the remainder of the country forever' into the Indians' keeping. "Forever" to the US government meant about 5 years when dealing with Native Americans.

During the War of 1812, the Cherokee helped the US government defeat the Creeks. Even after their assistance in battle, the land-hungry white men would not let the Cherokee live in peace, forcing them to yield almost 6,000 square miles of forest in the heart of the Smokies (1/4 of what was left to them) to the government in 1819.

In order to keep up with the US, the Cherokee established a Christian religion and a republican form of government with a court system, bicameral legislature and of course a constitution. This government was headed by their President, John Ross, son of a Scottish immigrant and Cherokee mother who herself was half white. John Ross defended the cause of the Cherokee until they were forcibly removed from the government.

Now the Aniyunwiya had a US-style government, religious system, and had adopted agriculture, all they needed was a written language. This was supplied by a man, then obscure, but now famous to history, Sequoyah, who developed a writing system between 1809 and 1821. Emblidge says, "He used characters in an old English spelling book, which he could not read, German printed characters and letters out of a Bible, placing them right side up, upside down, adding a few strokes, curlicues, and symbols of his own invention." Soon all the nation learned his language and adopted the Sequoyan print. A Cherokee newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix was printed in Sequoyan. Cherokee Sequoyan alphabet:

Of course, all these accomplishments and attemps on behalf of the Cherokee to relate to the US government meant nothing and the Southern whites demanded rights to the last bit of land that belonged to the Cherokee nation. They recieved $5,000,000 for their seven million acres and were forced to move to the Western US, where they could keep the land there "forever". Cherokee people were forced by the US military to walk West across the Mississippi to Oklahoma in the dead of winter after their houses had been ransacked and livestock stolen by the white soldiers. Many hundreds died on this Trail of Tears. Emblidge says that President Martin Van Buren, advised Congress that , "all had gone well, the Indians having moved to their new homes unreluctantly. The whole movement was having the happiest of effects."

The People on the Other Side

2009-04-07T18:05:00.000-07:00

The Appalache people were one of the principal native inhabitants of what is today Florida. Their primary towns were centered in contemporary Tallahasse and St. Marks. The origin of the name Appalache is uncertain, but it is believed to be a Choctaw word for 'people on the other side'; the Appalache language is linguistically related to that of the Choctaw. The Apalachee were visited by DeSoto in 1539; he set up his winter headquarters on their country because of the rich natural resources. Some believe that DeSoto himself, because he was the first to explore the southern Appalachians, and because he wintered close to the Apalachee, coined the term Appalachian to refer to the mountains he 'discovered' stretching north from Florida. The Spanish chronicles of this winter included comments about the Apalachee's industriousness, agricultural abundance, and fierce fighting abilities. These fearless warriors frequently raided neighboring groups and eventually turned against the Spanish themselves who wanted Florida for their own. The Appalache resisted their Spanish conquerors for a long time, but finally aorund 1600 they were subdued and Christianized, their numbers dwindled due to war and disease and the few Apalachee that remained lived on Spanish missionary posts. Then, when the English decided they wanted Florida, they attached mercilessly destroying Spanish and native settlements alike along with Spanish missions on which many of the Appalache lived. The remnants of the tribe fled for Mobile and many merged with the Creeks to the west.

Trail Prep Bibliography

2009-04-07T18:02:00.000-07:00

Appalachian Trail Thru-Hikers Companion, 16th edition, 2009 - will bring on trail

Bryson, Bill. A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail. New York: Broadway Books, 1997.

Chazin, Daniel. Appalachian Trail Data Book, 2009. Will bring on trail.

Drake, Richard. A History of Appalachia. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 2001.

Emblidge, David, ed. The Appalachian Trail Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.

Jenkins, Peter. Walk Across America. Harper Collins Press, 1975.

Kestenbaum, Ryel. The Ultralight Backpacker. Ragged Mountain Press, 2001.

Luxenburg, Larry. Walking the Appalachian Trail.

Mueser, Roland. Long-Distance Hiking: Lessons from the Appalachian Trail. Camden, ME: Ragged Mountain Press, 1998.

