Backpacking the Green Tunnel
There are thousands of hiking trails available to the public throughout the United States. The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, for instance, maintains over 1,000 miles of hiking trails for the public on private and public lands. People use them for backpacking, hiking, and camping. Some are used to get close to rivers for fishing, canoeing, and kayaking. These trails have always been popular, even if some have been less-well-known than, say, the Appalachian National Scenic Trail. Today, however, ever greater numbers of visitors hike the trails, a result of rapidly expanding urban and exurban populations and increasingly encroaching development. Add to this expanded use the work of natural forces—rain, ice, and snow storms, hurricanes, and the occasional nor’easter—and you’ll understand the need for increased maintenance of our public hiking trails.
The Mountains Call Us
The Appalachian mountains, the oldest mountain chain on the North American continent, have called to all who have lived here, and we’re no exception. We flock to them in the fall for the kaleidoscope the offer; we run off to them in the spring for the varied blooms they bring forth. We escape to them in the summer, seeking cooler and less humid air. And we look upon them in awe, wrapped under a blanket of new-fallen snow that’s not tainted by the dirt and grit thrown up from the paved roads below.
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