Excerpt from “Transformed on the Trail” ~ By Jim T. Ryan

Here is an account from a hiker who completed his thru-hike on the AT.  It is very well written and quite emotional.  The story, that ends in Maine, of course, is accompanied by some great photos from many stops along the hike from Georgia to Maine.  Read the excepts below and then click thru to the entire article, if you like.  Feel free to leave a comment, below!

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“The day is cold, yet the Maine sun beats down on your neck. You’ve been walking for hours, the last of it over and around boulders the size of dump trucks at times. The sweat beads down, running under the moss-like months of beard growth.

Six months of walking and so much landscape has passed underfoot, brushed past your face, torn at your clothes, bogged your socks and boots. You’re on your third pair of hiking shoes, the predecessors stripped of their usefulness by the mountains of Tennessee, shredded by the rocky remains of the last ice age in Pennsylvania.”

from Harrisburg Magazine

“You’re exhausted, yet you climb the peak in front of you. You can’t wait to be done with this meandering existence. But you dread its end. What next? Where do you go from here?

You just keep walking. There it is. Baxter Peak, the pinnacle of Mount Katahdin. You can see the sign. Adrenaline kicks in, and you begin sprinting the final football field only to stop to wait for the companions behind you. You made them a promise to finish together. You’ll keep it. You’ll finish the 2,186 miles of the Appalachian Trail (AT) together.”

“For anyone with a bit of wilderness in their blood, thru-hiking the AT is the first long-distance notch in the hiking stick. But finishing the trail is a remote accomplishment. Only about 20 percent of those who set out ever actually finish the hike in a single year. Many quit before they’re out of the first state.”

“My favorite area – the most beautiful area – is probably Tennessee. In Hampton, Tenn., there’s a stretch where you hike along a stream. It’s just absolutely beautiful. The trail is right next to the stream, and it’s flowing. You start at a waterfall. It was a place where I wish I just could’ve camped for a week,” Reardon says.

“He chokes-up with emotion, reliving the final day of his trek. Summitting Katahdin isn’t just a story. He relives it.”

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More from Harrisburg Magazine

Sasquatch / Pomoola Sightings in Maine

The local Native Americans (the Abenaki) called Bigfoot, Pomoola, long before the white man came to mid-Maine. It is often described as a “large, manlike creature with […]

Video – Walking to Katahdin
Experience Mount Katahdin and the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. 2181 miles, 14 states. Great video!

More about Mount Katahdin and the Appalachian Trail
Mount Katahdin […]

Bradenton man to hike trail to spotlight military vet issues

Christopher Davis’ dream was to one day hike the Appalachian Trail to bring awareness to a cause closest to his heart — returning veterans.

To do on someone’s time clock would be an unexpected treat.

His dream has come true.

By RICHARD DYMOND
rdymond@bradenton.com  May 12, 2014  website

Davis made a pitch about a year ago to his new boss, Bob Rosinsky, president and CEO of Goodwill Manasota.

“There is something I’ve always wanted to do,” Davis told Rosinsky. “When I was sitting in Afghanistan in 2002 with the U.S. Army, I promised myself that if I lived through the war, I would walk the entire Appalachian Trail for a good cause.”

Davis proposed his “good cause” would shine light on the issue of military veterans coming home and having trouble accessing services.

Rosinsky immediately said “yes” even though it meant Davis would be physically out of pocket for five months, hiking with a backpack between Mount Katahdin, Maine, and Springer Mountain, Ga., while remaining on the payroll.

“Chris is still part of our team,” Rosinsky said. “It’s kind of a redeployment for Chris.”

As it turns out, the story of Davis’ May 28-to-Thanksgiving trek and why Rosinsky said yes is as much about Rosinsky and his enthusiasm and passion for military veterans as it is about his bucket list adventure.

‘One step at a time’

Davis, 35, was hired by Rosinsky in January 2013 to be the veteran’s program manager for Goodwill Manasota’s new American Veterans and Their Families Initiative.

Goodwill Manasota is well known locally as a not-for-profit organization whose mission is “changing lives through the power of work.”

It helped 329 veterans find jobs in 2013, according to Goodwill Manasota records.

But Rosinsky said he wanted to go beyond just landing jobs for veterans.

Working with an annual budget of roughly $100,000, Davis helps veterans and their families when they are down and out. Program funding comes from grants and sales of donated items.

