The 22nd annual Gathering will convene on Columbus Day Weekend on the campus of Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H. The dates are Oct. 10, 11 and 12, with many folks having that Monday, the 13th, off from work because of the holiday. Camping will once again be provided at the beautiful Storrs Pond Campground on the outskirts of town.
Here is a brief rundown on what we know so far about the main programs on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings. On Sept. 30, we posted a complete schedule of events. Check it out on the Program Page.
Friday night
We open our Gatherings on Friday evening with introductions, hiker testimonials and other presentations, followed by a special program that helps get everyone psyched about our annual weekend meeting. After the formal opening, Chris "Spur" Bagby and Sanne "Ready" Bagby will present a colorful slide show depicting their hikes on the AT, IAT, PCT and Pinhoti Trail, with musical accompaniment by Tedd "Takoma Tedd" Lester, who will perform his original trail songs as well as some written by Earl Shaffer.
Saturday night
For our Saturday night feature presentation this year, we have Chris Townsend, an award-winning writer on backpacking and also one of the world’s leading long-distance wilderness hikers. He is the author of 15 books on backpacking, hiking and Nordic skiing and has written hundreds of articles for specialist outdoor magazines and UK national newspapers. Currently he writes regular features on gear and other subjects for TGO (The Great Outdoors) magazine and leads ski tours in Norway and other countries.
In 1982 he hiked the Pacific Crest Trail, in 1985 he did the Continental Divide Trail, and in 1988 became the first person to walk the length of the Canadian Rockies, a distance of 1,600 miles, in one hike. He has also hiked the Arizona Trail, Yukon Wilderness and other trails. He has walked 1,250 miles across Great Britain, 1,300 across the Scandinavian mountains of Sweden and Norway, and 1,700 miles across Scotland, becoming the first person to climb all 517 of the 3,000-foot-and-above Scottish summits in one continuous trek.
Chris won the Outdoor Writers’ Guild Award for Excellence for “The Backpacker’s Handbook” in 1993 and again in 1996 and 1997 for the magazine features “Snow Place Like Home,” on building snow shelters, and “Below the Face of the Earth,” on the Grand Canyon, both of which appeared in TGO magazine.
For more information, visit Townsend’s Web page
Saturday night contra dance & ALDHA hoedown
The Saturday night program will be followed by the annual Contra Dance, a touchy-feely hands-on coming-together of the ALDHA Trail Family in the best, most positive sense of that word. Dances have been a part of every ALDHA Gathering since Day One, and if you have never bothered to take part in one of these down-to-earth celebrations of the human spirit, you don’t know what you’ve been missing. So let your hair down, drop your pack for a while and let those inhibitions go. Remember, we’re hikers — almost everybody else will look like they’re dancing in hiking boots, too — so don’t be so self-conscious. Just do what hikers do best: Follow the person in front of you.
The caller will be Steve Zakon-Anderson. The musicians will be Rodney Miller on fiddle and Mary Cay Brass on keyboard.
Sunday night
We’ll be in for a treat on Sunday night for those who are able to stay through the weekend. We’ll get our first look at a new documentary on the Holy Grail of every northbound A.T. thru-hiker — Mount Katahdin. Five years in the making, “Wilderness and Spirit, A Mountain Called Katahdin,” is a feature-length documentary, 100 minutes long, that was produced, directed and edited by James Coleman (shown below). Coleman is an independent filmmaker from Portland, Maine, who works under the name Huey. The film captures the spirit of Katahdin and the people who have been drawn to Maine’s “Great Mountain.” It explores ways of thinking about the wilderness and how people from many walks of life, past to present, have found spiritual solace and strength in this monadnock of a mountain.
This landmark documentary includes never-before-seen footage of the Katahdin 100 Run of the Penobscot people and Earl Shaffer’s historic climb up Katahdin on his 50th anniversary A.T. thru-hike. The film brings together the writings of Henry David Thoreau, the paintings of Frederic Church and Marsden Hartley, interviews with Baxter State Park staff, Gov. Baxter’s descendants, Donn Fendler, subject of “Lost on a Mountain in Maine,” the legendary stories, dances and music of the Penobscot people, and the recollections of the residents of Millinocket and the hikers and climbers of Katahdin. The soundtrack features music composed by Tom Myron and traditional Penobscot music performed by the Keepers of the Penobscot Drum. For 25 years, Huey has been making films on artists, youth, education and the environment. His films have been shown at film festivals in the United States, on PBS, and on television in Europe. He is director of the Maine Student Film and Video Festival. In March 2002, he received the first “Huey” Award from the Maine Film Commission, presented to him by Maine’s first lady, Mary Herman, at a Blaine House ceremony. Named in his honor, the “Huey” Award will be given annually to a Maine resident who exhibits “exceptional contributions to film, video and motion media in Maine.” For more information or to order your own copy of this documentary on videotape, visit his Web page at http://www.filmsbyhuey.com.
