SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2003 APPALACHIAN TRAILWAY NEWS

Transcription

SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2003
ATN
APPALACHIAN TRAILWAY NEWS
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ATN
ON THE COVER
The A.T. runs through the breezeway at WalasiYi Center in Georgia. Photo by Valerie A. Long.
Inside: Crossing the Kennebec River in Maine;
the official A.T. route is the canoe ferry. Photo by
Kenneth Wadness.
VIEWPOINTS
SHELTER REGISTER ♦ L ETTERS
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OVERLOOK ♦ B RIAN T. F ITZGERALD
AND D AVE S TARTZELL
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REFLECTIONS ♦ I NTO THICK A IR
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WHITE BLAZES
PAPER TRAIL ♦ N EWS
H ARPERS FERRY
FROM
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SIDEHILL ♦ N EWS FROM C LUBS
AND G OV ERN MENT A GENCIES
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GREENWAY ♦ L AND - PROTECTION
AND F UND - RAISING NEWS
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TREELINE ♦ N EWS FROM
THE A PPALACHIAN TRAIL
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ALONG
BLUE BLAZES
LOOP ROUTES ♦ P HIL PEPIN
IN THE CROSSHAIRS ♦ A
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HIKER RELIVES
A TRAUMATIC HUNTING ACCIDENT
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HUNTING SEASONS 2003–2004
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T R E A D WAY
TRAIL GIV ING
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NOTABLE GIFTS
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MEMORIAL GIFTS
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PUBLIC NOTICES
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SHELTER REGISTER
Letters from our readers
Appalachian Trailway
News
VOLUME 64, NUMBER 4• SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2003
Appalachian Trailway News is published by the Appalachian
Trail Conference, a nonprofit educational organization representing
the citizen interest in the Appalachian Trail and dedicated to the
preservation, maintenance, and enjoyment of the Appalachian trailway. Since 1925, the Appalachian Trail Conference and its member
clubs have conceived, built, and maintained the Appalachian Trail
in cooperation with federal and state agencies. The Conference also
publishes guidebooks and other educational literature about the
Trail, the trailway, and its facilities. Annual individual membership
in the Appalachian Trail Conference is $30; life membership, $600;
corporate membership, $500 minimum annual contribution.
Volunteer and freelance contributions are welcome. Please include
a stamped, self-addressed envelope with your submission.
Observations, conclusions, opinions, and product endorsements
expressed in Appalachian Trailway News are those of the authors
and do not necessarily reflect those of members of the board or staff
of the Appalachian Trail Conference.
DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS
Brian B. King
EDITOR
Robert A. Rubin
BOARD OF MANAGERS
Chair
Brian T. Fitzgerald
Vice Chairs
Carl C. Demrow Thyra C. Sperry
Marianne J. Skeen
Treasurer
Kennard R. Honick
Secretary
Parthena M. Martin
Assistant Secretary
Arthur P. Foley
New England Region
Pamela Ahlen Thomas O. Lewis
Kevin “Hawk” Metheny William G. O’Brien
Stephen J. Paradis Ann H. Sherwood
Mid-Atlantic Region
Walter E. Daniels Charles A. Graf
Sandra L. Marra Michael D. Patch
William Steinmetz Barbara L. Wiemann
Southern Region
Bob Almand Phyllis Henry
Robert P. Kyle
William S. Rogers McKinney V. Taylor
Steven A. Wilson
Members at Large
Paul Burkholder Richard Evans
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
David N. Startzell
World Wide Web: www.appalachiantrail.org
Appalachian Trailway News (ISSN 0003-6641) is published bimonthly, except for January/February, for $15
a year by the Appalachian Trail Conference, 799 Washington Street, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425, (304) 535-6331.
Bulk-rate postage paid at Harpers Ferry, WV, and other
offices. Postmaster: Send change-of-address Form 3597
to Appalachian Trailway News, P.O. Box 807, Harpers
Ferry, WV 25425.
Copyright © 2003, The Appalachian Trail Conference.
All rights reserved.
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Champions remembered
he Appalachian Trail has lost some of
its great champions of recent years:
Dave Richie, Liz Levers, Ed Garvey, Ed
Page, and George Zoebelein, among others. They will be sorely missed. The
beauty of this project is that others are
willing to step up and take their places.
The Appalachian Trail will endure because it embodies a dream: first of all, the
dream of hiking the Trail itself, and then
the dream of preserving the footpath and
all that surrounds it for others to enjoy
through the ages. We all have a great need
to pass this legacy down.
I am reminded of the words of Tennyson in his poem, “Ulysses”:
Tho’ much is taken, much abides:
and tho’
We are not now that strength which in
the old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which
we are, we are—
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate,
but strong in will.
To strive, to seek, to find, and not
to yield.
Charles W. Sloan
Vienna, Virginia
T
“Board OKs money to fight Pennsylvania
driving resort,” does not let the reader in
on what a “driving resort” is or why the
ATC Board of Managers is fighting the
proposal. The only clues were that it involves noise and political maneuverings.
Please enlighten those of us who haven’t
a clue.
Ruth Bleyler
Lyme, New Hampshire
E DITOR ’S NOTE : The proposal in Eldred
Township, Pennsylvania, is essentially
for a country club that includes a highspeed road course. Its property abuts the
A.T. corridor. On the closed track, drivers
of high-performance cars will be able to
run them at high speeds. Although the
Alpine Rose resort is careful not to call
the course a “race track,” since competitive racing is not planned for the site,
it will permit operators of cars with highperformance engines to wind them up
and let them go. Such engines are loud,
and ATC’s acoustic engineering studies
indicate that the whine and howl of racing engines will intrude on the quiet of
the woods for miles on either side of the
planned development, spoiling the sense
of solitude that many hikers value.
Please see the story on page 10.
Smell it as it is
Wilderness experience
eading “Eau d’hiker” in “How’s your
hiker jargon?” in the May–June issue
reminded me of a funny incident on my
2000 hike. I had been without a shower
for five or six days when I thumbed a ride
in the back of a pickup truck to a small
motel. When I checked in, I asked the
owner if he could give me a shuttle to the
local market. He said yes, but then added,
“Would you please take a shower before
we go?”
Harvey Prendeville
Southport, North Carolina
s many ATN articles and letters have
noted, confirmed by my own A.T. hiking, the A.T. is as much about companionship, a social phenomenon, as it is
R
Driving resort?
suspect that I may not be the only one
who wonders what a “driving resort”
is. In the July–August issue, the article,
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Letters
Appalachian Trailway News
welcomes your comments. Letters
may be edited for clarity and length.
Please send them to:
Letters to the Editor
Appalachian Trailway News
P.O. Box 807
Harpers Ferry, WV 25425-0807
E-Mail: <[email protected]>
Overlook
Brian T. Fitzgerald and Dave Startzell
about a “wilderness experience.“ Crowding and overuse are often noted. Perhaps
both types of users would be well-served
if we expanded our efforts and concerns
to concepts that Benton MacKaye held
dear—namely, the protection of the undeveloped green areas, particularly in the
national forests through which much of
the A.T. runs.
Here in western North Carolina, where
I live, but also in eastern Tennessee and
north Georgia, several million acres of
national forest are accessible from the
A.T. Western North Carolina alone has
some thirty national-forest-designated
“roadless areas” more than 5,000 acres in
size, all with old trails and logging roads
that form an incredible array of potential
hiking loops accessible from the A.T. For
those who want to avoid the crowds and
want a more truly wild experience, those
areas are the places to go.
Local hiking clubs, such as the Carolina Mountain Club, do pay some attention to trails in these areas (with notable
effort on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail), but,
as a rule, there is little detailed information available to the general public, and
the majority of the trails are unmaintained and unmarked. Would it not be a
worthwhile goal for ATC to expand its
thinking to encourage more use of these
roadless areas, emphasizing their relationship to the A.T.?
Furthermore, these Forest Service-designated “roadless areas” currently are
protected only by administrative action,
which the Bush administration is attempting to overturn or weaken. These
are the only areas that might be considered for official “wilderness” protection
recommendations. Without public support, these areas eventually will be
roaded and logged. Public support will
come mainly from those who know these
places from hiking and camping in them,
something that the Appalachian Trail
Conference is ideally suited to promote.
Bill Thomas
Cedar Mountain, North Carolina
aybe we romanticize the 1960s a little, but that decade gave us some of
the most forward-looking conservation legislation of the 20th century.
National leadership then seemed more active (and less reactive) and
visionary. Not only did the national government address pressing social
issues, such as civil rights and health care for the elderly, it also gave us
the National Historic Preservation Act (1966), the Wilderness Act (1964), the
National Environmental Policy Act (1969), the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968),
and the National Trails System Act (1968) that authorized the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. It did so during a time of expanding war, deficits, and unprecedented unrest in the streets at home.
A somewhat more obscure (but no less significant) law passed in 1965 was the
Land and Water Conservation Fund Act. Through it, Congress sought “to assist
in preserving, developing, and assuring accessibility to…present and future generations…such quality and quantity of outdoor recreation resources as may be
available and are necessary and desirable for individual active participation in such
recreation and to the strengthen the health and vitality of the citizens.” To achieve
that, Congress set up a fund meant to
acquire lands for outdoor-recreation and
conservation purposes. Instead of coming
from tax dollars, the money was to come
from such revenue sources as lease receipts from oil drilling on the outer continental shelf. The basic concept was
simple: If the nation exploited certain natural resources—especially nonrenewable
resources—it should reinvest at least some of the “profits” in other natural resources. The act directed that no less than $900 million should be credited to the
fund each year, but it left it to Congress to decide how much of the fund should
be spent each year.
Estimates are that the Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) has supported more than 39,000 state and local park projects in the years since, as well
as land acquisition related to many national parks, forests, and wildlife-management areas. Among federal programs, the Appalachian Trail may top the list of
beneficiaries: Since 1979, the National Park Service and USDA Forest Service
together have received more than $190 million from it to invest in the A.T. corridor, which today is a nearly continuous greenway from Maine to Georgia, surrounding the Trail.
Over the years, spending from the fund has fluctuated between about $300
million and $800 million—generally in the lower end of the range since the 1980s,
with the bulk going to federal projects. In the late 1990s, however, a grassroots
initiative was launched to breathe new life into the program with legislation called
the Conservation and Reinvestment Act (CARA). In a deal brokered between the
Clinton administration and congressional leaders in 2000, Congress instead created what became commonly known as the Conservation Trust Fund and pledged
to appropriate up to $12 billion between fiscal years 2001 and 2006 for land acquisition and other conservation programs. The LWCF was supposed to receive $900
million each year.
The incoming Bush administration promised to “fully fund” the LWCF program
at the $900-million level. But, for this coming fiscal year, just two years later, the
M
An idea whose
time has gone?
continued on page 6
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Shelter Register
administration requested less than $350 million for
traditional LWCF applications—$187 million for
federal land acquisition and $160 million for state
continued from previous page
and local park projects. The House of Representatives
further reduced that allocation to $198 million—the lowest levels in at least a decade,
more than $200 million less than this year.
Perhaps, in the wake of terrorist attacks at home and at a time of costly ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, some of our leaders may view the original concept of the Land and Water Conservation Fund as an idea whose time has gone—
a remnant of an earlier age of innocence. We do not.
The federal budget should be an expression of all of our many priorities as a
nation, as elegantly enumerated in the Constitution’s preamble. There must be
allowances made for addressing quality-of-life issues, including the conservation
and outdoor-recreation needs of its people. Justice William O. Douglas may have
stated it best in writing the majority opinion in a landmark 1954 Supreme Court
land-use case, Berman v. Parker. Douglas (an A.T. hiker) wrote: “The concept of
the public welfare is broad and inclusive…. The values it represents are spiritual
as well as physical, aesthetic as well as monetary. It is within the power of [the]
legislature to determine that the community should be beautiful as well as healthy,
spacious as well as clean, well-balanced as well as carefully patrolled.” We should
never stop looking forward.
An idea whose time . . .
Brian T. Fitzgerald is chair of the Appalachian Trail Conference; Dave Startzell is
executive director.
Dogs on A.T.
hat everyone who hikes the A.T. with
a dog needs to understand is that doing so is a privilege, not a right. The A.T.
is not a giant dog park. It would behoove
dog owners to be courteous of other hikers so that dogs may continue to enjoy
the unparalleled freedom of hiking the
A.T. This means, at the very least, keeping dogs leashed around other hikers, and
tenting out instead of sleeping in shelters,
unless you are positive nobody minds
having the dog around.
Dogs are territorial and will defend
their camp by barking, which means they
consider the shelter exclusively their
home once you settle in there. Understandably, this can be very annoying for
some people. We are eternally grateful to
have had the opportunity to be accompanied by our late dog, Trudy the Trail Terrier, from Maine to Georgia. Her recent
death has made us appreciate even more
that we were able to share with her such
an incredible experience—one that probably won’t exist much longer if people
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continue to allow their dogs to negatively impact other hikers.
Maud Dillingham
Cesar Becerra
Los Angeles, California
Hiker Fantasies
t bothered me to read Mr. Innes’ recent
letter (July–August) denigrating A.T.
hikers as living in a fantasy world and
suggesting that the hiker community
needed to “grow up and face facts.” We
all have our fantasies, and, while it is true
we need to face facts, Mr. Innes’ “facts”
are far from the reality of the energy situation in the United States.
The reality is that we are a nation of
wasteful people who would rather devour
our finite resources to maintain our high
standards of living than learn to economize and make better use of what we
have. Go check your thermostats, people—what do you set it at in the winter
and summer? Do you have programmable
thermostats to keep you from wasting
energy when no one is home? When the
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weather is nice enough, do you turn your
air conditioning off and open the windows? How many of us cared when Congress did not dictate more stringent automobile fuel efficiency (the CAFE)
standards)? How many of us will choose
our next vehicle using its mileage rating?
