Help

Howdy,
Ever since completing the Appalachian Trail people have confronted me with one daunting question. “How was your hike?” It is an impossible question to answer with our societal expectation of a sound byte. At first, I would just stand there smiling, trying to think of the words to do it some justice. Eventually I caved to something like, “It was the single greatest event of my life.” Even spoken with great emotion, that really doesn’t say it either. I needed to write it down. I needed to process it. The only way to come close to the experience will be to read about it day by day while looking at the photos. So here it is and I hope it works. I hope it will be as fun for you to read as for me to write.

It’s taken over two years to complete this written and photographic journal of my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. I wanted it to be like the physical photo albums I had made of earlier hikes and adventures out west. Unable to find anything commercially available or in the open source world of the Web that really filled the bill, I set out to create it myself. I had to learn programming with Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML), the language of the Web and a bunch of other stuff. Finally I have something I’m happy with. Hopefully you will be too.

This journal / photo album can be leafed through using your computer’s browser by picking (clicking on) random locations on the map of the trail. Or if preferred, just pick a date from the calendar . The third option is to pick a topic from the Thoughts & Observations page. Of course it can also be read like a book starting with a few pages of notes on Preparations and following my boots right on through the day-by-day accounts and photos of the whole hike. That is, of course, the way I experienced it.

The journal is pretty huge. To plow through it in one sitting might be pretty painful. It might be fun to read about one day at a time. I look forward to your emails as you share my hike: sp2mtns@yahoo.com

Using this Journal

Who is Voyageur

Contact

Install for Faster Access:
For faster access the whole Journal can be loaded onto your computer from the CD or DVD.
For Windows systems:

In the Start Menu click My Computer
In My Computer Right-Click the CD AT2004Journal...
Click Explore
Click install_atjournal.exe
Follow the prompts

For Non-Windows systems:

Copy the folder atjournal from the CD to your hard disk
Open the new atjournal folder on your hard disk
Open the file index.html with your favorite browser
Bookmark this page or save it to your favorite

Uninstall
On Windows systems the Uninstaller can be found at:
Start Menu/Programs/ATJournal

On Non-Windows systems just delete the folder atjournal

Voyageur is also known as Scott Piddington. My first hike was a day hike with my dad and brother in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. I was 9 at the time. A year or 2 later I went on my first overnight backpacks. Hiking and backpacking became a staple of my summers for 1 or 2 weeks each year through college.

A year after graduating college I moved to New Hampshire. Shortly there after the White Mountain National Forest became my year round playground. I feel like a walking guidebook for the Whites. In 1992 my horizons began to expand. Since then there have been additional adventures annually. These would include:

Gros Ventre Wilderness, Wyoming
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
Wind River Range, Wyoming
Bighorn Mountains, Wyoming
Rockey Mountain National Park, Colorado
Weminuche Wilderness, Colorado
Gates of the Arctic National Park, Alaska
Tongass National Forest, Alaska

Yosemite National Park, California
Long Trail, Vermont
Glacier National Park, Montana
High Uinta Wilderness, Utah
Everglades National Park canoing, Florida
Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge canoing, Georgia
Au Sable River, Michigan

It was the summer of 1998 when I began working at a scout camp with the Valley Voyageurs program, hence my trail name. Each week myself and another leader take a small group of older scouts, 14-17, on a back packing trip. They plan it. They lead it. We teach them all the skills, Leave No Trace, low impact, they need. This includes map & compass, meals, camping. We even teach basic rock climbing, commands, knots & safety. The Voyageurs climb in the back country for a day each week. It's a blast and the kids learn so much. This goes on for 8 weeks each summer along with 1 to 2 weeks of staff training up front. It was good practice for the never ending nature of a thru-hike. With the exception of the summer of 2004 (AT Thru-Hike) I have lead Voyageurs trips every summer from 1998 through this writing in 2006.

Additionally I have been the Technical Director of a high school theatre program since 1979. Also, I was a programmer / systems annalist / network administrator from about 1980 to 1996.

Please share your thoughts with me as you read my journal.

sp2mtns@yahoo.com

Version Created: 1/9/2007