There are several reasons. First, the ATC is now required, by a recent change in the laws governing non-profits incorporated in Washington, D.C., to have a meeting of its members every year. Secondly, organizing each Biennial is a hugely challenging and time consuming two-year project for both the host Trail clubs and ATC staff. It is also increasingly difficult to find a venue for each Biennial. And there is a great deal of uncertainty and considerable financial risk in staging an event of this size.

A working group representing A.T. clubs and chaired by former ATC Board member Marcia Fairweather has spent the past two years looking at future options for the Biennial. They have recommended a new approach called A.T. Vista to begin in 2020 and happen every two years thereafter. The Vista is envisioned as a four-day event that includes hikes, workshops, excursions, and fun and will be organized by some combination of Trail clubs and local partners. The New York/New Jersey Trail Conference has agreed to take the lead on planning the 2020 Vista.

At the same time, the ATC will begin in 2018 to host an annual meeting open to all of our members. This will be a one-day event in or near a major metropolitan area and will include feature speakers, discussion of important Trail issues, and a town hall forum. The first ATC Membership meeting will be held next August in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

This is clearly a major change from the traditional Biennial. We hope and expect A.T. Vista and the ATC Membership meeting to combine the best elements of the Biennial format and offer some new and different experiences for the A.T. community.

article about Percival Baxter and Myron Avery (“Of Men and Mountains,” Summer 2017). I too am a graduate of Bowdoin College, and had the pleasure of visiting Maine’s greatest mountain in the ’60s and ’70s. Bowdoin’s Outing Club had the responsibility of maintaining a section of the A.T. back in those days. The highlight of our year was always an October trip up to Baxter State Park, just before things closed down for the winter. Until reading this article, I had no idea that Avery was also a Bowdoin graduate. And I was not aware that Governor Baxter lived until 1969. One year later, I was living in a large “frat house” on the Bowdoin campus. Years later, I learned that it had been built by the Baxter family. Bowdoin subsequently renamed it Baxter House, and it still stands today. The Baxters were very philanthropic. Without Governor Baxter’s land donation, the A.T. would have ended much farther south.

Eric Weis Wayne

reading “Practical Magic” (Summer 2017).You see for the last 22 years I have been doing Trail magic for thru-hikers. I had no idea that it was frowned upon. For the first 19 years I was set up in a parking lot in a nearly waterless section of New York (the Elk Pen in Harriman State Park). I gave away soda, water, candy bars, stove fuel, fruit, and a few other goodies. Over the years, I also brought chairs and since I worked for an outdoor retailer I managed to bring donated hiker food — I was also able to give away a free pair of socks to each [hiker] that came by. And in recent years, I have recharged many a phone. Even though I left no garbage, took garbage from the [hikers], and often picked up the garbage from the area I was parked, I did concentrate a few hikers in one area. I thought the only trace I left was the happy faces of the hikers I helped. I only started doing it because, on a long section hike, I received so much help, water, beer, pizza and more that I decided to give back. So I am sorry I have apparently contributed to the degradation of the A.T. experience.

Roger “Tentman” Williamson

I’ve said that the Trail never changes — but changes absolutely those who walk it. For those of us who are entrusted with its care and protection, we must embrace both our visionary and our realist sides. We must hold fast to our past and work together to move into the future, adapting and changing when needed — always with what is best for the Trail in our hearts.

landscape partnership approach that helps preserve the essence of the A.T. experience — its view shed, access to the Trail, and the vitality of communities along it — there is no better place to examine than Maine’s North Woods. “Cooperating with multiple partners to preserve large landscapes is the future of protecting the Trail experience,” says the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s (ATC) president and CEO Ron Tipton. “This of course is not limited to Maine, but all the way to Georgia too.” He explains that this isn’t about protecting the footpath, which is already protected. It’s about the larger landscape. “When you’re looking at a really large area with the potential to protect thousands of acres it will almost always involve working with numerous private and public partners,” he says. “It will never be the ATC by ourselves.”

many hikers who venture out: a walk in the woods, a lab for discovery, a vehicle for conservation, a connecting thread for communities. The new Appalachian Trail Center in Damascus, Virginia, will likewise meet many needs.

The approximately 2,500-square-foot building slated for completion in 2019 is a collaborative project with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy (ATC), the Town of Damascus, and the Southwest Virginia Cultural Heritage Foundation. The project represents a significant investment in an ongoing effort to expand economic opportunities through outdoor recreation across Southwest Virginia.

The center will support visitor information, exhibits, details about neighboring trails and assets, and training seminars for a range of groups including volunteers who help maintain the A.T. Programming and design will commence this fall. The facility, when completed, is also likely to assist the work of known recreational and conservation partners in the region along with adding new collaborators to the mix.

as Scouting or apple pie. These iconic fixtures in the United States, Scouting and the A.T., have a long overlapping history, where many young people gain their first introduction to the outdoors — where the beauty, challenge, and rewards are found in the exercise, strengthened friendships, and scenery of the endeavor.

The Trail has often served as the destination for Boy Scouts within a day’s drive, with ambitions of ticking off a 50-mile backpack, to hike to a scenic spot they heard about, or to be among the volunteers who have the audacity to build and maintain this long-distance Trail so that others can come to confirm, “yes, this Trail can lead me all the way to Maine, or the other direction, to Georgia.”

To that end, the A.T. captured the imagination of two Eagle Scouts, Randy Wright and Charlie Timberlake, who set out in 2011 to hike following their respective college graduations. Meeting at age six through Scouts and being exposed to backpacking through Troop 304 in Atlanta, their connection to Scouting is so deep that even as 29-year-olds with no children of their own in Scouting, they have returned as assistant Scout Masters with an emphasis in backpacking.

childhood filled with the joys of summer camp in the mountains of North Carolina where he paddled, fished, sailed, camped, and hiked the long days away. He loved being outside with friends and recalls the fun they had “before the internet.” He was an ambitious young man, an accomplished undergraduate, and law student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Ultimately, he became a successful corporate litigator for almost 20 years in North Carolina. Scott was on a path that seemed to be a good one.

At some point along the way, however, Scott took a detour onto a dangerous trail. It wasn’t marked with the white blaze of the A.T.’s adventure, nor was it blazed blue, leading to rest and camp. It was a trail of addiction and alcoholism. Ten years ago, Scott hit his bottom and asked for help. With the help of others, he stepped off that darkly-blazed trail onto a life-long path of recovery. A huge part of his recovery is nature in general and the white-blazed A.T. in particular.

wife, soulmate, and best friend Stacey was first diagnosed with cancer, we never asked about the prognosis. We focused only on the diagnosis, our treatment options, and additional steps to improve overall health. As a result, when we had the rare chance to move where we wished four years after Stacey’s breast cancer had first spread to her liver and lungs, (Stage four) we had no idea that based on the numbers, her survival at that moment was already unlikely. Bound by the averages, we may have never seized the opportunity to find a simpler and more active life.

It started innocently enough, with the Google search: “Where should I move?” followed by an anonymous survey that narrowed the choice to 25 towns. We already knew the region where we hoped to settle and after visiting about a half-dozen towns on the list found only one of interest. That town was Abingdon, Virginia. While this was happening, Stacey had two people from entirely different social circles recommend the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle by Barbara Kingsolver. I don’t think she had ever received even one book recommendation from anyone, let alone two in one week for the same book. She read it and then excitedly told me to read it too. In short, the book describes the simpler life we sought, and at the very end the author thanks everyone at the Abingdon Farmers Market. We were never strong believers in faith or fate but as far as we were concerned, all roads led to Abingdon.