How many of us use public transportation? How many of us advocate improving our public transportation systems to
make them time-effective and cost-effective alternatives to driving? The list goes
on.
Once we have learned to economize,
then it will be time to talk about developing more energy sources. Until then, we
are just enabling ourselves to avoid dealing with reality. Mr. Innes said that we
“ought to be willing to see our world as
we have made it.” If we take that attitude
to its logical conclusion, we should pave
over the entire Trail. While it is true that
most of the forest along the A.T. is a mere
facsimile of what was there 400 years ago,
don’t we have enough reminders of today’s world when we go hiking?
Pierre Katona
Brooklyn, Ohio
X
n the July–August issue of ATN, Richard B. Innes writes that hikers who wish
to preserve natural viewsheds along the
A.T. are “fantasizing” that human impact
on the landscape does not exist. He would
be happy with A.T. viewsheds that reflect
the full scope of human activity along the
Trail.
To the contrary, it is life in civilization
that has become a long and tiring flight
from reality. It remains to be seen whether anything we would recognize as wild
and natural will survive the elaborate and
increasingly disturbing fantasies of the
human race, circa 2003. For now, the
relatively unfettered environment of the
A.T. corridor is about as real as life and
land get east of the Mississippi. Life on
the Trail—working hard in a natural setting during the day and resting in the
company of trustworthy friends and
strangers at night—is not unlike the style
of living humans pursued for thousands
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of years, before the rise of industry. (As
an acquaintance of mine has noted, the
main difference is that now we have
Gore-Tex.) Trail living is the most genuine, uplifting human experience there is.
To sully this experience with yet more
views of cell towers, windmills, quarries,
ski resorts, race courses, suburban-style
developments, and clear-cuts would be a
disgrace.
Development already has powerful
advocates: those who wish to profit from
it. As members of the ATC, it is our responsibility to advocate on behalf of the
Trail, to protect it from development. We
aren’t pretending that human development doesn’t exist or saying that it
shouldn’t exist. We aren’t antitechnology—our hiking gear is high-tech. We’re
merely acknowledging that the A.T. experience is different from that in civilization
and remarkably beneficial to us. If the A.T.
is to retain its character, the corridor and
viewshed—a tiny sliver of land, really—
must remain as wild as possible.
Hal Wright (“Pokey”)
Holland, Pennsylvania
Windmills
s Frederick Saal so clearly stated, it
doesn’t take long for population
growth to outpace even fairly significant
gains in the energy supply-demand
relationship. I would like to add two
thoughts to his excellent letter. First,
similar reasoning applies to nearly everything that consumes resources or damages the environment. Second, in many
cases, demand is growing even faster than
the population. Electric power and fuel
for motor vehicles are the first examples
that come to mind.
Robert T. Foley
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
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Crossing the Pochuck
ill Miller’s experiences crossing the
Kennebec in Maine and hiking in
northern British Columbia sound tantalizing and worthy of the most adventurous of hikers. Many of us dream of spending time in places that are untouched and
totally wild, but you will have to agree
B
Pochuck during flood. Photo: Larry
Wheelock
that those experiences were in areas very
remote from the twenty or more million
people who live in and around New Jersey.
Not many of the thousands of people
who enjoy the benefits of the A.T. through
the northern part of this state would
choose to wade or swim across the Pochuck floodplain in a year of normal
rainfall. The accompanying photo was
taken in November 2002 during one of
the frequent flooding events. The only
alternative for hikers would have been a
mile-and-a-half walk along a busy, shoulderless road.
Larry Wheelock
Trails Director, New York–New
Jersey Trail Conference
Thanks, Mr. Paley
he article, “Mr. Paley, I’ve been thinking” (May–June ATN), was so great! It’s
people like Bob Paley who make Boy
Scouts the fine organization it is and kids
like Erik who make his job so fulfilling.
Thanks, Mr. Paley.
Bill Strickland
Westminster, South Carolina
T
Black Magic
n a recent trip through the “100-Mile
Wilderness” in Maine, my girlfriend
and I stopped upon a sight that has grown
all too familiar along the A.T.: garbage
masquerading as Trail magic. A presumably excited and well-intentioned northbound hiker had left a twelve-pack of soda
and some grub at the road crossing at the
base of Chairback Mountain on August
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1, intended for the thru-hikers behind
him and aspiring southbounders on their
way to Georgia. Unfortunately, when my
girlfriend and I reached the crossing on
August 14, what was left was scattered
empty aluminum cans and soggy cardboard. It amounted to no less than litter
and soured the rest of my day. I packed
out the lot of it to Monson.
How could a thru-hiker (of all people)
be so careless? It’s time the Trail community had a discussion on Trail magic,
especially in light of the popularity of the
A.T. and the heightened awareness of the
A.T. in neighboring towns.
Whenever I read the ATN, I inevitably
read a story where Trail magic is mentioned. Magic is often cast in a sacred
light where Trail angels descend from
heaven to bathe the unsuspecting hiker
in food, drink, shuttles, and shelter. The
stories always make me smile and remind
me of my own magical experience, when
an elderly couple spontaneously bought
me a room at the Holiday Inn Express in
Hiawassee, Georgia, on my southbound
thru-hike in 2002. Can there possibly a
negative side to such unabashed generosity? Dare anyone criticize the selfless
giving by total strangers?
After seeing empty soda cans littering
the path before me in Maine, I can think
of a few words. I am not opposed to Trail
magic. What irks me is when water jugs,
sodas, candy bars, etc. are left unattended
on the A.T. Whether there is a trash receptacle left behind or a cooler present is
no matter—it’s garbage, plain and simple.
A soda can will be dropped on the ground,
plastic wrappers will scatter, empty water
jugs will blow away, Styrofoam coolers
will chip off. Unattended Trail magic is
ugly and violates basic Leave No Trace
principles.
If you are considering providing Trail
magic, take off half a day and pass it out
personally! Have hikers pack out the
trash, or pack it out yourself. That way,
not only will the A.T. stay garbage-free,
but you’ll see the faces of the happy hikers you’ve bestowed your magic upon!
Dan Feldman
Washington, D.C.
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PAPER TRAIL
News from Harpers Ferry
Public-policy issues challenge ATC, Trail, Startzell reports
WATERVILLE 2003
For more news from ATC’s Waterville
2003 meeting, please see the stories
on pages 9-15, and a photo collage on
page 31.
flagging economy, foreign
wars, and a national focus
on domestic security may
seem unconnected to the Appalachian Trail, ATC Executive Director Dave Startzell
told a meeting of Conference
members in July, but they
threaten the future of the
Conference and the Trail.
“In the wake of recent
events involving terrorism,
the conduct of foreign affairs,
and a flagging economy, there
is a very real risk that issues
affecting our environment and
our quality of life will be relegated to a secondary status,”
Startzell said. “And yet, we are
learning more and more that
those issues do have a direct
effect on the Trail, its resources, and its visitors.”
Startzell’s warning came as
part of the status report to
members that he delivers every two years at the biennial
meeting of the Conference. At
the 2003 meeting, in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire,
he outlined the biggest threats
to ATC during coming years,
as well as describing what the
Conference is doing right and
where it can do better.
“As we gather here today,
significant debates are taking
place in our nation’s capital,
and many more policy deci-
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sions are being made by fiat,
often behind closed doors,”
Startzell said. “We need to
become less insular…, and we
need to marshal the considerable influence that resides
within our membership, our
clubs’ memberships, and
among all of those who assign
value to the Trail and its resources,” he said.
Startzell’s speech grew out
of a “SWOT” (strength, weakness, opportunity, and threat)
analysis undertaken at the
urging of the Board of Managers, a long, hard look at how
the organization works and
what it does.
Among ATC’s strengths,
Startzell said, was a strong and
supportive membership whose
dues and financial gifts made
up more than a quarter of its
annual operating revenues.
But, he said, a corresponding
weakness was a “relatively
stagnant” membership base.
Another strength, Startzell
said, was ATC’s ability to attract and retain highly qualified, experienced volunteer
leaders and paid employees.
But, as the Conference’s responsibilities have grown,
staff members are hard-pressed
to keep up, “forced to juggle
too many priorities.” To add
insult to injury, he said, there
has been a lid on salaries as a
result of tight budgets in recent years.
Setting clearer priorities,
doing a better job of parceling
out the work, and changing
the way the Board operates are
among the goals of the organizational analysis, he said. That
may mean attracting new
Board members from outside
the traditional Trail-maintaining community.
Volunteers—“nearly 5,000
of them, who devote close to
200,000 hours of labor each
year in all manner of Trailmanagement work”—make
up another key strength of
ATC, he said. But, the volunteer population is aging, at a
time when the demands on
them are becoming more complex. Both ATC and local Trail
clubs need to do better at recruiting, motivating, and
keeping new members and
volunteers.
Startzell called for more
alliances with corporate and
foundation partners, along
with doing a better job of recruiting and keeping members, instead of appeals “for
the latest crisis de jour.”
He praised the Park Service’s A.T. Park Office, calling
the cooperative arrangement
“the envy of other long-distance trail networks.” But, he
said, “We need to expand our
efforts to cultivate agencies at
the highest levels and to educate those who hold key positions about the true meaning
of partnership.”
Unlike many conservation
Dave Startzell (Photo: Steven
Wilson)
organizations, Startzell said,
the Conference’s link with a
single concrete resource—the
Trail—gives it a clear focus.
“But, because the Trail spans
more than 2,100 miles, often
in proximity to many metropolitan areas, it sometimes
seems like the Trail is in everyone’s way,” he said. The
resulting battles are time-consuming and costly, he said.
“We have to pick our battles
wisely.”
One opportunity for the
Conference lies in capitalizing
on the Trail’s symbolic significance for Americans. “As
the nation’s oldest and bestknown long-distance trail, the
A.T. enjoys what some have
termed an ‘icon status’ in the
minds of a significant segment
of our population. In theory,
the value those people assign
to the Trail could be translated
into tangible support, both for
ATC and for the Trail itself.”
Although the Trail is an icon
he said, the Conference is not.
continued on page 17
Paper Trail
Fitzgerald reelected ATC chair;
Conference officers elected
ppalachian Trail Conference members, meeting in
New Hampshire in July,
elected Brian T. Fitzgerald of
South Duxbury, Vermont, to
a second term as chair of the
Appalachian Trail Conference.
Members also reelected a
slate of Conference officers,
including three regional vicechairs: Carl C. Demrow, of
West Topsham, Vermont
(New England), Thyra C.
Sperry of Boiling Springs,
Pennsylvania (mid-Atlantic),
and Marianne J. Skeen of Decatur, Georgia (southern); a
secretary, Parthena N. Martin
of Chapel Hill, North Carolina; assistant secretary, Arthur
P. Foley of Colorado Springs,
Colorado; and treasurer, Kennard Honick of Sarasota,
Florida.
Members of the Conference
meet every two years—at locations rotating among three
regions—to hear reports on
the status of the Trail project,
elect their governing board,
attend workshops, and hike.
The business meetings and
workshops are clustered during the first three days, followed by four days of hikes,
talks, and entertainment. The
34th meeting since the organization was founded in a
Washington, D.C., hotel meeting room in 1925 was held July
25–August 1 at Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, at the
southern edge of the White
Mountain National Forest.
Not quite half of the approximately 750 registered
A
attended the main business
meeting for elections and the
consideration of resolutions
(all of which covered internal
matters this time). The Board
of elected volunteers governs
the Conference, setting its
budget, developing ATC perspectives on Trail policies
enforced by its federal-agency
partners, and overseeing the
general direction of programs
and activities. In addition to
the seven Conference officers,
three groups of six volunteers
each represent ATC members
in a specific region and two
at-large volunteers represent
members outside Trail
states.
Also elected July 28 were
Pamela Ahlen of Woodstock,
Vermont; Bob Almand, Suwanee, Georgia; Paul Burkholder, Winchester, Virginia;
Walter E. Daniels, Mohegan
Lake, New York; Richard C.
Evans, Orlando, Florida;
Charles A. Graf, Arnold,
Maryland; Phyllis Henry, Seymour, Tennessee; Robert P.
Kyle, Richmond, Virginia;
Thomas O. Lewis, Yarmouth,
Maine; Sandra L. Marra, Fairfax, Virginia; Kevin (Hawk)
Metheny, Hartland, Vermont;
Bill O’Brien, Meriden, Connecticut; Steve Paradis,
Methuen, Massachusetts;
Michael Patch, Springfield,
Virginia; William S. Rogers,
Suffolk, Virginia; Ann H. Sherwood, Kent, Connecticut;
William Steinmetz, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; McKinney
Officers (L–R): Startzell, Honick, Sperry, Skeen, Demrow,
Fitzgerald, Foley, Martin. (ATC Photo)
New England (L–R): Field, Paradis, Ahlen, Sherwood, Metheny,
O’Brien. (ATC Photo)
Mid-Atlantic (L–R): Steinmetz, Patch, Graf, Daniels, Marra,
Wiemann. (ATC Photo)
Southern (L–R): Taylor, Wilson, Henry, Kyle, Almand, Evans,
Rogers. (ATC Photo)
9
Paper Trail
ATC data overlooked in high-speed track case
Pennsylvania judge did
not consider data from a
$35,000 sound study that
ATC had commissioned in an
attempt to put the brakes on
plans for a 360-acre high-speed
“car resort” adjacent to the
Trail. He sent the matter back
to the local board of supervisors on a decision based on
other issues.
The proposed Alpine Rose
Resort near Smith Gap, along
Pennsylvania’s Blue Mountain, would allow drivers of
high-performance cars to open
their throttles wide and run
the machines at high speed
along a twisting, closed road
course close to the A.T. Trail
proponents have argued that
the “noise pollution” from the
A
high-revving engines would
ruin the sense of solitude and
quiet along the Trail for miles
in either direction.
