Appalachian Trail Runs Through Shenandoah

Reporter Mike Holtzclaw writes in the Hampton Roads, Virginia Daily Press under the headline "Take a hike, everybody; Drop in on the Appalachian Trail or explore Shenandoah." The online article is dated 18 March 2007, but I'm reading it on the 17th. Anyway....

He's mostly writing to encourage his readers to leave the flat Tidewater region and head for the hills, at least for a while.

Holtzclaw's opening paragraphs read, "When you start out on the Appalachian Trail, you don't have to hike all the way to Georgia or Maine. But the point is, you could.

"Shenandoah National Park offers some of the best hiking trails on the East Coast. The famed Appalachian Trail, more than 2,000 miles long, cuts through the heart of the park - but that's just the centerpiece to a large, lovely network of trails."

I love that: "you don't have to ... but you could."

I think something like that pretty much every time I'm on the Trail. 'There are folks way down that way, or way up that way, and if I stood here long enough I'd be able to shake their hands as they continue on to Maine or Georgia. I wonder how many other people there are at this moment walking this Trail and exchanging energy with it and me?' That's how I think sometimes. If I were just hypersensitive enough, maybe I could pick up the vibrations of their footsteps reverberating all the way to where I'm standing at the moment.

And I don't have to hike all the way to Maine or Georgia on that particular day . . . . but I could. If I just kept going, I really could.