There are those of us who claim that the Appalachian Trail was laid out by sadists. If you see a mountain off in the distance, you can be pretty sure that sometime soon, you will have to climb it. The only major exception that I've seen, so far, is the Catskills in New York. You can see the Catskills from forty or fifty miles away, especially if you are southbounding through the Taconics. Instead, the trail heads south, through Harriman State Park. One of the more sadistic sections is The Roller Coaster in northern Virginia (which I hiked and wrote about last year). Due to urban sprawl, this section had become a long street walk through a housing development. Modern thinking on the future of the trail is to eliminate street walking, if at all possible. The trail was moved down the side of the mountain. Instead of a thirteen-mile flat walk along the ridge, the trail climbs ten five-hundred-foot spurs of the mountain. Thus: The Roller Coaster. It's a very tough section of trail. I would prefer to climb one five-thousand-foot mountain than ten five-hundred-foot hills. Part of it is a sense of accomplishment, part that the mind can accept one very tough challenge more readily than ten less tough challenges. I've become philosophical about it. The trail is a microcosm of the real world (sorry, hikers would say: The trail is a microcosm of the rest of the world.) There are new challenges every day. You meet new people every day who are in the same boat as you are. (How's that for a mixed metaphor? You meet new people every day who are on the same trail as you are, and who face the same challenges as you do.) Life is much easier if you get along with, and work with those other people. And sometimes people put unnecessary obstacles in your path. My tagline philosophy of life is: "The trail of life leads ever onward. It has its high points and its low points. I'm looking for a high point to live on." ~ © Paul (AHikingDude@aol.com) ~ © Photograph by Paul (AHikingDude@aol.com) © July 26, 2003 Writers' Corner Index