Monroe County Common
Pleas Judge Ronald Vican did
not respond to data from experts on both sides of the issue. Instead, he directed the
Eldred Township Board of
Supervisiors to address issues
related to traffic congestion
near the planned track and
possible impacts on local police and firefighting resources.
The supervisors subsequently
delayed taking any action
until October.
ATC appealed the judge’s
decision in August.
Bob Proudman, ATC’s director of Trail-management
programs, urged the supervisors to take the full 90 days
under state law to consider the
judge’s order. He noted that
the court’s decision did not
cite any portions of the
$35,000 sound studies ATC
commissioned, which showed
far higher impacts on the Trail
than the developer had asserted and also showed flaws
in the developer’s more recent
sound-impact analyses.
The court also made no
mention of the state of Pennsylvania’s extraordinary
“friend of the court” brief affirming that Trailside municipalities have an affirmative
duty to protect the Trail under
state law, although Vican did
acknowledge the mandates of
the Pennsylvania Appalachian
Trail Act. Proudman also told
the supervisors that the developer’s noise calculations contradict information he submitted.
ATC and its coplaintiff, the
grassroots Blue Mountain
Preservation Association, he
said, effectively shredded the
developer’s previous sound
studies submitted to the township, which had imposed a
condition on its permit approval of no increase of more
than five decibels in ambient
sound levels in the rural area.
The judge ruled that, until
that condition had been violated, the Conference and the
preservation association could
not properly sue to stop it.
ATC, NPS honor Underhill, Dunn, and Skeen
.T. Park Manager Pamela
Underhill was awarded a
surprise citation for meritorious service from Interior
Secretary Gale Norton at the
34th meeting of the Appalachian Trail Conference in
Waterville Valley, New Hampshire.
The citation—presented by
Conference keynote speaker
Karen Wade, retiring director
of the National Park Service’s
Intermountain Region (who
got her NPS start in the original A.T. Project Office in
1978)—recognized that Underhill “has one of the most challenging assignments in the
[National Park] Service.” The
award is one of the highest for
which Interior employees are
eligible.
A
10
Manager for the A.T. since
1996 and a worker on the project for twenty-four years, Underhill was described as “at
times a peacemaker, at times a
fearless defender of the Trail.”
“Ms. Underhill’s career
advancements have closely
paralleled the remarkable
growth of the Appalachian
Trail community,” the citation read. “Her passion and
compasson for the Appalachian Trail and its community
of involved citizens have profoundly and positively affected
the Trail in a way that few, if
any, federal employees have
accomplished.”
Honored by the outgoing
Executive Committee with
the Conference’s highest
award, honorary membership,
were Craig Dunn of Camp
Hill, Pennsylvania, a leader in
the establishment in 1982 of
ATC’s land-trust program and
in the 1980s struggle for a
permanent, off-road location
for the A.T. through the Cum-
berland Valley of Pennsylvania, and Marianne J. Skeen of
Decatur, Georgia, currently
southern vice chair and former
Georgia A.T. Club president
who has assumed leadership
roles in many Conference activities over the last decade.
Dave Field presents honorary
life membership to Marianne
Skeen. Karen Wade (left) and
Dave Startzell present citation
to Underhill. (ATC photos)
SIDEHILL
News of clubs and government agencies
Saw policy draws maintainers’ ire at Waterville “town meeting”
ATERVILLE VALLEY,
N.H.—Complaints by
volunteer workers about
“bureaucratic” regulations on
the use of chain saws and
crosscut saws for Trail maintenance prompted ATC officials this spring to revise draft
Conference policies on the
issue and defend them during
a meeting here July 28.
Until the early 1980s, virtually anyone with a chain saw
or crosscut saw could use it to
clear the Trail. But, after ATC
signed new formal agreements
with federal land-management agencies, volunteer
workers were included under
federal worker-safety requirements, which led to certification rules in the 1990s. Certifications were issued to many
volunteer sawyers, who, like
all recognized Trail-maintaining volunteers, are insured by
the government against accidents during authorized Trailmaintaining activities on national park and forest land.
As federal policies were
revised in the late 1990s, more
stringent safety requirements
were added. At first, those
were felt by volunteers only in
the national forests of the
South, but soon their effect
was extended through all the
Trail states, and ATC began
drafting its own guidelines
about volunteer safety.
ATC’s policy has no effect
on the federal regulations,
which are agency guidelines,
but is aimed at giving Conference volunteers a consistent
and clearly codified set of rules
W
to operate under.
One club newsletter
editorial had called it
“the end of the volunteer maintenance system.” And, several
maintainers questioned
the policy during the
“town meeting” at the
end of the biennial
ATC business meeting.
“We’ve been working on this issue for
two years now,” Bob
Proudman, ATC’s director of Trail-management programs told the
meeting. “It may seem
like we’re taking all the Bill Rogers talks chain saws at Waterville
requirements of federal
worker safety programs and field, and to wear governmentplacing them on your backs. approved protective equipBut, under the Park Service ment, such as cut-resistant
and Forest Service programs, chaps, eight-inch-high boots,
if one of you hurts yourself, and eye and ear protection.
your medical and legal ex- Several pointed out that ATC
penses are covered, so they’re clubs have a “near-perfect
extremely particular about the safety record.”
training you get.”
“I’m not sure we ought not
Among the standards that go to the federal guys and say,
maintainers complained about ‘We want your reasons,’” Liles
were requirements that chain- Creighton of the Potomac A.T.
and crosscut-sawyers be “re- Club complained at the meetcertified” once every three ing. “For 75 years, we had no
years, which was too frequent, problems. Now, all of a sudasserted experienced, regu- den, we have to be certified.
larly practicing sawyers. The I’m sixty-six years old, and I
certification process requires have to be certified. An ax is
a volunteer to give up several more dangerous than a crossdays to take training classes cut saw, but you don’t have to
and then go back again in an- be certified to use it. A brushother three years and do it over cutter with a steel head is
again. Sawyers are also re- more dangerous. We need to
quired to be trained in CPR make sure the justifications
and wilderness medicine, in are solid.”
the event of an accident in the
After ATC received a pack-
Valley. (Photo: Steven Wilson)
full of letters and e-mails
complaining about the regulations early in 2003, Proudman
said, they went back and revised the policy, working to
make it easier for the volunteers to comply. A revised
policy was published in The
Register in July. The Conference pledged to provide its
own trainers, to phase in certain requirements gradually,
and to make sure that volunteers didn’t have to go too far
out of their way to be properly
trained or to spend too much
of their own money.
Larry Wheelock, trails director for the New York–New
Jersey Trails Conference, said
at the meeting that maintainers would soon get used to the
new requirements. “We’ve
been doing the chainsaw cercontinued on page 29
11
Sidehill
Appalachian Trail Park Office announces 2003 service awards for Trail volunteers
he Appalachian Trail Park
Office (ATPO) of the National Park Service has
named five recipients of its
“Golden Service Award,”
which recognizes fifty years of
active volunteer service on the
Appalachian Trail. Another
eighty-six volunteers were
named recipients of the “Silver Service Award,” which
recognizes twenty-five years
of active volunteer service.
“It is a privilege for me to
be able to recognize these
dedicated volunteers for their
remarkable contributions to
the Appalachian Trail,” said
Pam Underhill, ATPO park
manager.
The awards are presented at
each Appalachian Trail Conference biennial meeting and
recognize a continuing volunteer commitment to the A.T.
This year’s meeting was in
Waterville Valley, New Hampshire. Nominations were solicited from Trail clubs and
T
individuals. The ninety-one
volunteers represented fifteen
Trail clubs and ATC.
A.T. 50-Year/Golden Awards
Steve Clark, Maine A.T. Club
Peter Richardson, Green
Mountain Club
Ruth E. Blackburn, Potomac
A.T. Club
Steve Abell, AMC–Berkshire
Chapter
Raymond Catozzi, Green
Mountain Club
A.T. 25-Year/Silver Awards
Maine A.T. Club: Laurence
Clark, Dolly Clow, Beatrice
Hanson, Harold Hanson, Vernon Huestis, Philip Pepin,
Fred Goldrup, John Morgan,
Chris Wolfe, Lester Kenway,
Eric Anderson, Victor Ardine,
Bob Cummings, Elsa Sanborn,
Richard Dreselly, Margery
Dreselly, Milton Gross, Melvine McCorrison, Lendall
Parson, John Neff, Richard
Innes, Philip Chaney, Edith
Chaney, Barbara Clark
Green Mountain Club:
Denis LaForce, Preston
Bristow, Kimball Simpson,
Kathleen Donaghue, Mark
Brown, Joseph P. Cook,
Dorothy MacDonald, Don
Whitney, Paul Magoon, Earl
Williams, Edna Williams
AMC–Berkshire Chapter:
Rudy Yondorf, Earl McWhorter, Kay Wood
AMC–Connecticut
Chapter: Dick Blake, Norm
Sills (2001 award)
New York–New Jersey
Trail Conference: Ralph
Ferrusi, Ron Rosen
Philadelphia Trail Club:
John Gall, Mary Gall
York Hiking Club: James
Hooper, R. Ronald Gray
Mountain Club of Maryland: Elinor Pitt-Ives
Potomac A.T. Club: Frank
A. Smith, Shirley Strong,
Paula M. Strain, Warren C.
Sharp, Willard F. Rahn, Olivia
K. Pickett, Philip Paschall,
Matthew J. Ogorzalek,
Kenneth K. Lacey, Charles R.
Irvin, Robert Humphrey
Tidewater A.T. Club:
Reese Lukei, Mal Higgins
Piedmont A.T. Hikers:
Danny Lineberger, Richard
Lawrence, Camille Lawrence,
William H. Craft, Lib Conner,
Bob Conner, David Emrey,
Danny Booker, David Bland,
Maxine Blackwood, Rand
Sample, Guyon Phillips,
Jeanne Phillips
Carolina Mountain Club:
Sherman Stambaugh, James
Bloom, Dr. Ed Dunn, John
Hillyer, Lewis Blodget
Smoky Mountains Hiking
Club: Steve Higdon
Nantahala Hiking Club:
Virginia Alford, the Rev.
William Haselden, Lillian
Haselden
Georgia A.T. Club:
Marianne Skeen, Hillrie
Quin, Craig Lyerla, Elmer
Butler
Unaffiliated: Arthur P.
Foley
Ovoka Farm land adds spectacular view to A.T.
he A.T. will soon be reclaiming one of the Trail’s most
spectacular views of the rolling Virginia countryside.
Six tracts of land on Ovoka Farm, a mountaintop farm
in Clarke and Fauquier counties, were purchased in July by
the National Park Service’s National Trails Land Resources
Program Center in Martinsburg, West Virginia, and will be
added to the A.T. corridor, the Park Service announced.
The A.T. once ran across private property on the farm,
which features a spectacular overlook of Virginia’s Sky Meadows State Park and rolling countryside in the Paris Valley of
western Virginia, near Ashby Gap. The land was eventually
closed to hikers, though, and, for decades, the Trail has been
forced to bypass the views and skirt the side of the ridge
through a viewless, wooded corridor of public land.
The six plots purchased in July included about 463 acres,
with good access and visibility, and are mostly wooded with
T
12
hardwood trees, the Park Service reported. The view from
Ashby Gap on the crest of the Blue Ridge is a frequent subject
for landscape painters. The Park Service said the acquisition
will protect the scenic views along that section of the Trail,
as well as historical roads used by colonial and Civil War
armies.
A relocation of the Trail is planned to return it to the hillcrest.
The purchase was made possible by the work of ATC and
Piedmont Environmental Council (PEC). The council bought
the land from the family that owned it, and ATC helped get the
federal appropriations authorized to buy 314 acres of the property. PEC then sold those acres to the Park Service for a reported $1.2 million. An additional 131 acres were donated.
View of Sky Meadows from Ovoka Farm (ATC photograph)
ATC 2003: Keynote address looks at role of government, volunteers
By Karen Wade
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following
is excerpted from a speech by
Karen Wade, director of the
National Park Service’s Intermountain Region, delivered
to ATC members attending
the 2003 conference in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire,
July 26.
y convictions about conservation began forming
in 1978, when I worked
as the southern regional trail
coordinator of the Appalachian Trail project under David Richie [first NPS director
of the A.T. project].
Achieving the goals of the
project (to assure permanent
protection of the Appalachian
Trail) required setting aside
the traditional notions of turf
and responsibility. The relationships that had grown up
with the Trail since its inception were highly complex.
Many players had roles to play,
M
and no entity dominated. And,
importantly, the Appalachian
Trail community—this rather
loose confederation of interests—could only succeed in
permanent protection if it
could convince landowners
that selling land, or providing
easement access, was not only
in the best interests of the
Trail, but was also the highest
and best use of the land.
The legacy of this principle
is present today. Today, each
of us gathered here would say,
“I am the Appalachian Trail.”
And, collectively, that chorus
can be heard across the landscape and has been heard for
generations. The chorus reminds us of the power implicit in connecting ourselves
in common pursuit for the
common good. And, yes, that
chorus makes us feel good.
Because, together, we are the
Appalachian Trail.
Perhaps this chorus should
be a constant reminder to the
nation that special places and
pieces of the landscape cannot
survive and thrive in isolation
any more than individuals
can. All are stronger within
the context of community,
where political, social, environmental, and cultural values
are strong. And stronger where
the community shares the
responsibility for what benefits the whole.
Aldo Leopold said this with
clarity: “There is a clear tendency in American conservation to relegate to government
all necessary jobs that private
landowners fail to perform… .