Supply List Extravaganza

2009-04-07T18:00:00.000-07:00

The Following is a list of all of the whoozits and whatsits and thingamabob's Mike and I will have in our packs.

Lisa
Backpack - Mountainsmith Titan (I WISH that could be my trailname)
Backpack Cover - Camp Inn, x-tra large, waterproof, not awesome proof
Platypus Water Bladder, 2L
Sleeping Bag - Mountain Hardware, Ultralamina 15, 2lbs, 14 ozm Mummy cut, synthetic down
Z-Light Thermarest Closed-Cell Mattress (14 oz, 410 g)
Spork - Light My Fire brand made by Swedish people so you know its good and its also a beautiful gray 'civilized' color as the tag states
Headlamp - Princeton Tech Scout, 16 lumens, 45g, 80hr battery, water resistant - for hiking at night and attracting aliens and big moths or big moth aliens
Eagle Creek Compression Sacks - small, medium, large to squish the air out of my stuff to make it small and easy to find in my pack
Dr. Bronnen's Magic Soap - 8 oz bottle for washing hair, body, dishes, clothes, soul (the magic part), with tea tree oil
Ben's Deet spray, 1.25 fl oz.
Eagle Creek Travel Bottle Set to contain liquids and vitamins, pills, etc.
waterproof matches kept in a container provided by a wise astrologer and curator (but first and foremost, a friend) - container complete with a whistle, flint strip and compass so I can find my way to coffee icecream!
Toothbrush
BlisterMedic blister aid kit
A special note from Faye - for inspiration

Clothes

Nike Fit Dry shorty running shorts, they weigh -5 oz
4 pairs of Smart Wool Socks
Underarmour skin tight black leggings, a very warm underlayer, also wicking fabric

Underarmour t-shirt

"The Hulk" sleeveless t-shirt

North Face long sleeved lightweight black shirt

North Face (very super warm) fleece

North Face light waterproof jacket with hood

Knee length Saucony running pant things
All Who Wander Are Not Lost t-shirt from my fellow CA's
Beautiful African bracelet from Kimberly, my good luck charm
Skibbies top and bottom
Bandanna from '05 with gel to keep me cool
Eastern Mountain Sports Polartec gloves
Ball cap

super light Running shorts (will wear these most of the time)

Merrell Women's Hiking Boots

Keen waterproof sandals - each pound on your feet is like 5 pounds on your back

Mike
Backpack - Gregory Palisade
Backpack cover - Camp Inn, x-tra large waterproof
Tent - Eureka One-Man OR Mountain Hardware two person (we'll decide before we leave)
Camel Pack - 2 liters
H2 Zoom Handy Recorder (for birds and stories)
Nikon Trailblazer, all terrain binoculars 10x25, waterproof
Eagle Creek Compression Sacks - SML
Spork - like mine but red like danger
Dr. Bronnen's Magic Soap, Hemp Tea Tree (x-tra natural astringent and x-tra hippy)
Waterproof matches
Utilitarian Knife
Toothbrush

Clothes
Nike Fit Dry shorty running shorts - nice legs need short shorts
4 pairs Smart Wool socks
Skibbies top and bottom

Underarmour tight black pants

Fleece

AND:
Lifeline First Aid Kit - Adventure 65 piece
2 mini rolls of duct tape for tent/backpack repairs
Mes-kit - pot, bowl, 2 plates, handle that attaches to each implement for heating, 2 cups
Backpacking stove - Crux, lightweight
2 can MSR Iso Pro fuel for stove
Steripen - for water bugs, critters, and evil invisibles
Eagle Creek compression sacks - S, M, L

Sunscreen

Lip Balm
Small Towels
Zippered plastic bags

Packing directions (From bottom up)

Every item must earn its place in your pack. Judge the necessity of each item against its weight, then decide whether you really need to bring it.