Bill Irwin
Following Huey on Sunday evening will be a presentation by Bill Irwin. In 1990, Irwin hiked the Appalachian Trail with his seeing-eye dog, Orient, and became the first known legally blind man to thru-hike the A.T. Since his hike, the North Carolina native has gone on the lecture circuit to talk about his life and adventures; he wrote a book, called “Blind Courage,” and he built a home in the woods in Maine. Sadly, Orient passed away a few years ago, but Irwin has a new seeing-eye dog. For more information, visit http://billirwin.com/
Other presentations
See the actual program of events to find out the who, what, when and where of all the things we have lined up for you at this year’s Gathering.
Appalachian Trail Museum Symposium and Raffle
The Appalachian Trail Museum will present its third annual symposium. This year the focus will be on “Peace Pilgrim,” arguably the greatest long-distance hiker of all time. She was a woman who is little known in A.T. circles but hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1952 in the first flip-flop and, starting in 1953, walked continuously across the country until she was killed in an auto accident in 1981.
She stopped tallying her walking miles around 1964, when she was up to 25,000 miles. She earned her trail name from her campaign for world peace.
The museum will be raffling off a lovely quilt that was made by Cynthia Taylor Miller ("Mrs. Gorp") with help from Janet Block of Rutland, Vt. The full/queen-sized Irish Chain-style quilt is red and white, with the A.T. logo stitched into the white sections. Tickets cost $1 apiece, or six for $5, and all proceeds go to benefit the A.T. Museum. The drawing will take place the Sunday night of the Gathering, Oct. 12, at Dartmouth College.
Walk the A.T. in the Snow
"Weathercarrot" will set up his topographical maps of the entire trail so that you can literally walk from Springer to Katahdin during the coldest months of the year ... He’ll have on display his mapping project showing average annual snowfall amounts for the entire 2,168-plus miles of the trail. Anyone familiar with past showings of "Stats Godric’s" elevation maps of the A.T. will understand the significance of this new endeavor. It took Greg two and a half years to complete this project. [Click the image at right for a close-up view.] "Weathercarrot" had his maps on display at the last Gathering, but since then he has put them online for all to see. If you’d like to check out some of his maps in advance of the Gathering, find out how to do so by starting out here. His exhibit in Hanover this fall will be open on both Saturday and Sunday at a place to be announced in the program.
Annual Apple Contest
The annual apple contest is just around the corner and you are hereby challenged to bring your local apples for judging on Saturday at 4 p.m. at Thayer Hall. The winner will be announced on Saturday evening at the evening program.
This is a great opportunity for bragging rights on whose state (or province!) has the best apple. The winners at last year’s Gathering were: 1st, "Canada Goose" (Ontario); 2nd, "Two-Trees" (?); and 3rd, "Sparrow" (Georgia). Macoun, Macintosh, Empire, Rome, Granny Smith, Braeburn, Red Delicious, Golden Delicious, Gala, Newtown Pippin, Jonathan, Ginger Gold . . . You name it, we’ll try it.
Bring Your Photos
SECOND ANNUAL PHOTO GALLERY CONTEST
Guidelines:
1. Please limit your total entries to three;
2. Photographs should be no larger than 8x10; and
3. Write on the back of your photo your name, address and phone number so it can be returned later, or, more importantly, allows for acknowledgment of the winner.
Categories:
1. "I can’t believe you are doing that!" -- A broad category for surprise, humor and what were you thinking.
2. "All About the Appalachian Trail" -- A.T. related, the photographs need to be from the A.T.
3. "The Hiking Experience" Photographs from any hiking excursion.
4. "A Trail Community" -- Let’s look at our best side -- the work, the fun, any trail community activity.