Most of this growth in governmental conservation is proper
and logical; some of it is inevitable. Nevertheless, the
question arises: What is the
ultimate magnitude of the
enterprise? Will the tax base
carry its eventual ramifications? At what point will
governmental conservation,
like the mastodon, become
handicapped by its own dimensions?”
The answer for conservation, he says, if there is any,
seems to be in appreciating
that the community has a responsibility of shared interest
based on a conservation ethic
of shared values.
The places that we care the
most about have the power to
touch our deepest emotions
and connect us to the greater
good. “I am the Appalachian
Trail” is a refrain that has
resonated in my mind in every
situation that has confronted
me as a park superintendent
since I left the Trail in 1983
and has guided my work for 25
years.
In 1990, after serving as
superintendent in two parks,
I made the decision to accept
a superintendency in Alaska.
Over the course of the next
four years, I learned that even
13
Sidehill
Underhill: Trail protection will never be completed
By Pamela Underhill
EDITOR’S NOTE—The following
is excerpted from A.T. Park
Office Manager Pamela Underhill’s status report to ATC
members at the 34th meeting
of the Conference in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire,
on July 26.
hirty-five years ago, it was
the summer of 1968. Martin Luther King, Jr., had
been assassainated in April,
Bobby Kennedy in June. I was
a nineteen-year-old college
student working for Senator
T
Mike Mansfield, then the Senate majority leader.
Because of the recent assassinations, I was squirreled
away in a little room on Capitol Hill, opening thousands of
pieces of mail a day that people had written, advocating for
or against gun-control legislation. The Vietnam war dragged
on. I’d never even heard of the
Appalachian Trail.
Elsewhere on Capitol Hill,
though, under the leadership
of people like Senator Gaylord
Nelson, the political wheels
were turning and the stars
Corridor countdown
t was the hope of Congress, the federal administration,
and the Trail community that the Appalachian Trail could
be pronounced “fully protected” by the end of the century on December 31, 2000. Now, it appears that the National Park Service portion of the protection program could
be completed in 2003 or 2004, with the Forest Service finishing its portion a year or two later. Footpath tracts are completely acquired in four of the fourteen A.T. states, but many
acres of protective corridor remain privately held. Here is
where the federal and state agencies stood as of July 2003 in
terms of footpath miles (0.5 of one percent) and adjoining
acreage (4.6 percent) left to acquire:
I
States
Maine
New Hampshire
Vermont
Massachusetts
Connecticut
New York
New Jersey
Pennsylvania
Maryland
Virginia
West Virginia/Va.
N.C./Tennessee
Georgia
Total
14
Map Miles
1.6
0.1
0.0
0.1
0.7
0.1
0.0
2.8
3.5
4.4
0.0
1.5
0.0
13.5
Acres
274
4
81
346
243
272
115
140
680
2,356
0
2,794
513
7,498
were beginning to line
up and shine down
brightly on the Appalachian Trail. In late
September, Congress
passed the National
Trails System Act,
and, on October 2,
President Johnson
signed it into law. The
Appalachian Trail was
designated as our nation’s first national
Underhill (right) with former U.S. Sen.
scenic trail.
As important as that Gaylord Nelson, at Bears Den Rocks.
event was, though, it
would prove ultimately less after that quirky rumor got
significant than the amend- started in 1999 that Appalaments to the act that were chian Trail protection would
passed ten years later, in 1978. be “completed” in the year
It was those amendments that 2000. Don King [of the Trail
launched the most complex lands office] never liked that
and most successful land-pro- notion, insisting that that was
tection effort ever undertaken not the best way to frame the
by the National Park Service. question. He suggested inTwenty-five years (and some stead, and I concur, that pro108,000 acres, and more than tection of the Trail will never
2,500 tracts of land) later, the be completed—as such.
effort is almost complete.
We will complete what we
Some tough battles have set out to do, and then some,
been fought, and some abso- and we’ll keep at it until Don
lutely extraordinary places runs out of money. But, the
have been brought into public Trail will not be finished when
ownership—places like Gulf we buy the last tract—we will
Hagas, Nahmakanta Lake, and keep the door always open and
Saddleback in Maine; Sterling be watchful for opportunities
Forest in New York; the Cum- to do more. We can’t expect a
berland Valley in Pennsylva- steady stream of funding, like
nia; and McAfee Knob and the Trail has enjoyed in the
Carvins Cove in Virginia, just past, but, when a compelling
to name a few. Earlier this case can be made, I’m sure
week, Don King of the NPS ATC will make it.
land office brought under conIf it wasn’t for ATC and the
tract the Ovoka Farm property interest and persistence that
in northern Virginia.
your organization has demonA mere sixty-five tracts strated, the National Park
remain in private ownership Service would never have been
in the National Park Service able to accomplish what it
program, and some seventeen has. So, my hat is off to you,
of those were added by me ATC, and I thank you.
GREENWAY
Land-protection and fund-raising news
It’s not “all about money”
By Ken Honick
EDITOR’S NOTE: The following
is excerpted from ATC Treasurer Ken Honick’s report to
members at the 2003 business meeting, held in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire,
July 28. Honick, an A.T.
2,000-miler, lives in Sarasota,
Florida.
bout a year ago, a popular
Trail Web site featured an
editorial headed, “ATC—
It’s all about money now!”
bemoaning an issue of Appalachian Trailways News that
seemed overly focused on
money.
As treasurer of ATC and
also as chair of the membership and development committee, it seems like my involvement with ATC is “all
about money”—monitoring
and overseeing the raising of
money and the spending of
money. In my professional life,
I’m a tax partner in a CPA
firm. Has my life become “all
about money?”
If I didn’t get out on the
Trail and hike each year, I
might come to believe that.
Especially as a solo hiker, I
find hiking to be a very personal, spiritual experience. I
don’t go out to conquer mountains but to be consumed by
them. I’ve just hiked the Long
Trail in Vermont, and, at least
when I’m hiking, nothing is
about money.
If you’ve ever been a longdistance hiker yourself or been
around long-distance hikers or
eavesdropped on hikers the
A
night before they go into town
for a maildrop and to reprovision, you might get the impression that hiking is “all
about food.” It is what we talk
about, fantasize about, and
dream about. It was particularly bad this year. I hiked
with an Appalachian Trail
thru-hiker from France, Daniel. Whenever he would describe some particularly delectable pâté or Bordeaux, he
couldn’t resist exclaiming,
“Bon. C’est magnifique!” and
making the gesture. And, each
time he would bop himself on
the nose with his hiking
stick.
But, do you really believe
that hiking is “all about
food?” Of course not. Food is
just the energy that makes
hiking possible. It’s natural to
fantasize about what we don’t
have but what we want.
It is the same thing at ATC.
Money is the energy we need
to fight racetracks in Pennsylvania, rock quarries in North
Carolina, and telecommunications towers up and down the
Trail. Money enables us to
provide the training and coordination to the volunteers in
the maintaining clubs and to
educate visitors to the Trail
and the general public. Without food, a hiker doesn’t get
far. Without money, ATC is
dead.
ATC is in good financial
health and is living within its
means. Like a thru-hiker, ATC
is lean without much in the
way of reserves. We have
burned off the fat and have
started to burn muscle.
By that, I mean the
staff of the Conference. Burning muscle
is not sustainable on a
long hike. You need
town food and zerodays to recover. But,
ATC hasn’t had either
in the past two years.
Reductions in force,
hiring freezes, and
only minimal salary Ken Honick reports at Waterville
adjustments have been (Photo: Steve Wilson)
the rule. We have
maintained programs at the and expand our environmental
expense of staff. This is not monitoring and educational
sustainable and must be one capabilities. But, ATC is not
of the challenges for our stra- “all about money.” It’s about
people and doing what we can
tegic planning.
In some ways, I wish ATC with what we have. It’s about
were “all about money” and trying to support the clubs and
could do all of the wonderful the volunteers who do the real
things that would protect and work. And, it is about wishing
improve the Trail experience. for more.
I wish we could buy more land
Audit shows good news for ATC
he independent audit of the Conference’s 2002 financial
statements brought a dollop of good news in late July.
The operating surplus for last year was recorded as
$137,219, or about $19,000 more than thought at the time
the annual report was written for the July/August edition
of Appalachian Trailway News.
Moreover, the drop in total net assets—due to unrealized
losses in the value of endowment-fund investments—turned
out to be only 1.1 percent, to $8.35 million, instead of the
2.6 percent reported on the basis of preliminary statements.
Both of those results came in part from a recalculation of
the extent of those unrealized losses, now put at about
$577,000 instead of the $665,600 reported then.
The entire financial statement and notes can be viewed
on the Internet in the “About ATC” section of <www.
appalachiantrail.org>.
T
15
Greenway
TRAIL GIVING
By Christina Auch
illiam James once said, “The greatest use of a life is
to spend it on something that will outlast it.” Life
insurance offers a unique way to leverage relatively
modest annual payments into a sizable charitable gift.
There are four basic ways to benefit the Appalachian Trail
Conference using life insurance:
W
Name the Appalachian Trail Conference as your successor
beneficiary. For example, you own a policy and have named
your spouse as the beneficiary. You could name the Appalachian Trail Conference as successor beneficiary in the
event that your chosen
primary beneficiary dies
before you. There are no
immediate tax benefits,
but, if no successor beneficiary were named, the
death benefit would be
included in your taxable
estate.
Charitable
gifts of life
insurance
Name the Appalachian Trail Conference as your primary
beneficiary. For example, if you purchased a policy several
years ago, but your chosen beneficiary no longer needs the
protection, you can designate the Appalachian Trail Conference to receive the benefit. Once again, your estate would
receive a charitable deduction, and the death benefit would
pass to ATC tax-free.
You can donate an existing policy to the Appalachian Trail
Conference. If you have older insurance policies that you
no longer need and would like a current income-tax deduction, you can donate those contracts to the Appalachian
Trail Conference. As long as all of the rights of ownership
are completely transferred to the Appalachian Trail Conference, you receive a current income-tax deduction, equal to
the lesser of your cost basis or the fair market value of the
policy (roughly equal to the cash surrender value).
Examples of policies that are often no longer needed:
• Estate insurance when your estate has been reduced
below the taxable level
• Mortgage insurance after the mortgage has been repaid
• Life-insurance policies with vanishing premiums that
haven’t vanished. Popular over the past two decades,
those policies are valid assets to fund a charitable gift
or charitable gift annuity. Theoretically, the cash surplus
from premiums paid in the early years earns enough in
later years to pay the premiums. The policy becomes
“self-supporting” at that point. However, often the assumed rate of return is unrealistically high, and the
premium doesn’t vanish as expected.
You can give a new policy to the Appalachian Trail Conference. Many donors would like to make a significant contribution to the Appalachian Trail Conference but simply
don’t have the available funds. If you transfer a newer insurance policy, or even purchase a new policy on your life
and name the Appalachian Trail Conference as owner, you
can achieve your philanthropic goals.
For example, you allow the Appalachian Trail Conference to purchase a $100,000 policy on your life, and, every
year, you donate sufficient funds to the Appalachian Trail
Conference to pay the annual premiums. With this planning, you guarantee that the Appalachian Trail Conference
will receive a sizable donation, whether you pass away 10
years from now or live to be 100. By using life insurance,
you limit your current outlay to a small, deductible annual gift. You can even leverage this current gift further,
by donating highly appreciated assets, such as stocks or
mutual funds, to pay those premiums. You still receive an
income-tax deduction for the gift, and ATC can sell these
assets without paying capital-gains taxes.
For more information about planned gifts to ATC, please feel
free to contact Christina Auch, director of development, by
e-mail at <[email protected]>, by phone at (304)
535-6331, or by writing to P.O. Box 807, Harpers Ferr y, WV
25425. It should be noted that the Conference does not
participate in so-called split-dollar life-insurance policies,
• Business insurance after the business has been sold
• Income-replacement insurance after you’ve retired
16
when the donor or other noncharitable beneficiaries receive
substantial benefit from the proceeds.
Public policy issues . . .
continued from page 8
Many people who know and use the A.T.
know very little about the organization
that manages it.
Startzell said that the Conference has
to do a better job of telling visitors, local
communities, and the public at large
about the nature of ATC’s work and
about the significance of the Trail as a
natural, cultural, and recreational resource.
Lastly, Startzell urged Conference
members to reflect on those issues and
realize that the current organizational
analysis was not an attempt “to redefine
ourselves as a self-defense mechanism
to perpetuate our organizational existence” nor was it merely a ploy “to
further drain [members’] wallets and
your checking accounts. Our mission is
no different today than it has been for
the past 78 years: The preservation and
care of the Trail and its associated resources, and the education of its visitors,
remains as our reason for being, and it
always will. But, if we can become a
stronger and even more effective organization, we believe the Trail and its visitors will be the ultimate beneficiaries.”
Conference officers . . .
V. (Mac) Taylor, Richmond, Virginia;
Barbara L. Wiemann, Northampton,
Pennsylvania; and Steven A. Wilson,
Memorial Gifts
May 1 to September 1, 2003
T RAVIS ARNOLD—Larry and Christie Arnold
ELLIE BENITEZ—Sandra and George Keefe
B RUCE D. CARSWELL, SR.—Mr. and Mrs. James G. Carswell,
Park and Mary Dickerson, Glenn and Mary Froese, Bobby
and Kelly Hanig, Bill and Madeline Hollenbach, Ernest
and Ruth Johnson, Stuart Martin and William Griffin,
Sharlene Ogden, and Mary H. Orr
RICHARD CLAYCOATE—Robert Sevier
HELEN RICHARDSON COYLE—Anonymous donors, Walter and
Helen Armbruster, Wilfred and Maureen Billerbeck, Coyle
& Kleppinger, Inc., Brendan Coyle, Richard Coyle, Robert
and Judith Coyle, Praveen and Chetna Dixit, Beverly K.