1. sleeping bag

2. shelter

3. clothes in stuff sack

4. water bladder between clothing stuff sack and back, upside down so gravity works better

5. Fuel bottles and canisters

6. Food and mes kit

7. Rain gear above food if forecast is for rain

8. Packs top pocket - plastic bag with toiletries, maps, cord, first aid, knife, snack

9. External - sleeping pad

Spearfinger

2009-04-07T17:59:00.002-07:00

The following is a Cherokee legend about an evil witch who inhabits the forests of the southern Appalachians.

Whiteside Mountain, at 4,950 feet, boasts the highest exposed rock cliff in the eastern US. It is also the the dwelling place of an evil witch, known to the Cherokee, that eats the livers of unsuspecting children. The area is littered with rocks and a jutting formation on the east side of Whiteside Mountain is known as the Devil's Courthouse, while a large boulder about halfway up the formation is known as Satan's throne.

A regular visitor to the courthouse and throne of the devil was a witch known as Spearfinger who could change shape into any natural element at will. The only way she was noticable in this guise was by the long spear-shaped finger that jutted out of the element she was emulating. Her natural form was a withered old hag, but her skin was yellow and as ancient as the rocks she called her home; she smelled like rotting flesh. Like Ludo, the hairy guy from the Labyrinth, Spearfinger had the power to control rocks and could move huge boulders with her powers and send them flying through the air at any unsuspecting Cherokee warrior who wandered too close.

Although she revelled in the destruction of any human, the witch particularly enjoyed killing children and eating their livers. She would sit in a guise as a sweet old lady by a berry patch and softly call to 'grand children', promising to braid their hair or give them some chocolate covered grasshoppers. When the kids got too close, she would lull them to sleep by singing softly and then quick as lighting, pierce their skin with her spear finger and scoop out their yummy livers.

After so many kids had been snatched away by Spearfinger, all the village warriors decided that something needed to be done. They dug a deep pit around the Devils Throne and covered it in brush and twigs to hide it. Along came a little old lady who looked so innocent and cute that the warriors were doubtful whether it could be Spearfinger. Some warriors were about to jump out and warn the peaceful old Cherokee grandmother about the hole but wild turkey ran by their hiding place, destracting them so for just enough time for the litte old lady to fall into the pit and BEHOLD it was Spearfinger! She screamed and stank and screamed some more, sending her legions of flies to attack the eyes of the warriors so they could'nt dodge the rocks she was flinging all over with her mind. The warriors threw spears and axes and nothing could pierce the hard flesh of the witch. She gnashed her rocky teeth and spit acid at them out of the pit and with every scream she would try to haul herself out of her cage with her spear finger. After hours of battle, the Cherokee warriors were becoming worried that they would be defeated. They were exhuasted and nothing they did would wound the witch. Their arrows broke and snapped like twigs around her. Spearfinger saw that she was winning and taunted them saying she would climb out the pit and tear them limb from limb. A small bird the Cherokee call tsi-kilili, the Carolina chickadee, watched all of this from a nearby spruce branch and began to sing to the warriors ."Here, here, here." The chicadee bravely alighted upon the yellow witch's deadly finger and Spearfinger could not shake the little bird loose. The warriors understood that tsi-kilili was instructing them to shoot arrows at her spear finger. They did it and the witch screamed terribly, bleeding profusely and died in the pit. The chickadee lifted in flight as the old witch died. The witch was buried where she lay, at the bottom of the pit. Some believe she turned herself into one of the rocks in the pitfall and lives to stalk today. It is still considered a foreboding of bad luck when a fly is found bussing around a rock in the Nantahala National Forest in autumn and it is always considered good-luck to greet the wise and helpful chickadee's flitting around the forest canopy.

Tenants of MacKaye's Seminal AT Essay

2009-04-07T17:59:00.001-07:00

The following lists the four main tenants of MacKayes seminal essay on the Appalachian Trail, published in the October 1921 issue of The Journal of the American Institute of Architects.

