News (blog)

Ultimate Hike provides an opportunity for participants to accomplish a once in a lifetime goal and a challenging adventure in a spectacular natural setting, while making new friends and supporting CureSearch and children’s cancer research. CureSearch for Children’s Cancer is a national non-profit foundation whose mission is to fund and support children’s cancer research and provide information and resources to all those touched by children’s cancer.

The 2012 Richmond Ultimate Hike will be a trip to remember while hiking in the Monongahela National Forest, West Virginia in October!

Here’s where we need you! We are currently recruiting Hike Coaches to work with the CureSearch staff to run information sessions, organize group training hikes and work with hikers to teach them more about hiking, equipment, hydration, staying motivated and much more as hikers prepare for their exciting journey.

Anyone who is interested in learning more about becoming a Hike Coach can reach me at (301) 650-2419 or Stacy.McPhate@CureSearch.org. Please visit www.ultimatehike.org/richmond to learn more!

The latest copy of the club's newsletter has been posted to the web site.  Please check out the May/June 2012 Walker under the Newsletter Menu item.

Thanks Katie for all your hard work putting this together!

After participating in the beginers overnight hike I feel ready to take on the trail. Thanks to all the leaders who made this hike a stress free hike knowing that I was in good hands. Prior to finding this wonderful group I had decided to beging section hiking the AT. So now with the right equipment and  year long training. I will hike the southern section of the SNP from Swift Gap to Rocckfish Gap. I plan to begin on May 5th and hike out on Tuesday. Marina will join me for the 1st day and half . I have an acquantinance comming from Missouri also joining me . I will post pictures and comments on FB once we have returned. My plan is 44 miles but thats just a plan =)

My bigger goal is to hike the lenght of SNP by the end of the fall

Club members can check out the latest club miles posted under the members only section of the website after loggin in.

Thanks Randy for preparing this!

The Appalachian Trail Conference and Arcadia Publishing are pleased to announce the release of ODATC member Leonard M. Adkins' 17^th book, Along the Appalachian Trail: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee. This is a companion book to his other ATC/Arcadia Press publication,  Along Virginia’s Appalachian Trail.

Selected from the archives of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the National Park Service, and local Appalachian Trail maintaining clubs, the approximately 200 vintage photographs in each book provide a look at life in the mountains before and during the trail’s creation, how it came into being, who its early champions were, the many relocations the trail has experienced, and the volunteers who have constructed and maintained it.

Along the Appalachian Trail: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee contains never-before-published photographs of the trail's first terminus atop Mt. Oglethorpe, the early route to Springer Mountain, the trail's former route in the Nanatahalas and western Smokies, and places the trail has been rerouted from in Tennessee and North Carolina. The heretofore unpublished photographs in Along Virginia’s Appalachian Trail include scenes from McAfee Knob in the early part of the 20^th century and the trail's original route along what is now the Blue Ridge Parkway, in addition to chronicling ODATC's Wintergreen relocation in the 1980s.

A donation is automatically made to ATC from the sale of either book, but Leonard will make an additional donation if ordered through his website www.habitualhiker.com.

Leonard has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail five times, walked more than 19,000 miles in North America, Europe, New Zealand, and the Caribbean, and is the author of 17 books about the outdoors and travel, including six concerning the trail. He has aided the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in identifying and protecting rare and endangered plants by being a Natural Heritage Monitor and a ridgerunner. He has also been on the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club’s and Old Dominion Appalachian Trail Club's Boards of Directors and a volunteer maintainer of a trail section near McAfee Knob. He is currently The Hike columnist for Blue Ridge Country, walks and hikes blogger for www.richmondoutside.com, and a field editor for the Thru-Hikers' Companion.

 Today, I took my first ODATC hike. It was GREAT!! The leaders, Jim Hunt and Alice Preston did a super job herding the Wednesday hikers through the James River Park. This praise is coming from the person voted by her peers as, "Least likely to hike..." Believe me, it must have been good for me to have enjoyed walking the trails.  Looking forward to next Wednesday's trip along another part of the James! Maybe I'll even graduate to the weekend hikes!