Friedman, William and Sandra Kleppinger, Manganaro
Midatlantic, LLC, Martha A. Richardson, Mr. and Ms.
Stephen-Hassard, Thomas and Joan Vollrath, John Wainio,
and Steven Zahniser
RUTH DOWNEY—Jerome and Ann Redus
LARRY T. FITZMAURICE—Peter and Johnnie Bakkum, Glenn
and Karen Dedrick, Steve and Karen Dellinger, Michael
and Lisa Fitzmaurice, Friends of Mike Fitzmaurice at
USAirways, Donald and Brenda Hoffmeyer, I.A.M.A.W.
Local Lodge 1725, Sarah B. Kirschner, Carl and Pam Lancaster, Nancy E. Neely, C. J. Poag, Jerry A. Sedlacek and
Debra A. Flaugher, Steven and Ann Stolte, Clifford and
Lillian Towe, and Victory Mats, Inc.
MICHAEL A. MANES—David Campbell
ALICE LEE WHITENER MASSIE—Dan and Anna Alexander
ANN MCDUFF for a Nantahala Forest shelter project—Anonymous, Dennis L. Fulcher, Sr., Wade and Eugenia Lagrone,
Kingsport, Tennessee. Lewis resigned
about a month later, citing personal commitments. The position will be filled by
the executive committee later this year.
Newcomers to the Board of Managers
are Evans, Metheny, O’Brien, Paradis,
Patch, Taylor, and Wiemann. Elected to
second terms were Ahlen, Burkholder,
Demrow, Fitzgerald, Henry, Kyle, Lewis,
Martin, Skeen, and Wilson. Elected to
their third and final terms in these positions were Almand, Daniels, Foley, Graf,
Honick, Marra, Rogers, Sherwood, Sperry,
and Steinmetz.
As former chairs of the Conference,
Margaret Drummond of Atlanta, Georgia,
Raymond F. Hunt of Kingsport, Tennessee, and David B. Field of Hampden,
Maine, also are voting members of the
Board, along with David N. Startzell,
executive director.
Mallory McDuff and Maya McDuff Rosener, Jon Phipps,
Guy and Kerstan Ruffer, Kenneth and Joyce Stevenson,
and Ultalight Adventure Equipment
M ARTY RATHBURN—Mountain High Hikers
Notable Gifts
May 1 to September 1, 2003
$500–$999
B ANK OF CHARLES TOWN—general support
D EER PARK SPRING WATER—biennial meeting (in-kind)
E ARTH CREATIONS—general support
EQUINOX—Trail-Crew & Ridgerunners (in-kind)
LIBERTY GRAPHICS—grants-for-outreach
Masterfoods USA—volunteer Trail crews
G REAT O UTDOOR P ROVISION C OMPANY —ridgerunners &
caretakers
Equinox, Ltd.—volunteer Trail crew
$1,000–$4,999
A MERICAN BACKCOUNTRY—general support
CLIF BAR—volunteer Trail crews
MBNA AMERICA—general support
NORTH CAROLINA DIVISION OF NATURAL RESOURCES—Rockin’
Horse Volunteer Trail Crew
JOHANETTE WALLERSTEIN INSTITUTE—general support
S IERRA CLUB—Alpine Rose Campaign
VASQUE OUTDOOR FOOTWEAR—volunteer Trail crews
$10,000 and above
F.M. KIRBY FOUNDATION, INC.—general support
L.L.BEAN, INC.—grants to A.T. Clubs
REI, INC.—general support
17
TREELINE
News from along the Appalachian Trail
EPA weakens rules for power-plant emissions
wo weeks after a federal
judge in Ohio found a
power plant guilty of violating federal clean-air regulations, the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) announced August 22 it was
changing those rules—known
as the New Source Review
(NSR)—to allow coal-fired
power plants to upgrade without installing modern pollution controls.
EPA officials called it an
attempt to clarify the regula-
T
tions defining “routine maintenance” and “upgrades.”
The Ohio court decision
was the first in a series of
lawsuits brought against fiftyone power plants alleged to
have violated NSR requirements to clean up emissions
the next time a plant was upgraded. Some of those lawsuits
were brought by the Justice
Department in the 1990s. As
a member of the Hikers for
Clean Air coalition, ATC opposed loosening of the NSR
rules, initially proposed by
EPA in early 2001. New York
Attorney General Eliot
Spitzer, a principal in the lawsuits, said he would challenge
the new NSR regulations in
court in early September.
Just a day or two earlier,
ironically, EPA agreed in a
court settlement with New
York-based Environmental
Defense to propose new rules
to reduce air pollution in national parks and wilderness
areas—effective in April 2005.
Two days after the Ohio
court ruling, The Washington
Post reported that, between
June 24 and 26 this year, smog
monitors near the A.T. in
Shenandoah National Park
and across the area recorded
swift spikes as a mass of polluted air—above federal health
limits—moved east from
Michigan and Ohio and blanketed the Trail from Georgia
to Vermont (see photo, below).
One more spike at some
monitors that week would
A “Code Red” day, with dust and smoke blanketing the East Coast, seen by NASA’s Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor
(SEA WIFS) satellite, June 26, 2003. (Photo: NASA)
18
Treeline
have triggered a rule imposing
tougher traffic-control measures on the affected counties, even though the ozone
came from other states.
Air pollution in the Great
Smokies and Shenandoah
National Park was cited in
late August in a letter to
President Bush and Interior
Secretary Gale Norton, signed
by four former National Park
Service directors and 119
other former high-ranking
NPS officials. They said that
Bush’s “Clear Skies Initiative” cut park professionals
out of the analyses and sanctions required by the Clean
Air Act, one of several actions
they cited in accusing the
administration of failing to
keep its promises to protect
and repair the national park
system, of which the Appalachian Trail is a part.
“We are growing increasingly concerned that, in your
policies and actions, you are
not living up to…the ideals
described in the mission of
the National Park Service,
and, most importantly, you
are not living up to the intent
of the law,” the letter said.
The A.T. was not mentioned in the four-and-a-halfpage letter, which Interior
spokesman Mark Pfiefle dismissed as politically motivated, “misleading, and inaccurate.”
Many of the signers had
expressed similar concerns
N.C. governor signs A.T.
specialty license-plate bill
orth Carolina Governor
Michael Easley—a Trail
supporter as attorney general when the Putnam gravelquarry problem first arose—
signed a bill August 14 that
permits issuance of a special
Appalachian Trail license
plate. A portion of the plate
fee will be sent to the Appalachian Trail Conference to help
pay for projects in North
Carolina. The design work is
just beginning, but each plate’s
“number” will end in “AT.”
The trademark A.T. trailmarker diamond will be incorporated. Details on how to
sign up for one and a form
are available at <www.appalachiantrail.org>.
The bill, passed in the waning hours of the North Caro-
N
lina General Assembly’s session, authorized the special
Appalachian Trail license
plate if 300 Tar Heel drivers
sign up for it. It would cost $50
a year, with $20 earmarked for
ATC projects in North Carolina, home to about 285 miles
of the A.T. (counting borderstraddling stretches) and more
than 3,000 ATC members.
State Senator Joe Sam
Queen championed the measure, with ATC member Clark
Wright a significant instigator
from outside the legislature.
Queen—an architect who also
is involved in many bluegrass
music festivals within reach
of the Trail—represents a
western North Carolina district and lives near Asheville.
about undermining the parks
in mid-May in a letter to Bush
that also went unanswered.
Both were coordinated by the
Campaign to Protect America’s Lands, a nonprofit organization that is part of the
watchdog Environmental Integrity Project headed by Eric
Schaeffer, who resigned in
March 2002 as enforcement
chief at EPA to protest the
moves underway to weaken
the NSR rules.
In mid-September, the National Parks Conservation
Association (NPCA) led more
than 165 groups in urging
Congress to take action to
restore air quality in America’s parks. That group, a coplaintiff with ATC in fighting
a gravel quarry near the Trail
on the North Carolina–Tennessee border, noted that the
Smokies park has been on its
“most endangered” list for
the last five years because of
air pollution surpassing even
that of some large cities.
[EDITOR’S NOTE: See also the
article on page 26 about an
“ultrarunner’s” plight during
a traverse of the Smokies.]
Georgia teen-ager dies
on Trail in Virginia
he Virginia State Police
reported that Danita
Ritchie, 15, of Gwinnett
County, Georgia, died July 2,
apparently from medical
causes, while hiking with a
group of other young people
from home and four adults.
Ritchie was stricken on the
A.T. about thirty miles south
of Harpers Ferry, West Vir-
T
ginia, in Clarke County, Virginia, on the section between
where the Trail crosses U.S.
50 and where it crosses Va. 7,
in a steep, rocky section
known as “the Roller Coaster.”
The precise cause of death
was unknown, pending an
autopsy.
Dangerous Pennsylvania highway crossing to be bridged
onstruction of a longawaited pedestrian bridge
above Pa. 225, on the
Trail about seven miles north
of the Susquehanna River,
began in late August and is
scheduled to be finished in
mid-October.
The walkway, 75 feet long
C
and 8 feet wide and financed
by a “transportation enhancement” (TEA-21) grant from
the state, will stretch from
cliff to cliff, taking hikers off
a dangerous road walk at a
blind curve, one of the Trail’s
most dangerous crossings.
19
Loop Routes
A new ATN feature: Whatever else it has in store for you,
the Appalachian Trail won’t throw you for a loop. Unless
you’re hiking end to end or have a ride waiting at your
destination, you often end up having to retrace your steps.
That’s where Appalachian Trailway News’s new feature,
“Loop Routes,” comes in.
If you’re not wedded to white-blaze-only hiking and are
willing to combine the A.T. with roadwalks and other trails,
you can enjoy many parts of the Trail as part of loop hikes.
Beginning with this issue, Appalachian Trailway News will
The B’s of Maine
ask volunteer members of ATC’s thirty-one Trail-maintaining clubs to describe some of their favorite loop hikes along
the Trail.
The hikes described in this series will follow no particular order, and the club members we ask are free to recommend hikes outside the sections of the Trail that their clubs
look after. But, for our first installment, we decided to start
at the top. We asked Phil Pepin of the Maine Appalachian
Trail Club for his favorite loops. And they were, not surprisingly, in Maine.
■
By Phil Pepin
Bigelow Mountain Loop
is one of Maine’s jewels and is well worth the effort.
The Stratton and Bigelow area is rich in history. If you have the ■ Begin at a parking area near Stratton Brook Pond. To reach
opportunity, I strongly suggest a visit to the Stratton Area Histhe parking area by car, follow Maine 27 approximately four
torical Society. There, you can find historical treasures detailto five miles south of Stratton, Maine, or 3.5 miles north
ing the making of Flagstaff Lake in 1949, which sent the two
from the Sugarloaf Ski area access road, to Stratton Brook
villages of Flagstaff and Dead River to a watery grave and wiped
Pond Road. At 0.9 mile from the highway, you will cross the
out a former route of the Appalachian Trail. Learn more about
Appalachian Trail. The parking area is located 1.8 miles from
the Appalachian Trail pioneers, such as Myron Avery and Helon
Maine 27.
Taylor, as well the workings of the former Forest Service fire ■ From the parking area (elev. 1,253 feet), follow an old road,
cross the outlet of Stratton Brook Pond at mile 0.4, and conwatchtowers on Avery Peak.
tinue along above the pond another to the intersection of the
This difficult, 12.3-mile loop (13.1 miles, if you include the
Fire Warden’s Trail, which follows an old tote road bearing
climb to Avery Peak) involves a vertical rise of more than 2,850
left at mile 0.8.
feet. It’s a challenge either as a long day-hike or as an overnight
trip. Don’t underestimate the difficulty: Allow for a full day if ■ From the old road, follow the Fire Warden’s Trail, ascending
steadily, until Horns Pond Trail intersects at mile 2.3.
you attempt it as a day-hike. A better choice is as an overnight
hike, but plan on lots of company if camping at Horns Pond or ■ Turn left on Horns Pond Trail, which climbs steadily through
hardwoods, then through a magnificent stand of spruce. It
Bigelow Col during the summer. Even so, Bigelow Mountain
skirts a beaver pond, with a view toward South
Horn at mile 3.6, and then continues a steady
climb to the junction with the Appalachian
Myron H.
Trail at mile 4.7, near Horns Pond.
Bigelow Mountain
The Horns Pond
Avery Peak
North Horn
■ Turn right, following the A.T. to Horns Pond
Horns Pond Lean-to
k
So
Bigelo
t Pea
uth
at mile 4.9, and past the Horns Pond shelters
w Col
Wes
Ho
rn
at mile 5.1. Fishing and camping are available
at Horns Pond, a mountain tarn. Plan on lots
Cranberry Pond
of company here and at Bigelow Col (below).
Appalachian Trail
■ Climb steeply, using rock steps, up the Horns,
Horns Pond Trail
two dramatic peaks on the west side of Bigelow
Mountain. Pass a short side trail at mile 5.5
Fire Warden's Trail
that leads 0.2 mile to the summit of North
Horn and an impressive view of Flagstaff Lake
Maine 27
Stratton Brook
and the mountains stretching to the Canadian
border. Reach the summit of South Horn (elev.
Stratton Brook Pond
3,805 feet) at mile 5.6.
20
■
Bemis Mountain Lean-to
Second Peak
Maine 17
East Peak
West Peak
Bemis Stream Trail
Old railroad grade
Elephant
Mountain
Appalachian Trail
Bemis Mountain Loop
This loop traverses the Bemis Range, with four distinct peaks
and a number of minor ones. The peaks are all open, and there
are long stretches of open ledge between them, affording views
of the Rangeley-area chain of lakes to the north and most of
the major peaks to the northwest. Relatively few people visit
this section of the Maine A.T., due to its distance from urban
areas as well as the preference of most hikers to tackle the more
prominent peaks of Saddleback and Bigelow.
