Search -
Mountain Adventure: Exploring the Appalachian Trail
Mountain Adventure Exploring the Appalachian Trail Author:Ronald M. Fisher A long thin strip of America, it has been called, this footpath through the hills and valleys of the Appalachian Mountains. "The A. T.," its friends call it, or simply "the trail," as if it were the only one. Its complete name defines it: The Appalachian National Scenic Trail. It is a 2,1000-mile-long walkway in the mountains that chooses as ... more »its route from Springer Mountain in Georgia, to Katahdin, in Maine, the lofty, the interesting, the charming, the remote, and the wooded.
Dreamers devised it, doers build it, and volunteers today labor to keep it cleared, blazed, and protected. Millions walk on it every year, some with gargantuan backpacks, others with only a sandwich. Some walk a few miles; others go the whole way. All who follow the trail find on it the sort of adventure they seek.
In 1987 the trail celebrated its 50th birthday: its last segment was completed in August 1937. Also in 1987 a National Geographic writer/photographer team explored the length of the trail - its history, its flora and fauna, its human population, its terrain, its hikers. Mountain Adventure is their report - a celebration of walking and a tribute to an ancient range of mountains.
The book begins in a late spring snowstorm in Georgia, moves north with the seasons, and ends in the cold winds of autumn in Maine. Along the way it pauses for thunderstorms in the Smokies, attends birthday parades and celebratory ceremonies, fords streams, swats mosquitoes, climbs hills, and naps on sun-warmed overlooks.
Photographs reveal the trail's nature; text tells its story. And chronicled here as well are the trail's devotees - everyone who loves going for a walk in the woods - as they look forward to the Appalachain Trail's next 50 years.« less