woodstock meets river

This is River.  His real name is Ryan and he lives in Miami [normally]. For the past three months and for the next three months he lives somewhere between Springer Mountain, Georgia and Mount Katahdin, Maine. River is his trail name. Anyone who hikes or backpacks a lot earns [establishes, determines, adopts, proclaims] a trail name. My trail name is Woodstock.

My wife and I did a 2700+ mile road trip to Boston recently and along the way we spent time driving on the Blue Ridge Parkway [which goes from Cherokee, North Carolina to the Shenandoah National Forest, Virginia [where it becomes Skyline Drive]. The Blue Ridge Parkway and the Appalachian Trail [a 2200+ mile footpath from Georgia to Maine] intertwine through Virginia. Every time the parkway crossed the Appalachian Trail [AT] I had to stop and take pictures and hike on the trail. It took us a long time to get through that section because of this. We were near the Harvey's Knob crossing taking pictures and hiking on the AT, talking about past times on the this trail, thinking about future times, and saying how great it would be to talk to a thru-hiker [someone who is hiking the entire trail all at once], when we see this young man coming up over the ridge toward us. He stopped and talked to us for a while. He's right in the middle of his 6-month trek. He started at Springer Mountain on March 31, 2012. What an adventure.

You can follow River's adventure on his blog, takeoffyourshoes