This moderate-to-difficult 14.1-mile loop follows rough
footway, with roots, rocks, and mud, and includes some steep
climbs over ledges and boulders. It is much easier to complete
if you use the Bemis Stream Trail as the initial access to the
area. It makes a long, yet rewarding day-hike or a fine overnight
hike. Either way, you will leave the area with a new appreciation of the Maine woods and the efforts it took to build the
Trail through such rugged terrain.
■ Begin the hike at the trailhead for the Bemis Stream Trail.
A parking area is located 11.0 miles south of Oquossoc,
Maine, on Maine 17, 0.5 mile south of the Appalachian Trail
crossing.
■ Bemis Stream Trail is south of the parking area (elev. 2,058
ft.), at mile 0.2. The hike begins gradually, as the route descends to Bemis Valley and then ascends, following Bemis
Stream through the valley. This was the route of the Appalachian Trail to the Four Ponds area of Maine before the A.T.
was relocated in 1958. Descend to an old railroad-grade crossing (elev. 1,692 feet) at mile 1.3. This is the old Rumford Falls
and Rangeley Lakes narrow-gauge railroad, which was abandoned during the years of the Great Depression. From there,
the Bemis Stream Trail ascends gradually along Bemis
Stream, crossing and recrossing it four times.
is
St
re
am
Third Peak
Be
m
■
Follow a long ridge toward West Peak, the high point of
Bigelow Mountain. Short, steep climbs with a tangle of roots
and rocky footing make this a slow hike. Climb to the open
summit of West Peak (elev. 4,145 feet) at mile 7.7, with
outstanding views in all directions.
Descend on the A.T. into Bigelow Col, where a tentsite is
located at mile 8.0. The Fire Warden’s Trail intersects here.
You have the option of continuing up the A.T. 0.4 mile to
Avery Peak, camping at one of the several tentsites available
(water is scarce during the summer months) at Bigelow Col,
or returning to the parking area via the Fire Warden’s Trail,
for a 12.6-mile loop. Avery Peak (elev. 4,088 feet) offers rewarding views of northwestern Maine and Canada, including
a distant Katahdin on clear days. The plaque on the summit
commemorates the efforts of Maine native Myron Avery,
whose drive led volunteers to complete construction of the
Maine-to-Georgia A.T.
From Bigelow Col, mile 8.0, descend steeply on the Fire
Warden’s Trail, following rock steps. At mile 9.0, you will
find a campsite and good water from a stream. From here,
the trail descends more gradually and soon reaches the junction with the Horns Pond Trail at mile 10.3. Retrace your
steps for the final 2.3 miles to complete the loop.
Be
m
is
M
ou
nt
ain
■
Maps—Bigelow Mountain Loop: Maine A.T. Guide/Map #5;
Bemis Mountain Loop: Map—Maine A.T. Guide/Map #7.
Highlights—Wild and unspoiled woodlands and alpine-zone
summits, outstanding foliage change in the fall months.
■
■
■
■
At mile 5.3, near the site of the former Elephant Mountain
Lean-to on the former A.T. route, the Bemis Stream Trail
begins climbing more steeply toward the ridge of Bemis
Mountain. Reach the ridgeline, and the Appalachian Trail,
at mile 6.3. Turn right (northbound) on the Appalachian Trail,
and begin the traverse.
Ascend toward the West Peak of Bemis Mountain (elev. 3,592
feet), at mile 7.3. Continue along the A.T., crossing the East
Peak (elev. 3,532 feet) at mile 7.4 and the Third Peak (elev.
3,115 feet) at mile 8.6. Hiking can be slow at times because
of the numerous ups and downs typical of the Maine mountains. Pass the Bemis Mounain Lean-to, with a spring nearby,
at mile 9.0. Cross Second Peak (elev. 2,915 feet) at mile 10.5
and First Peak (elev. 2,604 feet) at mile 11.4. Cross a series
of knobs above treeline, with fine views, and begin descending toward Bemis Stream at mile 12.1.
Cross a railroad bed at mile 12.6. This is the same grade you
crossed at mile 1.3 above. In the event of high water on Bemis
Stream, you can cross on a bridge about 1.0 mile east of here,
near the Bemis Stream Trail. Reach Bemis Stream (elev. 1,530
feet), and ford it at mile 12.8. Ascend to the A.T. road crossing at Maine 17, at mile 13.6. Turn right on Maine 17.
Roadwalk for half a mile along Maine 17 to the parking lot
and the end of the loop, at mile 14.1.
21
t had never dawned on hiker George Zigenfuss that a bullet fired from a rifle breaks the sound barrier—not until a
deer hunter fired one at him last January.
“I heard this shot, to my left,” Zigenfuss recalled. “The
[shock wave from] breaking the sound barrier when the
bullet came at me just smacked me in the face. I actually remember looking at the trees to see how much of me had been
plastered up against them. With that, I just fell.”
The bullet, a big, .44-caliber round fired from an old-fashioned
“black powder” rifle, hit Zigenfuss in the lower back as he was
day-hiking up a section of the Appalachian Trail in southwest
Virginia on a favorite four-mile loop. It clipped off three bony
knobs along his spine, bruised his spinal cord, punctured a lung,
and lodged near his rib cage. Fortunately, it did not break
through the rib cage to his heart.
Zigenfuss, 72, a retired Lutheran minister and A.T. thruhiker, recalled the incident recently from his home near Bland,
Virginia, where he is still recuperating from the shooting and
other health problems. He nearly died from the
wounds, he said, and was paralyzed for several days because of the trauma to his
spinal cord. He’s walking again, but still
has considerable numbness from the
hips down.
Many Appalachian Trail hikers
don’t realize that hunting is legal
along large sections of the Trail, including the portion of the Jefferson
National Forest that Zigenfuss was
hiking, north of Laurel Creek near
Bland. Between Georgia and Maine,
the footpath passes through a patchwork of different kinds of public and
private landownership, some of which forbid
hunting, some of which permit it. Hikers, knowing they are on a national scenic trail that is a unit of
the national park system, often assume that hunting is forbidden on the A.T. It is a dangerous assumption to make.
Hunting is indeed forbidden on parts of the Trail, such as
where it runs through the Great Smoky Mountains National
Park and Shenandoah National Park. And, it is technically
forbidden on the 600 miles of the Trail corridor that the National Park Service A.T. Park Office administers. But, except
in the big national parks, the corridor is often quite narrow, and
hunters on public and private lands along either side of it may
not be aware that they are near the boundaries.
Other parts of the Trail, such as where it passes through state
game lands in Pennsylvania, or in parts of national forests and
wildlife sanctuaries, are open to hunters during hunting season.
Incidents of hunters shooting near hikers historically have been
rare, but Zigenfuss’s near-fatal wounding, and the wounding of
another hiker in the Chattahoochee National Forest in Georgia
in late 2002, were grim reminders that A.T. hikers should check
the calendar before heading into the woods.
Hunting regulations are complex and vary from state to state
and then often vary from county to county within each indi22
vidual state. Hunting regulations and seasons are now available
online for each of the fourteen Trail states. Those electronic
guides (in most cases, the same document that is available in
print) should be scrutinized carefully to determine precisely
how rules apply to a particular part of the Trail.
The following chart gives a general calendar of hunting seasons in the Trail states. Of greatest concern to hikers are the
large-animal hunting seasons, when hunters are in the woods
with guns looking for deer, turkey, bear, moose, boar, and elk.
Each of those animals has its specific hunting season and specific days and weapons that hunters can use, but, for the sake
of simplicity, the chart combines them.
ATC recommends that hikers wear blaze or hunter orange
while hiking during hunting seasons; a blaze-orange pack
cover is available from the Conference’s store and a blaze-orange
bandanna soon will be. Most Trail states require that hunters
wear some form of blaze orange, generally a hat and, when
hunting for big game, an upper body garment.
Zigenfuss figured he was safe enough. He knew
the Trail, and he was an experienced hiker. It
was New Years Day, the last day of blackpowder season in Virginia, and he was
hiking a section of the Trail he knew
extremely well—a loop from Laurel
Creek up Brushy Mountain on the
A.T. and the blue-blazed Trail Boss
Trail.
“There had never been a hunter
there that I’d seen,” he said. “Since
we moved here in 1998, I would be
willing to bet I have done that section
from Va. 615 to the Boss and back
seven to eight hundred times, and I had
never seen a hunter before.”
Since thru-hiking the Trail in 1989, Zigenfuss has taken many day hikes and two long section-hikes on it. After he retired in 1996, he was forced to cut
short another northbound thru-hike when he reached Delaware
Water Gap, Pennsylvania. His goal for 2003 was to get into top
shape again, pick up where he had left off, and hike the A.T.
from Delaware Water Gap to Baxter State Park and then along
the International Appalachian Trail to the Gaspé Peninsula of
Canada. Four or five times a week, he would drive the five miles
to Laurel Creek, park the car, and hike either the four-mile loop
up to the Trail Boss Trail or a seven-mile loop along the A.T.
and the High Water Trail, south of the creek.
He went light that day—just a jacket over his shirt and shorts.
After parking his car, he started north on the A.T., which begins
climbing the slope of Brushy Mountain, leading toward U.S. 52
and Interstate 77 near Bland. “I enjoy the early-morning hours,
“ he said. “It’s the most beautiful time of the day, and I like to
try to start my day with a hike. It had rained the night before
and was slightly overcast, but the woods were clear, with no
snow. For the first of January, it was very mild. I started with
a light jacket and took the jacket off, because I had worked up
a sweat.”
-AINE
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.EW9ORK
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SEP
o
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OCT
o
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NOV
o
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DEC
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JAN
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FEB
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MAR
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APR
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www.dec.state.ny.us
MAY
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OCT
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DEC
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APR
n Large game/firearm oLarge game/bow pTurkey/firearm
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www.dep.state.ct.us/burnatr
MAY
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#ONNECTICUT
-ASSACHUSETTS
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MAY
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JAN
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FEB
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MAY
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www.wildlife.state.nh.us
Hunting Seasons 2003-4
6ERMONT
.EW(AMPSHIRE
www.state.me.us
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Deer firearm season
23
.EW*ERSEY
0ENNSYLVANIA
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24
A short way into the woods, he passed
a hunter sitting down in the woods next
to the Trail. Zigenfuss was not wearing
blaze-orange clothing, but neither was
the hunter. “He was at the base of the
mountain,” Zigenfuss said. “I later
learned that he was the brother of the
man who shot me. I said, ‘Good morning,’
and kept on.
“I was thinking about starting out the
first of the year like this and looking
forward to jumping on the Trail where I
left off in 1996 at Delaware Water Gap,
then hiking up to the Gaspé Peninsula. I
hear there’s a lot of road walking, but I
was looking forward to finding out. I was
just in there about three-quarters of mile
when it happened.”
The hunter was farther down the hill
than Zigenfuss. He later testified in court
that he had seen a deer nearby moments
before, looked through his sights and saw
white, and fired.
“I still find it difficult to believe that
it happened—I still get very angry over
such absolute stupidity on the hunter’s
part,” Zigenfuss said. “I am not a deer.
“It hit me in the back, and I couldn’t
move my legs. I was too darn mad to pass
out, though. I’m afraid that some of the
packed-up language came out, language
that I threw at the hunter. It seemed like
it took him about ten, fifteen minutes
before he came out of the woods and
helped me.”
“I thought I was going to die, because
the light seemed to be passing from me,”
Zigenfuss said. “Then, I just got so mad
about the stupidity of the whole thing
that I didn’t lose it. I was conscious, but
I couldn’t see. I just yelled at him, and he
came out. Thankfully, he and his brother
had walkie-talkies, so he called his
brother, who went out and got to a phone
and called the rescue squad. I never saw
his face.”
It did not hurt so much at first, Zigenfuss said, but, after about fifteen minutes,
the initial shock wore off, and the pain
began. “I was in such horrendous pain,”
he recalled. “If you were my worst enemy,
I wouldn’t wish that kind of pain on you.
To this day, I can’t watch those shoot-em-
Deer firearm
4ENNESSEE
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'EORGIA
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APR
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.ORTH#AROLINA
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up television shows because I remember
the pain—I never realized how much pain
there is in being wounded. It gives me a
greater appreciation for those Civil War
people who were shot by black-powder
weapons.”
The next few hours were something of
a blur for him. He said that one of the first
things the responders from the local rescue squad did was give him a shot for the
pain, so he never passed out, but he was
only vaguely aware of what was happening to him and the people around him.
When they spoke to him, he was able to
respond, and he was aware of being carried down the mountain, put in the back
of an ambulance, then transferred to a
helicopter for evacuation to a hospital in
Bristol, Tennessee. At the hospital, surgeons were able to stop the bleeding, reinflate his collapsed lung, and drain his
wounds.
Zigenfuss was in bed for more than a
week before he regained use of his legs
and began a slow, painful recovery that
involved several trips to the hospital for
recurring problems with infection in the
bullet wound. Eventually, though, he
came home, and, after a few days, he
bought a walker and began doing leg lifts
and laps around the house.
“I was confined to the house for a
couple of months,” he said. “When I was
finally able to go out, I started walking
on the road in front of my house and got
myself up to about a mile on the road,
twice a day. Then, one day, I asked my
wife to run me down to the Trail and
walked in a tenth of a mile there. I
wanted to walk back to where I was shot.
Gradually, I was able to stay up longer
and longer on my feet and finally was able
to walk up to the place where I was shot.
That was a mile and a half, up and back.”
Zigenfuss had worked himself back up to
being able to hike four miles a day when
another health problem cropped up, and
he underwent a colon resection, which
set him back again.
