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I atended the 1998 ALDHA Gathering at Concord College in Athens, WV the weekend
of October, 11, 1998. The Gathering is an annual weekend event
by and for long distance hikers that includes camping, classroom presentations
and a general meeting, greeting and sharing of ideas. I couldn't attend
the entire weekend so I drove to Atens, WV for the classroom presentations
on Saturday, October 11, 1998. The following is a synopsis of what
I attended:
Environmental Issues Along The AT- This was presented by Henry Edwards and concentrated on issues that could efffect the AT experience in the future. Such factors included logging, logging roads, the ski resort at Saddleback Mountain, ME, a proposed windfarm in ME, cell phone towers, limiting of group sizes, etc. Some good lively discussion and awareness resulted from this presentation. Hard To Find Outdoor Gear- This was presented by Ann Gerkens (trail name "Splat") and was an information gatering excercise on her part as well as ours to see which types of gear, primarily clothing, was hard to find. She will be opening her own WEB site soon to sell hard to find gear. The John Muir Trail- An excellent presentation with slides by Henry Edwards. He showed his through hike slides and described the details of this hike. Bears and the altitude changes were the biggest challenges. The scenery was some of the most beautiful that I have seen. This was by far the best of the 4 presentations that I attended. The 2 things that I learned from this presentation were to either use a bear cannister when I backpack or tie a small bell to my food sack when I hang it to alert me if an animal is messing with it. Sending Mail Drops Along the Trail- This was an informative presentation by Kieran Lai that focused more on the nutritional aspects of eating along the trail than the mechanics of mail drops themselves. The presenter was very knowledgable on diet and nutrition and I learned a bunch here. He was very skilled on dehydrating his own food and sending it via maildrops. He had 36 maildrops prepared for his thru hike of the AT last year. While I enjoyed and learned from the presentation, I still will stick with freeze dried food and MRE's. The money that it costs to belong to ALDHA for a year is worth it in that you get a directory of other hikers that you can contact as well as the knowledge one gains at the Gathering seminars. The Gathering next year will be in New Hampshire. I had a good time at this gathering. Concord College, WV was beautiful and the leaves were at their peak. It was worth the 525 miles that I drove round trip in one day! |
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