“Chris provides information for vets to get housing, jobs, insurance, benefits, social integration, clothing, food, legal aide, transportation and medical,” said Yen Reed, director of marketing for Goodwill Manasota. “He works with hundreds of community partners.”

Rosinsky said Davis has done a stellar job.

“People have visited and said that our program has gotten more traction than other vet programs they are aware of,” Rosinsky said. “I believe the progress we are making is due to Chris.

“Chris’ program is evolving,” Rosinsky added. “We hope to provide services for every veteran in the drawdown as we leave Iraq and Afghanistan. We have a lot of people struggling. We hope that Goodwill is the doorway past that struggle.”

It’s hard to imagine a CEO giving the green light to a key employee to hike the Appalachian Trail for five months, but Rosinsky is more than OK with it.

“I immediately considered the fact that the screen got bigger for us to project on,” Rosinsky said. “We can reach a national audience and get people to recognize that vets need assistance.”

While Davis is gone, his assistant, Don Hill, will run the program, Rosinsky said.

Davis said he thinks the Appalachian Trail will be symbolic for veterans.

“It’s not how high or low we go on the peaks or valleys. It’s taking one step after another,” said Davis who graduated from the University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee last week as the Outstanding Graduate after serving 14 years with the U.S. Army with seven tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I will make it to Georgia because I will keep walking. I think that’s the message we want to send to vets, ‘If you just take one step and then another, you will get there.'”

Davis can thank the late Guy Kelnhofer of Wisconsin for making his Appalachian trek a reality. Kelnhofer, Rosinsky’s uncle, was captured in Wake Island during World War II and spent four years in a prisoner-of-war camp.

“I saw some of the issues he had coming back,” Rosinsky said.

Rosinsky noted veterans like his uncle don’t always get needed services but it’s not because the services are not available.

“When vets come out, they tend to get isolated,” Rosinsky said. “It’s not so much that things aren’t out there, it’s just that there is a lack of focus and a lack of assistance to help them access what is there,”

30,000-plus Manatee County vets

Manatee County has 36,000 veterans, Davis said.

“The 2011 census reported 81,000 veterans in Manatee, Sarasota, DeSoto and Hardee counties,” Davis said. “Manatee is definitely in the top three of Florida’s counties for number of vets.

“There are young vets as well,” Davis added.

Davis recalled a recent case where he helped a vet access a Veteran’s Administration housing program for chronically homeless vets.

“The sky is the limit when it comes to what we can do to put vets back on track,” Davis said.

Goodwill Manasota will be getting a lot of value out of Davis’ trek, Rosinsky said.

“Chris is going to do a blog where people can follow him every day (available through experiencegoodwill.org or linked directly at trailjournals.com/goodwillwalking),” Rosinsky said. “We will also hook up with media all along the trek and give updates on his progress. Some people will go out and walk with him.”

Rosinsky plans to meet Davis at Harper’s Ferry, W. Va., in August and walk about 100 miles over a week.

Davis is also fundraising. People can donate from five cents to $1 per mile at experiencegoodwill.org, which will have links on the home page, Reed said.

“Whether he raises $2,000, $10,000 or $50,000 for his program is inconsequential when you look at the impact of raising awareness over that longer period of time,” Rosinsky said.

Richard Dymond, Herald reporter, can be reached at 941-745-7072 or contact him via Twitter @ RichardDymond.

Read more here.

Roxanne Quimby, North Maine Woods, National Park

Wow.  I just found this great article from Yankee Magazine. The story of what’s going on with the north Maine woods, a national park and what Roxanne Quimby is doing and… why!  The article is quite long but very interesting!  It looks at the plight of:

1. the locals who feel they deserve to access the land as they wish; to hunt, fish, hike, camp (like they have always had) – even if they don’t own it and the owner of the land doesn’t want them doing that there.

2. a few wealthy individuals who see huge tracts of Maine land being sold to foreign entities for division and development – and want to preserve it in its entirety (with access to visitors), possibly as a national park.

Jym St. Pierre, Maine director of a group called RESTORE: The North Woods, says in the article, “The biggest reason we don’t have a national park in Maine today is because we’ve had a de facto park for generations. People feel entitled to that land, just because it’s always been there.”