The Trail

Walking trails had already been carved out by groups in the east, such as the Appalachian Mountain Club in the White Mountains of New Hampshire and the Green Mountain Club in Vermont. The Appalachian Trail would eventually form a cohesive trail, cared for by individual trail groups in each state that it passed through. MacKaye first envisioned the trail to stretch from the highest point in the north, Mount Washington, to the highest point in the south, Mount Mitchell. Blazing the trail, MacKaye stated, would be done by volunteers because, "...after all, volunteer 'work' is really 'play'." This wonderful/crazy outlook on life shows that MacKaye was probably not invited to many parties in college. He foresaw the whole AT project as a non-profit endeavor, that would harness the free time of 40,000 Americans a year who would hack away wilderness to form a trail instead of going to the beach for their 2-week a year vacations. This may give the reader a clue to why the AT today is not the one envisioned by MacKaye in the 1920s.

Shelter Camps

MacKayes essay described shelter camps that would hold equipment for use along the trail and would be located about a days walk apart for maximum convenience. He described them as Swiss-chalet type structures that would enable the weary traveler to rest and eat.

Community Camps

MacKaye believed that community camps would grow naturally out of shelter camps. They would be used for non-industrial community recreation, recuperation and study (field schools for colleges, etc.). The community camps would also serve a higher need, according to MacKaye, as a battle line against fire, flood and even disease.

Food and Farm Camps

Naturally supplementing the community camps, the food and farm camps would grow in adjacent valleys and would provide jobs for many Americans dissolusioned from their current positions as professional sitters in offices in tall rectuangular buildings. These camps would also harvest timber to provide fuel and building materials for the other camps.

Trail Fathers

2009-04-07T17:54:00.000-07:00

The following describes three men who most nurtured the trail in its infancy.

Benton MacKaye

Born in Connecticut in 1897, Benton MacKaye's childhood involved wandering around the forests surrounding his home with his boyhood friends. Their days were consumed with scouting, hacking out trails, and generally carrying around large amounts of frogs in their pockets. Such a childhood makes one 78% more likely to harbor a love of the natural world in ones heart throughout a lifetime. Benton pursued his childhood interests into college and graduated from Harvard in 1905 with a degree in Forestry the same year that Gifford Pinchot organized the US Forest Service. Pinchot hired MacKaye fresh out of college, still dripping in his Harvard-ness, wrung him out, slapped some hiking boots on him and set him to work surveying and mapping the White Mountain National Forest of New Hampshire. MacKaye developed an interest in community planning and combined it with his degree in Forestry to create idealistic plans of forming utopian societies along the Appalachian ridgeline that would protect the great forests from the wildfires of industrialization and modernism. MacKaye has been described as, "A 19th century New England reformer strayed into the Jazz Age. His political radicalism partook of pre-Marxist utopian socialisms, bucolic and spiritual, rather than the urban, gritty, proletarianism of this century." MacKaye first published his idealistic essay on his grand plan of an Appalachian Trail in the Oct. 1921 issue of the Journal of the American Institute of Architects.

Judge Arthur Perkins

Judge Perkins, also from Connecticut, had climbed the Matterhorn in his youth, but otherwise devoted himself to a law career until the late 50s. After MacKaye's article had been published and word had spread about the AT idea, Perkins set out to scout possible trail routes in Connecticut in 1925. By 1928, he had become chariman of the second AT conference and roamed up and down the AT corridor enlisting workers, forming clubs and plotting routes. Emblidge exclaims that AT was built from the bottom up by men who took a section of 50 miles and got the job done. The leader who, more than any other found and motivated them was Judge Perkins.

Myron Avery

One of the trail clubs that Perkins was influential in forming was the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club in Maryland, founded in 1927. A key figure in this club was Myron Avery, who took advantage of the rule at this time that people could become important maritime lawyers when they were 27. Perkins was impressed by Avery and his 27 year old lawyerness and enlisted him to become his personal assistant, destined to become the AT chairman after Perkins death. The old judge imparted his pragmatic, no-nonsense, non-pipesmoking characteristics upon the young lawyer. Not suprisingly, Avery did not agree with MacKayes rambling utopian visions and the two men were constantly at odds and didn't speak to each other for years after a particularly viscous argument after an ATC meeting.