A couple of months ago my newish friend Matthew Podolsky invited me to submit a guest post on the blog of the Wild Lens Collective. That post is now up and you can read the entire thing here. The timing of this post was spot on for several reasons. First, it came out just before…
Author: Mills
Little known histories of the AT – The Schaghticoke Tribal Nation
[Note: This week’s post is a guest post from Matt Podolsky, the host the Common Land podcast. This season’s show is an exploration of his hike of the AT in 2022 and what he learned along the way.] I completed a thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail in 2022. Because I had ambitions to produce a…
Good Night Sweet Prince
In August 2019 I had the good fortune to meet Gene Espy, the second person to thru hike the Appalachian Trail, at his home in Macon, Georgia. In my life I’ve only met one or two people as nice or as generous as Gene. Gene passed away this week, so I want to share the…
On Sources and Bobcats
We know a lot about what it’s like to thru hike the Appalachian Trail (and many other long distance trails) for the simple reason that some fraction of thru hikers feel compelled to tell the story of their hike. Why did they embark on an epic journey? What happened to them along the way? And…
A Lonely Shelter
During his thru hike of the Appalachian Trail in 1948 — the first such end to end hike in one season — Earl Shaffer spent the night at the only trail shelter built on the original route of the Appalachian Trail between Damascus, Virginia and McAfee Knob just outside of Roanoke. That old shelter still…
