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Veteran Scouter tries to be oldest to hike AT at 88


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For those of you who may not be aware, one of our local scout leaders is hiking the Appalachian Trail. He goes by the trail name of Cimarron, and has led crews toPhilmont 15 times!

He hiked the entire trail several times in section hikes (completing over multiple years) but he is committed to hiking all of it in a single year.

A friend and fellow scouter is helping keep his journal updated on nearly a daily basis. For details on his exploits, read his trail journal here: http://www.trailjournals.com/entry.cfm?id=337584(This message has been edited by Buffalo Skipper)

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I've read several of these AT hiking journals in the past, and have enjoyed every single one of them. In this particular case, I'm very impressed. He finishes a multi-year "section-hike" a couple of years ago, but that's not good enough :-), he's got to "through-hike" it, at 88 years of age.

 

There's an old 2-volume set of books (maybe published by National Geographic) that chronicles all of the early stories of those who hiked the AT, beginning with the first ones to do it. I borrowed that set from the library once, and read through many of those stories. One of the more impressive stories was Grandma Gatewood (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Gatewood), who according to the book, didn't know much about the trail, and decided to check it out. Her first excursion, as I recall, ended with her getting lost after a couple of weeks. She tried again the next summer, succeeding with hiking the entire trail, frequently foraging for food along the way. For many years, she was the oldest credited through-hiker. I'm not sure who is considered the oldest now, but it would be difficult to imagine anyone over 88 having attempted it. :-)

 

Guy

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