Hike the AT By Kayaking the Shenandoah

Jill Moon, writing in the Alton, Illinois Telegraph of 6 January 2012, chronicles the thru-hike by Alton native John Weaver. He started on 6 April and summited Katahdin on on 12 October.

The article, headlined "Journey to self along the Appalachian Trail," also notes how the hike changed his life, by prompting him into a career change. One note of especial interest to me about his hike is that

Weaver simultaneously hiked the trail with his college roommate, Mitch Boeh, 25, of Kansas City, Mo., but they split up for about a month. In that time, Weaver figured out a way to kayak the trail and ended up kayaking about 160 miles of the trail on the Shenandoah River with five other people.

Because Weaver started hiking the trail with no vessel in which to float the river, he and the others stood by a road with a sign asking to borrow a kayak or canoe. Someone actually loaned him a kayak, and he paid for someone else’s gas to pick up the kayak when he finished using it.

Which really puts a whole new spin on the concept of "blue blazing".

Something else to look into is that

A good friend of Weaver’s, Greg Snyder, aka "Feather," a trail "handle," who he met on the trail and with whom he hiked a majority of the trail, is making a HD movie about the journey. The trailer can be seen on YouTube by searching "Walking to Katahdin."