GATHERING WALL
This project began last year. We will again dedicate a Gathering Wall to those members of ALDHA who are not in attendance, some in memory. Bring a photo of an ALDHA member who will not be with us this year so that they may participate in their own way.
ALDHA Central
ALDHA will set up its registration and information center on Saturday morning in Tyndall Lounge, located inside Thayer Hall (the lounge is to your left as you walk in). Thayer is also home to the Dartmouth dining facility, in case you are planning to take your meals there. Also set up in this room on Saturday and Sunday will be the Appalachian Trail Conference’s Ultimate Trail Store and the A.T. Museum exhibit. All other exhibits for the Hiker Fair will be set up during the day Saturday only in Alumni Hall at the Hopkins Center. Among the services you can expect to find at ALDHA Central will be the following:
- Registration Desk where you can pay your dues and Gathering registration fees, and pick up your program and registration packet.
- ALDHA Merchandise: We have NEW ALDHA T-SHIRTS on sale starting with this Gathering!!! [For a preview of the image on the back of the shirt, click here.] Plus, you can find an assortment of other ALDHA memorabilia, including bumper stickers, window stickers and (we hope) patches. All for very cheap prices.
- ALDHA Membership Desk where you can check to see if we have all of your information correct in our database. We plan to turn around the information culled from this year’s registrations and publish a 2003-2004 Directory in November. You will hear more about this during the weekend.
- Lost and Found: If you lost it, check here. If you found something, leave it here for the owner to come and claim it.
- Message Board: Looking to hook up with an old trail friend? Post a stick-it note here and we’ll help you contact that person.
- Ride Board: need to hitch a ride home? or looking for someone to share the driving expenses? Leave a note here to help find each other.
- Program Changes: check here for info on room changes, new programs added, and any programs that have been canceled.
- Gathering Wall and Photo Contest: Photos can be dropped off here for both events, and we will post the Gathering Wall here (see above).
- Gathering coordinator: John O’Mahoney will be headquartered here in case you need to get in touch with him. Or stop by and say thanks for all the hard work he has devoted to making this weekend happen.
Volunteers always welcome
The Fall 2003 Gathering will be ALDHA’s 22nd anniversary get-together and we want to make it something special. With your help, we’ll be able to do just that. If you want to do a workshop or slide show, we have some useful tips on how to make that happen. Program coordinator John O’Mahoney needs volunteers in a number of other areas as well, namely: Child stars: JohnO would like to present 5-minute skits featuring children during the evening programs. Parents should contact him at johno@mail.monmouth.com so he can get a head count of those who would like to present skits. Newborns to teens are welcome. Registration desk: Help sign in folks and make sure all their questions are answered. Support crews: These folks provide an invaluable service just by running chores, setting up signs on meeting rooms, removing those signs afterward, chasing down projectors and extension cords for workshops, and being available to handle other emergencies. Hiker fair: We need a couple of folks to coordinate the Saturday hiker fair in terms of making sure tables and chairs are either set up or taken down, and facilitating any other needs that the participants may have. Campfire: The Friday and Saturday night campfires at the campsite need a few reliable volunteers to make sure the wood and fire ring are ready for action on both nights and the area is cleaned up before everyone leaves on Sunday. Video deejay: If someone would like to coordinate the playing of video tapes for our weekend-long lineup of trail-related videos, that would be a huge help. They are shown in the same location at different times. Your job is to make sure it happens on schedule. Sunrise service: Anyone out there willing to play “Amazing Grace” on guitar? We will have the lyrics already printed for the rest of us to sing along.
Registration
To preregister for the Gathering, fill out a copy of the registration form and mail it no later than Sept. 1, 2003, to ALDHA, 10 Benning St., PMB 224, West Lebanon, NH 03784. After Sept. 1, please wait until you show up at the Gathering to register (it’s still the same price!). The Gathering costs $17 per person or $27 per couple. That includes a 1-year membership in ALDHA, a copy of the Annual Membership Directory, and four newsletters over the course of the year. (The breakdown of the cost is $10 per person for the Gathering; $7 per family for annual membership dues.) For directions and information on camping, click here. To view a detailed map of the Dartmouth campus, check out the online map created by the college. Want to know what to expect for weather? Take a look for yourself, with the Dartmouth Webcam view from the tower of Baker Library, at http://www.dartmouth.edu/~webcams/tower/
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