Roxanne speaks about The Whetstone Bridge and how locals are feeling the hurt with the loss of a back-woods east-west road…

“These two pieces of land here effectively stop all east–west traffic. This bridge, the Whetstone Bridge, here — it’s one of the very significant nails in the coffin because it’s the only way to get across the river for something like 30 miles. Okay, you can go over the bridge, but you can’t go across my land with a car. So you can have your bridge, but it ain’t doin’ you any good. I’m closing in, and I’m doing this to demonstrate that you cannot leave this to chance.”

She is speaking broadly to those who oppose a park, those who ironically also claim they believe in property rights: “Yes, it’s a private road, but it’s been in such permissive use for so many years, people forget that the state doesn’t own that road.”

Up there, where she is pointing, people slapped bumper stickers onto their cars and wore T-shirts emblazoned with the slogan “Ban Roxanne.” Letters to the editor condemned her.  But… she agreed to keep open two important snowmobile trails that cross portions of her land, perhaps heralding a thaw in her relations with area sportsmen and residents.

Read the entire article at Yankee Magazine
North Maine Woods

Body believed to be of missing Canadian man found in Umbazooksus Lake

TOWNSHIP 6 RANGE 13, Maine — The body of a Canadian man who went missing last November is believed to have been found Tuesday in Umbazooksus Lake, according to the Maine Warden Service.

from bangor daily news
By Dawn Gagnon, BDN Staff

Cpl. John MacDonald of the Maine Warden Service said Tuesday evening in a press release that the body is believed to be of Renald Poulin, 67, of St. Come Quebec. He said a Maine Warden Service pilot who had been scanning the area for Poulin, while surveying ice conditions on northern Maine lakes, located the body at about 10:45 a.m.

Game wardens on the ground arrived several hours later with watercraft to retrieve the body, which was located about two miles northwest of Umbazooksus Dam on the western shore of the lake.

MacDonald said the body will be taken to the state medical examiner’s office in Augusta to determine a positive identification.

“The Maine Warden Service has been in contact with the family of Mr. Poulin since the search began last November, and we are hopeful the family will now have closure,” MacDonald said.

State game wardens began searching for Poulin after they located Poulin’s vehicle while searching for two Millinocket men in an unrelated incident, MacDonald said. Authorities in Canada also had been searching, he said.

The search was suspended Dec. 13, 2013, as heavy snow began to fall in the area. Efforts were to resume when temperatures began to melt snow in that region in the spring.

Poulin crossed into the United States on Nov. 26 and was supposed to have returned Nov. 27. On Nov. 30, game wardens located his green 2002 Kia Sedona, MacDonald said, adding that Poulin may have been in the area because of his interest in the train rail systems in the Umbazooksus Lake area used decades ago in the logging industry.

The ice on Umbazooksus Lake and nearby small bogs and wet areas made detecting evidence of Poulin especially difficult, the corporal said. Weather conditions needed to improve significantly before further searching. Teams comprised of wardens, forest rangers and search and rescue volunteers conducted a combination of grid, hasty and K-9 team searches.

During the last days of searching in December, temperatures remained at about 10 degrees, and snow began to fall.

While the ground search was suspended, aerial flights had started to occur again as snow and ice began to melt, he said.

Ground searches had been planned for next week.

National Geographic – Appalachian trail

A video from National Geographic about the Appalachian Trail on the eastern seaboard of the USA.  Running from Maine to Georgia, it is a challenging 2175 mile hike.  See the TV show and learn all about hiking, camping and experiencing the Appalachian Trail.

Search is on for Katahdin Artists

from the sunjournal:  HALLOWELL — The Harlow Gallery invites Maine artists to submit work to the upcoming exhibition “Inspired by Katahdin” to be presented in partnership with brothers David and Carl Little in November 2014.

Artist and author David Little has long been inspired by Maine’s tallest mountain, so much so that he wrote a book, “Art of Katahdin: The Mountain, the Range, the Region” published in 2013. The book follows a historic timeline using art inspired by the majestic mountain, as well as a collection of Katahdin literature, photography, graphics, maps and more, and was edited by Carl Little.

This November, the Harlow Gallery will exhibit a selection of works by artists featured in the book, and are inviting submissions from Maine artists inspired by the majestic Maine mountain. Submissions are being accepted via email through Oct. 1, 2014 and will be reviewed by a curatorial committee.

The exhibition will be on view at the Harlow Gallery at 160 Water Street from Nov. 7-29. The public reception will be from 5-8 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7, and will feature a book signing with the author and editor.