“I’m eager to get back out there,” he
said. “I need to hike like people need to
breathe. But, the whole experience made
me very much aware of how absolutely
short life can be and that we aren’t neces-
o
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Deer firearm
25
REFLECTIONS
Into Thick Air
We didn’t get any submissions on our announced topic, “Fall
Colors,” for this issue’s “Reflections.” Instead, we include an
article by Will Harlan, editor of Blue Ridge Outdoors. Will is
a competitive “ultrarunner”—one of those dedicated souls who
tackle great distances and difficult terrain in a runner’s singlet,
shorts, a light pack, and waffle shoes. In mid-July, he ran the
length of the Appalachian Trail in the Great Smoky Mountain
National Park, from Davenport Gap to Fontana Dam, “to raise
public awareness about poor air quality” in support of the
Canary Coalition, an environmental organization. He completed the 72-mile section of Trail in about 28 hours. But, as
he climbed into the highest parts of the park, where the A.T.
follows ridges more than 6,000 feet above sea level, including
the high point of the Trail at Clingmans Dome, he suffered a
pollution-induced asthma attack that nearly ended his attempt. It was the first such attack he had ever experienced.
Breathless
Will Harlan
6 a.m. — Davenport Gap
y wife and crew chief, Emily, arrives with me at Davenport
Gap in the dark. Here the Appalachian Trail enters the
northeastern edge of Great Smoky Mountains National
Park, and here is where I will begin a seventy-two-mile run to
promote clean air in these smoggy mountains. I stuff down a
few of Emily’s vegan muffins. Then, I kiss her good-bye and
begin running the white-blazed footpath. The highest mountains on the entire Trail are found along this section. The first
five miles include more than 3,000 feet of elevation gain. I climb
steadily through the morning fog, reaching Mount Cammerer
around daybreak.
M
8:45 a.m.—Snake Den Ridge Trail junction
About twelve miles into the run. So far, it’s been almost completely uphill. Many sections of the Trail are choked with
vegetation; some sections are so overgrown that six-foot-tall
tendrils of blackberry brambles criss-cross the Trail. One
thicket trips me and sends me face-first into the rocks.
10 a.m.— Mount Guyot
I wind through scenic cloudscapes of the Smokies. It feels great
to be so completely alive amid all of this beauty. I refill my
water bottles from springs trickling along the Trail and eat my
first energy bar.
26
11:30 a.m.—Icewater Spring
Ultrarunning queen and good friend Anne Riddle meets me
around mile twenty-two and runs the rest of the way to Newfound Gap. In my excitement to see her, I forget to refill my
water bottles at nearby springs and run the next six miles
parched and dehydrated. But, I don’t really notice. Anne’s good
spirits keep me feeling great, and she helps me maintain a
comfortable, steady pace. Finally, we reach the Icewater Spring
Shelter at mile twenty-eight, where I gulp down cool mountain
water.
1 p.m.—Newfound Gap
I arrive at Newfound Gap. Supporters and Canary Coalition
Executive Director Avram Friedman meet me at the Trailhead
and welcome me to mile thirty-one. The bustling parking lot
is filled with hikers and tourists, many of whom are milling
around the Canary Coalition table. Also at Newfound Gap are
Asheville runners Randy Ashley and Scott Bowers. Randy, a
two-time Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier, is a running hero
Send us your reflections
Reflections is where we ask you to consider the Trail and
tell stories about subjects close to it and you. The list below
notes upcoming topics and the deadlines for submissions.
We look for sincerity, thoughtfulness, humor, sensitivity
to the privacy of others, and factual accuracy. Because of
space limitations, we cannot print everything we receive.
We may edit your article—perhaps heavily—to fit our
format. Submissions must be typed and double-spaced or
submitted via electronic mail (editor@appalachiantrail.
org) to be considered. If you would like your submission
back, please enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope.
We must wait until the last minute to make our final selections, so we cannot answer questions regarding the
status of submissions or provide criticism.
We invite you to write on the following topics. Submission deadlines are:
Issue
March 2004
May 2004
July 2004
September 2004
Topic
Winter hiking
“Gone fishin’ ”
Nature’s classroom
Stranger in a
strange land
November 2004 Bites and stings
Deadline
December 15, 2003
March 1, 2004
May 1, 2004
July 1, 2004
September 1, 2004
Reflections
and a long-time mentor; Scott, president of the Asheville Track
Club, is a loyal friend who has helped promote the run and been
incredibly supportive of my efforts. Randy and Scott help me
prepare for the next eight-mile section to Clingmans Dome,
which they will run with me. Emily, meanwhile, spreads a
bonanza of fruits and carbohydrates before me: fresh strawberries, peanut-butter sandwiches, soy ham-and-cheese sandwiches, pretzels, defizzed Coca-Cola, and more of those delicious vegan muffins.
I reload, relube, and return to the Trail with Scott and
Randy at 1:30 p.m. The sun has broken through the clouds, and
the afternoon is heating up quickly.
2:30 p.m.—Mount Collins
The climb to Clingmans Dome gets steep. At 6,640 feet, it’s
the highest point on the Appalachian Trail. Randy and Scott
help me run the flats, occasional downhills, and a few of the
moderate ascents. I walk the steeper, longer climbs. Along the
way, Scott asks thought-provoking questions that keep my mind
off the heat and hurt, while Randy entertains us with inspiring
stories—and a few lewd, obscene, and outlandish ones—to keep
us going.
3 p.m.—Clingmans Dome
I’m starting to feel lightheaded, and I notice my breathing is
shallow. It hurts to breathe in deeply. I attribute it to the high
elevation and keep cranking up the mountain. Unprepared for
the ruggedness and steepness of this eight-mile stretch, we do
not bring enough water, so Randy runs ahead to Clingmans
Dome to get us more fluids, while Scott and I trudge up the
Trail. Randy returns with water bottles about a half-mile from
the summit.
3:30 p.m.—Clingmans Dome
Once at the top of Clingmans, I guzzle more fluids and rest
against a spruce tree, trying to catch my breath. Emily meets
me there with more snacks, and we briefly discuss our final
meeting point, twenty miles ahead at Russell Field Shelter (mile
fifty-eight). I restock my pack with energy bars, gels, and electrolyte tablets, but, in my lightheaded delirium, I do not pack
the headlamp. Instead, I ask Emily to bring the headlamp to
the final resupply point. I’m having a lot of trouble breathing.
My breaths are rapid and shallow, and it is difficult to inhale
deeply without coughing. With a long downhill stretch ahead,
I hope that the lower elevation will alleviate my breathing
problems. A group of hikers greet us, and they are very supportive of the clean-air run. “Thank you,” says the female
leader of the hiking group. Her words inspire me to get back on
my feet. I hobble and wheeze down the Trail.
6 p.m.—Double Spring Shelter
Breathing problems have worsened dramatically. I’m breathing
really shallow and rapidly, unable to take any kind of deep
inhalation. I can’t make it up hills without walking very
slowly, careful not to get my breathing too fast. I hyperventilate
on a long uphill climb near Double Spring Shelter and have to
sit down in the Trail to catch my breath.
I’m having an asthma attack.
The Smokies’ air-pollution readings register in the orangealert zone on this Saturday afternoon, meaning that it’s literally unsafe to breathe in our nation’s second most-visited national park. The irony of a clean-air run being slowed by pollution-induced asthma is quite fitting. I’ve never had any kind of
asthma or respiratory problems. Yet, I am clearly experiencing
an asthma attack caused by dangerous levels of air pollution.
(Doctors later confirmed that the asthma attack was likely
triggered by air pollution.) I check my map and my watch; I’m
still thirteen miles from Emily and Russell Field Shelter. For
the first time, I begin to doubt my ability to finish.
8 p.m. —Derrick Knob Shelter
Wheezing and lightheaded, I stumble into the shelter area to
refill water bottles. A couple is cooking dinner over a portable
stove near the shelter, and I ask them if they know anything
about asthma. The husband is a phys-ed major and offers a brief
explanation: Asthma causes air exchange tubes in my lungs
(called alveoli) to collapse, blocking the full exchange of oxygen
and carbon dioxide. Rest, and a shot of albuterol from an inhaler, can restore their function, but continued exercise will
likely prevent the collapsed air tubes from rebuilding. In other
words, continuing to run is only going to make my breathing
worse and, without enough oxygen intake, could cause me to
lose consciousness. It wasn’t exactly the pep talk I was looking
for. He suggests that I breathe through a wet cloth to help resaturate my dried-out lungs. My sweaty running singlet is
certainly wet enough, and it seems to make my breathing a bit
less labored and wheezy on the uphills. But, I am still almost
nine miles from Russell Field Shelter, with a brutal climb up
Thunderhead Mountain just ahead. And, the sun is about to
sink behind the mountains.
9:30p. m.—Thunderhead Mountain
Slow going. Breathing still bad. Trail is tough. And, in the forest at dusk, it’s difficult to see the path beneath my feet. I
stumble across the rocks and trip over exposed roots, occasionally knocking me off my feet and off the Trail. It’s completely
dark now. A whippoorwill calls through the trees.
10 p.m.—Rocky Top
I finally reach the grassy fields of Thunderhead Mountain and,
a few minutes later, the exposed granite of Rocky Top. Stars
shine through the gloaming. If I weren’t wheezing and hyperventilating, I might enjoy this peaceful mountain moment
beneath the stars. In the dark, it’s hard to follow the meandering Trail across the grassy bald. At one point, I wander off-Trail
and accidentally step on some kind of small mammal, which
27
Reflections
squeals and scurries into the waist-high grass. I drink the last
dribbles of water from my bottles. I try to calculate how far I
am from the next shelter, but it’s too dark to read my map.
Suddenly, I hear a loud crash beside me on the Trail, followed
by a deep growl. I faintly make out the furry outline of a bear.
It runs away from me into the woods and growls again. I try to
keep calm and stumble onward along the dark footpath.
10:30 p.m.—Spence Field Shelter
I can’t breathe. I can’t see. And, I don’t want to jump another
bear. So, I plan to stop at the next shelter—Spence Field Shelter—which is somewhere nearby. It’s not directly along the
A.T., and I can’t read my map to find it. Nor can I read the Trail
signs. Even when I try to Braille-read the wood-carved trail signs
using my fingers, I don’t feel any letters that spell “shelter.” I
blindly wander the A.T. and the side trails searching for the
shelter, but no luck. For the first time, I realize that I could be
in a bit of trouble. Exasperated and still hyperventilating every
hundred yards or so, I sit down in the Trail to catch my breath.
In vain, I spread out my map before me and hope that perhaps
my eyes will adjust. After five minutes, I still can’t see anything
on the map. My sweat-heavy shorts and shirt stick to my body,
and I’m starting to shiver now in the cool night air. Why didn’t
I bring my headlamp? Why didn’t I bring matches or a light
source? What was I thinking? Somewhere in the dark recesses
of my oxygen-starved brain, a light goes on—actually, more of
a phosphorescent glow. I suddenly remember that I packed a
watch with an Indiglo light button. I dig through the pack, find
my watch, and use the illumination to read the map. The shelter—and a nearby spring—are a quarter-mile away on a side
trail. I hobble along the rocky trail and collapse on the dirt floor
of the open-air shelter—at least a haven from bears and threesided protection from the cool wind. Three college kids are
sleeping in the bunks; one of them lends me a sheet. I strip off
my wet clothes and wrap myself naked in the sheet. After a few
hours, my breathing begins to slow down. I wait sleeplessly for
the first signs of daybreak and worry about Emily, who is
stranded at another shelter three miles away wondering what
has happened to her husband.
Sunday, 6 a.m.—Mt. Squires
At the first blush of twilight, I slide back into my sweaty clothes
and scamper down the Trail. After sitting for eight hours in the
shelter, my breathing has mostly returned to normal, and I am
running strong. Perhaps I can still finish the run after all. But,
all I can think about right now is getting to Russell Field Shelter and to Emily.
6:45 a.m.—Russell Field Shelter
I arrive at Russell Field, where three friendly guys packing up
at the shelter inform me that Emily stayed the night there and
was already hiking back to her car down a side trail. They assure
me that they watched out for her and lent her blankets and pads
28
to sleep on. They even protected her from a bear that visited
the shelter the previous evening. At this point, my only option
is to meet her at the finish, some fourteen miles away.
8 a.m.—Mollies Ridge Shelter
I fly down the Trail and power-hike the steep uphills. I’m moving really well. I stop briefly here to chat with a thru-hiker and
refill my water, then continue through Devil’s Tater Patch, over
Doe Knob, and up the steep, scenic Shuckstack Mountain. Along
the way, I see lots of berry-lined bear scat. Once, I’m pretty sure
I hear a bear bolting away in the woods nearby. I also see wild
boar tracks in the Trail mud.
10 a.m.—Fontana Lake
I plunge down the long downhill toward Fontana. About two
miles before the dam, I cross paths with Canary Coalition
Executive Director Avram Friedman, who had slept in his car
and hiked in from Fontana to meet me. He hugs me and is relieved to see that I am okay. I glide down the final two miles
along A.T. singletrack and then run the endless 1.5-mile stretch
of pavement to the Fontana Dam finish. At 10 a.m. Sunday,
almost twenty-eight hours since I set foot on the A.T., I arrive
at the southwestern edge of the Smokies and the end of my
journey. Afterward, I kiss my teary-eyed wife, who endured
anguish and showed courage through it all. Scott, Randy, and
Avram are also at the finish to greet me.
I’ve learned more in the past twenty-eight hours than any
other period of my life. Along the way, I was buoyed by the
support of the hikers, tourists, and crew. Though a pollutioninduced asthma attack had slowed—and nearly ended—the
clean-air run, teamwork, patience, and perseverance enabled
us to successfully reach the goal. It will require a similar kind
of dogged determination to clean up our dirty mountain air. I’m
confident that the region’s clean-air supporters—everyone from
track-club presidents and elite runners to casual day-hikers—
have the grit and soul-fire to go the distance.
