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Another ATC Email - Important

December 6th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

I received another email from the ATC today. This time, they are asking for some help with a competition they are involved in. Since I absolutely support this cause, I actually logged into Facebook for the first time in many months (long story - maybe some other time…) and signed up to the page so I could cast my vote. I couldn’t figure out how you can tell who is winning, but I’m guessing that the ATC will send out another email if they qualify in round 1.

If you are interested, click on the graphic below (it is straight from the email, and goes to the same link) and sign into facebook to vote. You get 20 votes, but as far as I can tell you can only vote for any group once, so I was done after my first vote. They will need to be in the top 100 to qualify, and the voting ends on December 11, so please vote right away.

It’s free and for a good cause. And of course, if you are so inclined you can vote for your other favorite organizations and charities to help them win.

Thank you,
Chris

Appalachian Trail on National Geographic

November 13th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

As you might expect, I subscribe to the ATC’s email list so that I get all sorts of interesting information about the trail. I recently received an email from them letting me know that there was a show on National Geographic channel called America’s Wild Spaces: Appalachian Trail. It was on this past Tuesday, November 10, but it is on again next Tuesday, November 17 at 4 PM EDT.

I found it to be interesting, but it seemed a bit short. It divided the trail into four sections and gave each section about 10 minutes or so of coverage. It did cover the endpoints fairly well, and they definitely did a good job considering the time constraint of a one hour show. Worth watching if you can.

Chris

News From The Home Front

April 13th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

OK, I guess I’ve been kinda avoiding this post. I haven’t been sure exactly how or what to say. So I finally decided that I couldn’t avoid it any longer.

What I’ve been avoiding saying publicly is that I did not go this year. I have postponed my hike for one year, so now I guess I’ll have to change my tag-line to “Two years spent preparing…”

I don’t want to get too deep into the reasons why. I’ve shared many things very openly here, which is not really like me, but in this case, the reasons why are not all about me, so I do not feel free to share. But rest assured, I am planning to go next year.

And for this year, I am going to do at least one more section hike, along with a few other short hikes which may or may not be on the AT. My brother has said he wants to join me for the section hike again this year, so that should be fun. And with any luck, Donna will get a weekend off sometime in the next few months and she can join me for a hike. I think I’ll probably take Dante on some hikes too.

Well, there I’ve gotten that over with, and I guess it wasn’t as bad as I expected. (Few things are, right?) So now I can get on with posting about my preparations and my hikes. I’m looking forward to this again.

Cheers,

Chris

Something cool to see!

January 26th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

Yesterday, after I had decided to finally buckle down and get the pictures posted, I got a note from a guy out in California about this video service he wanted to recommend.  It’s called Animoto, and I’ve got to say it only took making one video short for me to want the all access pass.

So, I decided to use some of the pictures and make a video.  I think it came out pretty cool, and the best part is all I had to do was upload my pictures, pick some music and then wait.  While I was waiting I wrote up yesterday’s post.

After it was done, I posted the video on Youtube.  Here is the video:

Pretty cool, eh?

Until next time,
Chris

Finally - Pics are here!

January 25th, 2009    Subscribe To Our Feed

OK, I guess it has been about three months since I said I didn’t forget.  My how time flies when you’re having fun.

Since it has been a while, I figured I had to do something cool to try to make up for the delay.  My computer is working on the final steps now, so I should have it available to post tomorrow.  Until then, know that something cool is coming, and it’s related to the pictures.

The pictures I have here are not all of the ones we took.  If you are interested in seeing all of the pictures make a comment below and maybe I’ll upload them all to flickr. I would just go ahead and do it, but there are 122 pictures in total, and that would take a while to upload.  (I know that because of how long it took me to download them.)

Anyway, on to the pictures….

This is the picture of Mike and I just before we headed out onto the trail on the first day.

This is the ominous sign at the entrance to the section we started in called the Roller Coaster.  The through hikers didn’t think this was a bad section, but I think it was a bad spot for us to start.

This was the first log we wrote in, so it seemed significant enough to capture it with the camera.

This was on our way to the Blackburn Trail Center.  It poured on us all morning, and it was cold.  We were very happy when we got the fire going in the wood stove in the bunkhouse.

A through hiker named Freehugs at the Bear’s Den Hostel.  He found these purple sweats in the drawers of clothes provided by the hostel.  These clothes are all donations and are there so the hikers can do their laundry, which is a fantastic service they provide.

Here is the sign that leads you down toward the ATC headquarters in Harpers Ferry.

This sign for the C&O Canal towpath marks the trail leading north out of Harpers Ferry.  This was a very easy section of hiking since the road is almost completely flat.  The guidebook said you could walk to Washington D.C. on this path.  Maybe someday….

One disappointing thing on our hike was the very noticeable absence of wildlife.  Many of the hikers we spoke to talked about seeing black bears, deer and other wildlife.  This was just about the extent of the wildlife we saw.

This was the park we were picked up at.  Not exactly a national park, but it was pretty big as local parks go.  We are lucky, however, that Mom could find it.  Also, you may notice it is in Maryland.  We actually hiked through the park, up into Pennsylvania, and then back to the park to wait for our ride.

This was also a bit disappointing.  It would appear that someone stole the sign marking the Mason Dixon line.  The post was there, and someone had at least had the decency to mark the post so we knew the sign was gone.

This was the end of the journey.  Here I am stuffing our packs into the trunk of Mom’s car.  That’s mom standing behind me holding my walking stick.

So there you have a representative group of pictures.  While I was finishing this post, the surprise for tomorrow finished.  I’m going to end now so I don’t give away the surprise, but come back tomorrow and see.

And please let me know what you think in the comments below.  Do you want to see more of the pictures?  Do you want me to load them all up to Flickr so you can view them there?

Cheers,
Chris

An Historic Day For The Trail

October 2nd, 2008    Subscribe To Our Feed

First, before I get into the news, let me say that I still have not been able to download the pictures.  I purchased an external drive, and I’ve been moving files, but I don’t have them yet.  I will work on them this weekend.

But, I couldn’t let today pass without a quick mention of this new item that Donna brought to my attention.  Today is the 40th anniversary of the National Trails System Act of 1968, which provided protection for the trail and allowed the federal government to purchase much of the private land or move the trail to ensure that it would provide a continuous trial

Check out http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26993048/ for some more information about this.

Cheers,

Chris

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