Info for Artists

1. Deadline for email submissions is 11 p.m. on Wednesday, Oct. 1, 2014.

2. Original fine art in any media is welcome, including hand-pulled prints, photography, sculpture, and fine crafts, including ceramics, glass, and fiber art.

3. Artists should be residents of Maine at least part of the year or otherwise have a strong connection to our state. Artists submitting from out of state are responsible for the costs of shipping work to and from the Harlow.

4. The entry fee is $10 for members of the Harlow Gallery/ Kennebec Valley Art Association or $20 for non-members. Non-members may join the Harlow Gallery when submitting and pay the member rate. Each artist may submit up to four works of art for consideration (note that the fee is per artist, not per work of art).

For more information, visit http://www.harlowgallery.org.

New Family Dollar store in East Millinocket

EAST MILLINOCKET, Maine — Family Dollar will build a $700,000 store on the site of the former Hamlet building and will employ six to eight workers when the store opens in about six months, store and town officials said Monday.

from the bangor daily news

Construction of the 8,320-square-foot storefront will begin just as soon as construction workers have word that the snow is gone, said Doug Murray, northeast construction director of Hunt Real Estate Services.

Hunt is contracted by Family Dollar to find and develop sites. Benchmark Construction of Westbrook will build the building, Murray said.

“We hope to start almost immediately,” Murray said Monday, “just as soon as they can get up there.”

Michael Noble, East Millinocket’s part-time code enforcement officer, issued a building permit for the project about three weeks ago, Noble said.

Town Administrative Assistant Shirley Tapley did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment. Clint Linscott, a selectman who owns the property and several others around town, declined to comment on the development, citing a confidentiality agreement he had signed.

The news contrasts sharply with a Family Dollar Stores, Inc. announcement earlier this month that the more than 8,000-store chain is slashing prices to win shoppers, cutting jobs, and shutting 370 stores to reverse declining sales and profits.

Family Dollar, which caters to lower-income shoppers, reported sales at stores open at least a year fell 3.8 percent in the quarter ended March 1. It expects sales to decline this quarter, too.

Town Administrative Assistant Shirley Tapley did not immediately return a telephone call seeking comment. Clint Linscott, a selectman who owns the property and several others around town, declined to comment on the development, citing a confidentiality agreement he had signed.

Linscott’s workers finished gutting the site at 117 Main St. about a month ago. In late February, the auto mechanic and body repairman, who owns Linscott’s Auto Body shop at 68 Main St., said that the layoffs and temporary shutdown at the new Great Northern Paper Co. LLC mill forced him to make a decision — to raze the football-sized building — that he had struggled with for a few years.

The recent closure of Soup to Nuts restaurant, which had been located at 117 Main St. since 2009, also hurt, he said. The Hamlet had been a motel from the 1960s to 1990s that had more recently been the site of several retail outlets, including a bookstore, greenhouse outlet, photography studio, bar and restaurant….  [more]

Investor working to complete financing for Millinocket pellet mill despite FAME shortfall

MILLINOCKET, Maine — The New Hampshire investment firm that could create a new market for the state’s forest products industries intends to proceed with its plans to build a $140 million pellet mill despite a recent $9 million reduction in a state bond, officials said Wednesday.

excerpt from bangor daily news…
~ By Nick Sambides Jr., BDN Staff ~

Thermogen Industries leaders are “disappointed” with a Finance Authority of Maine decision last week to reduce a $25 million bond to $16 million, but are working to close that gap with its investors, said Dammon Frecker, Thermogen’s project manager.

“While this setback is certainly unfortunate, our team’s passion and determination [are] inspiring and I have full confidence that we will prevail,” Frecker said in a statement released Wednesday. “We are working around the clock to restructure our financing plan and finalize a new path forward.”

“We are committed to developing this project and putting people back to work,” he added.

Cate Street Capital is a Portsmouth investment firm bankrolling Thermogen and Great Northern Paper Co. LLC, which owns a temporarily closed paper mill in East Millinocket and an industrial park in Millinocket where the pellet mill will be sited.

more…

Great Northern Paper Company is a Maine-based pulp and paper manufacturer that at its peak in the 1970s and 1980s operated mills in Georgia, Maine, and Wisconsin and produced 16.4 percent of the newsprint made in the United States.

The company was acquired by Georgia-Pacific Corporation in 1990. Its name was revived in 2011 when private equity firm Cates Capital acquired Great Northern’s original Maine mills.  Cate Capital now plans to replace the Millinocket mill with this pellet plant.