Will Harlan lives in Asheville,
North Carolina, and is a member of the grassroots Canary
Coalition. For information
about the organization and its
mission to fight air pollution in
the Great Smoky Mountains,
see its World Wide Web site,
<www.canarycoalition.org>.
His account first appeared in
Smoky Mountain News. The
air that July day exceeded the
ozone standard, especially for
higher elevations.
Keynote . . .
the giant, 13-million-acre Wrangell–St.
Elias National Park and Preserve, the
largest park in the U.S. park system, could
not be saved unless the citizens of this
country were committed to that course
of action. Nothing is big enough, or remote enough, or secure enough, to ensure
its protection without society’s commitment. It was in Alaska that I began to
understand Leopold, when he said that
“a conservation ethic changes the role of
homo sapiens from conqueror of the land
community to plain member and citizen
of it.” I began to wonder: Is that what it
means when we used to talk about the
Trail like it was human…, when we used
to feel so strongly about our role that we
would say, “We are the Appalachian
Trail”?
Suddenly, I began to ponder whether
there was a national park where I could
engage myself in an experiment to test
the “We are the Appalachian Trail” theory—the theory that mankind could put
a place above itself in importance, in the
common good. Prior experience told me
that if I was going to test Leopold, and
the A.T. theory, I needed to go to the
Great Smoky Mountains, where the place
was recognized as part of a large regional
cultural and natural system—the Appalachians.
In 1994, I chose to plunk myself down
in the midst of pressures from urbanization, habitat destruction, vanishing species, and degradation of air and water.
Now, some ten years later, I can honestly
say that humans are willing to take a
most remarkable journey connecting
them to a place where they can see the
Earth as a delicate, single organism. For
example, significant numbers of humans
now see a place in the Tennessee–North
Carolina mountains as a wondrous diversity of life existing in one precarious
place, where all life rises and falls together. Thank you—thank you to Aldo
Leopold, the Appalachian Trail theory,
and each and every one of you.
Looking back on the Earth from space,
astronaut Loren Acton said, “There, contained in the thin, moving, incredibly
fragile shell of the biosphere, is everything that is dear to you and all the human drama and comedy. That’s where life
is; that’s where all the good stuff is.”
Here along the Appalachian Trail, in
the Smokies, and all over our great land
is “where the good stuff is.” It is home,
and what makes it home is all that is
connected to it. The fundamental insight
is that such places can be enough to get
humans to think of the planet as a whole
and to see it as home. Like the view of
the Earth from outer space, the view from
people’s inner space can spark the sense
that we are all connected, to each other
and to this planet, and have a responsibility for it.
So, as you connect with each other
over the course of this conference, and as
you depart, I hope you will remember that
there is a much bigger message contained
in the simple words, “I am the Appalachian Trail.” That message is important
enough to be carried across the land and
around the world. It is a message of values, sustainability, and survival.
Saw policy . . .
tification for several years, and most of
our sawyers out there are out there with
proper certification. They are becoming
increasingly comfortable with it. I’m getting less and less complaining from the
government management partners,
too—they’re more comfortable letting us
out into the field, just due to the fact that
we have a good certification process. I can
see the value down the line, even if it
doesn’t seem that way now.”
Not everyone bought it, though.
“Nothing I’ve heard or read has convinced
me that the proposed rules and certifications aren’t simply going to complicate
our job enormously, and they may seriously deter the maintenance of the Trail
in Maine,” said Maine A.T. Club maintainer Bob Cummings.
The proposed policy is posted on
ATC’s World Wide Web site, at <www.
appalachiantrail.org/protect/policies/
draftpol.html>. It is scheduled to be
voted on by the Board of Managers in
November.
In the crosshairs. . .
sarily in control of things. There was
somebody out there that day who decided the movement he saw was a deer
and let loose with a shot that could have
ended my life. There are other people out
there, and they cross our paths. They do
affect us. They can affect us in a very
beautiful way, or the effect can be disastrous. I believe that it is very important,
when the day comes to you, that you
drink it fully. It is a gift.”
The hunter, identified as Jackie Leon
Keen, Sr., 46, of Raven, Virginia, was tried
and convicted May 15 on a misdemeanor
charge of reckless handling of a firearm.
He was given a six-month suspended
sentence and forced to forfeit his rifle, and
his hunting privileges were revoked for
life. He was fined $200, ordered to pay
Zigenfuss’s out-of-pocket medical expenses, and ordered to take hunter-education classes.
Zigenfuss said that he felt compelled
to return to the Trail after the incident
because he had to confront the experience
and come to terms with it. “I was not
about to allow that incident to keep me
out of the woods,” he said. “Several doctors told me that if I had not been in such
excellent shape from my routine of dayhikes, I would not have survived. Still, I
recommend hiking.” He also recommends wearing blaze orange and paying
careful attention during the fall, winter,
and spring hunting seasons.
At the trial, Zigenfuss said the hunter’s
lawyer criticized him for not wearing
blaze orange. But, the hunter was not
wearing blaze orange either, he said, and
the lawyer was just blaming the victim.
“The gentleman who shot me was convicted, but he wound up with a $200 fine.
There is more of a fine if you shoot a deer
out of season than for shooting me.”
“What it comes down to is that the
man did not see a deer,” Zigenfuss said.
“He saw something move, and he shot.
He did not see a deer. The bottom line is
still that it’s the responsibility of the
hunter to identify his target and be perfectly sure of it. That’s the first rule of
hunting.”
29
PUBLIC NOTICES
Hiking Partners Wanted
Section-hiker. Companion sought
to hike three short pieces in
Maine in October 2003. I have the
following sections remaining to
complete the A.T.: 10 miles in
Grafton Notch area, 16 miles on
the N.H./Maine border, and 10
miles near Stratton. I have car, and
can pay all expenses. Beverly La
Follette, 1709 West 39th St., Erie,
PA 16509, (814) 868-3005.
Public notices
are published free for members of the Appalachian Trail Conference. We cannot vouch for any of the advertised items. Ads
must pertain to the A.T. or related hiking/conservation matters.
Send ads to PUBLIC NOTICES, Appalachian Trail Conference,
P.O. Box 807, Harpers Ferry, WV 25425. Deadline for the March
2004 issue is November 15, 2003. Public notices may also be
e-mailed to <[email protected]>; please include complete contact information.
Section-hiker. Female, age 55,
experienced, looking for one or
more females to share hike from
Dick’s Creek Gap in northern Ga.
to Fontana Dam, June or July
2004. Lorraine Bickell, 2110
Trevor Rd., Palm Harbor, FL
34683, (727) 934-3630.
Boots. Montrail Torre GTX midweight, all-leather, GoreTex-lined
boots, size 9.5 wide. Brand new,
with 25 break-in miles. Popular
boot ($150 everywhere), will sell
for $95, includes shipping. Tom,
(513) 232-8314; <tbx98@yahoo.
com>.
Florida Trail. Easily compatible
male, 32, well-seasoned long-distance hiker, loves to laugh, seeking female partner/s to join me for
any section of Florida Trail thruhike between 11/03 and 3/04.
Toby, “Son Of Billy Goat,” (978)
827-5494; <tobywoodard@msn.
com>.
Backpack. Gregory Cassin, internal frame, 7,056 ci, 6 lbs. 10 oz.,
with adjustable shoulder harness.
Includes original descriptive brochure and fitting manual. Also
included are three outside attached pockets with rain cover.
Condition is good; price is $50
plus shipping. Andy Neill, (630)
416-6465; <[email protected]>.
Lost and Found
Camera. Lost: Kodak (single-use)
camera, May 1 near Fontana Dam
visitor center; also lost: whistle,
small knife, Timex watch, khaki
convertible pants. Jay “Jaybird”
Swafford, (615) 384-4121;
<[email protected]>
Found: Backpacking tent, on the
Ga. A.T. between Woody Gap and
Neels Gap. Found: prescription
eyeglasses, vicinity of Byron Reece Parking/Blood Mtn. Lost:
unique hiking stick, vicinity of
Nimblewill Gap. Contact: Ga.
A.T. Club Ridgerunner John Cavender, <[email protected]>.
For Sale
Stoves. MSR WhisperLite Shaker
Jet Stove with Maintenance Kit;
$35, including shipping. Coleman
Feather 400 Lightweight Backpack
stove with Outdoor Research #3
foam case; $40, including shipping. Manuals with both stoves.
Contact J.T., (706) 379-1793; email <[email protected]>.
30
Tent. Eureka Timberlite 2-XT,
two-person, 3 1/2-season tent; 4
lbs., 11 oz.; never used. Cost $140
new, will sell for $70. Lawrence
Reichard, 830 N. Van Buren St.,
Apt. A, Stockton, CA 95203; (209)
467-0289; <[email protected]>.
Pack. Gregory Whitney, internal
frame, size small, $165; woman’s
LaSportiva boots, size 8, $75;
Walrus Micro-Swift tent, $85.
Contact Possum, (603) 434-0655;
<[email protected]>.
Boots. Tecnica Stratus Bio-Flex,
man’s size 9. Vibram soles, leather-lined, designed for heavy backpacking. Almost new, good condition with fewer than 75 trail
miles; $85 includes shipping.
Contact Stuart, (615) 893-0985;
Meals. Will sell 57 Mountain
House frozen dinners from 1999,
various flavors, good through
Feb./Mar. 04, best offer. Steve
Mitchell, (704) 876-1094.
Chair pad. Brand new, never used,
blue Mountain Hardwear chairpad,
open and closed-cell foam, 60”
long, 24 oz., comfy to sit or sleep:
$50 & I’ll pay shipping! Toby,
(978) 827-5494; <tobywoodard
@msn.com>
Hostel. Hikers Paradise. On the
Appalachian Trail. Unique 4-season hospitality business in the
heart of New Hampshire’s White
Mtns. in Gorham. Consisting of a
31-bed A.T. hiker hostel, comfortable 14-unit motel, and a cozy
breakfast restaurant. Offered at
$565,000. Contact 1982 thruhiker “Inching Irishman” (Michael Coyle), at Peabody & Smith
Realty, (603) 823-5700.
Free. Back issues of ATN, free if
you pay shipping and handling.
Dates from fall 1988 to fall 2002,
45 issues; weight, 11 pounds. Dick
Hurd, 770-664-4770; <alphahurd
@mindspring.com>.
Wanted
Photos. Seeking old photos (before
1980) of Franconia Ridge Trail,
showing condition of the trail, for
an alpine ecology study. Please
send photos to USFS/AMC Alpine
Steward Volunteer Scott Monroe,
53 Welland Rd., Weymouth, MA
02188.
Books. A.T. Journal by Robie
Hensley; Lodgings along the A.T.
New England and Lodgings along
the A.T. mid-Atlantic, by Kocher;
Tecumseh’s Trail: The A.T. Then
and Now, by C. Bradfield; An A.T.
Sketchbook, by John Hodgins;
Boots: Trailing the Appalachians,
by R. Reinert. Contact Roger
Williamson, (201) 444 2950;
<[email protected]>
Book. Looking to buy, 2000 Miles
On The A.T., by Don Fortunato.
Contact <Raymond.meyers@
po.state.ct.us>.
Maps. Seeking used (but mostly
current) set of Florida Trail maps to
be used for 03’/04’ thru-hike. Toby,
(978) 827-5494; <tobywoodard
@msn.com>
For Your Information
Auction. The A.T. Museum will
hold a benefit silent auction at the
ALDHA Gathering in Hanover,
N.H., on Columbus Day weekend.
Examples of items auctioned last
year were packs, lightweight
stoves, books, and a stay at the
Maples in Damascus. Please bring
items for the auction to the museum table at the Gathering. For
further information, contact
Workshops. Long-distance hiking,
November 1–3, 2003. For beginner
or experienced backpacker who
dreams of a long-distance hike.
Backpacking skills required for a
long-distance hike will be discussed and demonstrated. Workshop will cover everything from
purchasing gear to planning maildrops and will include hiking in
Monongahela National Forest. By
Melody Blaney, cofounder of Wildside Adventures for Women and a
1996 thru-hiker of the Appalachian Trail. Held at primitive
Middle Mountain Cabins in the
Laurel Fork South Wilderness of
Monongahela National Forest,
West Virginia. Price: $95. Winterhiking workshop, November 7-9,
2003. Learn how to cross over
from a 3-season backpacker to
that 4th, cold season; 3-day, 2night trip. We will hike to waterfalls, rock shelters, and two of the
largest arches in the eastern
United States, all located in the
Big South Fork National River and
Recreation Area in Tennessee.
Stay at primitive Charity Creek
Lodge, where we will discuss gear,
clothing, nutrition, and all other
necessities and skills required for
hiking comfortably and safely in
winter. Price $170. Contact Melody Blaney, Wildside Adventures
for Women, (540) 384-7023; <info
@wildsideadventures.com>.
Waterville Valley 2003—Clockwise:
Members plan hikes and excursions.
Getting ready for Franconia Ridge.
Checking out the sale and information
booths before the meeting. Life
members and Board members
talk Trail at pre-Conference reception.
(ATC photos)
31
Volunteers register ATC members for the 34th meeting of the Conference in Waterville Valley, New Hampshire, July 26. (ATC photo)
Appalachian Trail
Conference
P.O. Box 807
Harpers Ferry, WV 25425-0807
®
Address Service Requested
Nonprofit Organization
U.S. POSTAGE
PAID
Appalachian Trail
Conference

SEPTEMBER–OCTOBER 2003 APPALACHIAN TRAILWAY NEWS

Transcription

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