Reading the Appalachian
Trail was a lot like some of the lectures we have had in our class, and that aspect
of it I really enjoyed. It was extremely visual to the point that on many pages
the pictures overwhelmed the textual content. I think it’s really hard to
convey the beauty and nature of a location accurately without visual aide and
the book really managed to capture that atmosphere perfectly. The pictures were
also taken in a different style than the slides we saw in class, so the image
of the Appalachian Trail which I had formed from the lectures and slides in
class was refined into something more accurate to how the trail actually is.
This book delved into
content about the Appalachian Trail that we had not had the chance to cover in
class. Given the fact it was not relevant to spiritual journeys or sacred
places, we had not touched on the background of the Appalachian Trail much at
all. This book talked about the origins of the trail and its development over
the year. It was nice to get some backstory to the trail which we had seen so
much of.
The book brought up a
very interesting idea that I had not really acknowledged about the Appalachian
Trail: it served to protect a vast area of wilderness that might have been
disturbed had it not been in the area surrounding the trail. I love the fact
that the trail does not just serve the hikers; it also serves the wildlife that
surrounds them as they make the 2000 mile trek. I consider myself a fairly
decent environmentalist so it’s good to learn about untouched wilderness that
will remain untarnished.
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