Enjoy the View
Many of you reading this are coming from Adventure Bachelor Party,
Adventure Bachelorette Party, or Adventure
Weekends websites. After talking about how it started the company last month, I want to talk a
little more about the objective.
I want to share weekend adventures that
you can do with or without my help. My hope is that they
inspire you to appreciate the outdoors through experience and maybe it will inspire you to
help save it.
In Michigan, where I live, there are tons of
great outdoor adventures that people don’t have a clue about. We
need to take time to unplug from laptops, iPods, and Bluetooth.....with
the exception of my newsletter...of course.
All the best
_________________________
Add it to the List.
This month's column is about one of those trips you must make before
you die...hiking the Appalachian Trail.
I became inspired by this trip after reading the book mentioned on
the right "A Walk in the Woods." Now I am not going to sit here and say
I have immersed myself in this entire trip....yet, but I have bitten off
a couple chunks, enough to further whet my appetite and share the
experience with you.
A brief background. The Appalachian Trail or simply The A.T., is a
2,174-mile hiking trail in the eastern United States, extending between
Springer Mountain in Georgia and Mount Katahdin in Maine. Along the way,
the trail also passes through the states of North Carolina, Tennessee,
Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York,
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire. The trail was
originally conceived by Benton MacKaye, a forester who wrote his
original plan shortly after the death of his wife in 1921. MacKaye's
Utopian idea detailed a grand trail that would connect a series of farms
and wilderness work/study camps for city-dwellers.
A continuous trail that extends over 2,000 miles is pretty cool, but
what is even better is that the path is maintained by thirty trail clubs
from various states, working together to keep the path clear and the
lodges up to code. It is kinda like the adopt-a-mile signs along the
freeway. How it works is that you enter the trail somewhere along the
2,000 mile stretch, like jumping on a freeway. Then you hike 10 miles
each day (give or take based on your goals). Each night you aim to make
it to a shelter and swap stories with the other hikers. These shelters
are not quite as luxurious as the Ritz, but it gets the job done.
Along the way you will run into these people that are attempting to
hike the entire trail. The crazy part about this, besides the distance,
is the timing. You need to start in Georgia as soon as the Spring hits
in order to make it to Maine before the temperatures drop in the Fall!
What is even crazier is that there are people that have accomplished
this multiple times.
Like I said, I have not done the whole trail, and am not suggesting
you try it straight out of the gate, but rather make it a great weekend
adventure with the friends or family. If you ever want to do the whole
trail, shoot me an email, I am open to the challenge. I can only imagine
what a feeling of accomplishment accompanies this achievement.
In my attempt to give you a glimpse into the mind of one these
incredible adventurers, I have provided a link to a Journal from a man
that made the entire trip from April to September. He wrote in his
journal every night and posted it on the Internet. Scan through, read a
couple days and maybe it will inspire you to hit the trail.
All the best.
AT Trail Journal
Darren Hitz
Hitz Adventures
p:248.910.8152
f :480.393.4077
darren@hitzadventures.com
www.hitzadventures.com
