The Landscape of Solitude
August 2003
I walked a Pennsylvania ridge, alone, tuned to birdsong and the breeze. Reaching Bear Rocks, I crossed a boulder field . . . . Download this article.

Tilting at Windmills
May 2003
The barren brown hills of San Gorgonio Pass, California, look as if they've been invaded by extraterrestrials. Spindly steel stalks . . . Download this article.

Assault on the Backcountry: Off-Road Vehicles Threaten America's Trail Lands
December 2002
I didn't see any off-road vehicles (ORVs) in New York's Sterling Forest State Park, but the earth was etched with evidence . . . . Download this article.

Thinking Beyond the Boundaries:
Linking Parks and Gateway Communities with Trails
May 2002
In the last century, Gatlinberg, Tennessee became a cliché for everything a national park gateway community shouldn't be. A lack of coherent regional planning turned it into . . . . Download this article.

America the Pin Cushion:
Hikers Respond to Cell Tower Assaults on the High Ground
October 2001
The Midstate Trail is a 92-mile hiking path with a pedigree. A 1927 hand-scrawled Field and Forest Club map invites trampers to walk this "sky-line trail . . . .Download this article.

America's Trails as Environmental Early Warning Systems
August 2001
Nancy Knoerzer came to Vernon, New Jersey, my home town, when she was just a year old. In that same year of 1928, New York newspaper editor Raymond Torrey tramped into Vernon . . . .Download this article.

Global Climate Change: The Gathering Storm
June 2001
The world is changing and hikers may be among the first people to feel the effects. This winter, the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued its third report on global warming and . . . .Download this article.

Backcountry Visitor Impacts: We have met the Enemy, and He Is Us.
March 2001
On weekends, neophyte hikers flee metro Seattle and trek into nearby Wilderness Areas of the Cascade Mountains. "We get hordes who have no idea what wilderness is . . . .Download this article.

S-P-R-A-W-L!
December 2000
Clinton C. Clarke saw the writing on the wall in 1932. "The Sierra Madre and San Bernardino ranges look like a subdivision," he wrote. "In all that fine backcountry it is hardly possible to . . . .Download this article.

A Dirty, Deadly Rain a Fallin' — Air Pollution Over America's Trails
October 2000
Pollution is slowly poisoning us and our wildlands. Scientists compare the human health and forest health dangers of car exhaust and smokestack emissions to a debilitating two pack-a-day cigarette habit. Ironically, . . . .Download this article.

A Plague Upon Our Houses: Biological Invasions and Global Extinctions
August 2000
One of the places I loved most in the world — not a high peak or roaring waterfall — was a little conifer-cloaked ravine five miles from my house. The Appalachian Trail slipped down a hill, out of deciduous sun into the secret. . . .Download
this article.

Environmental Challenges for America's Trails
June 2000
"Let's start by imagining a fine Persian carpet and a hunting knife," David Quammen suggests in his landmark book on island biogeography, Song of the Dodo. Imagine hacking the carpet into equal parts. America can be compared ecologically to
. . . .Download this article.

America's Trails: Pathways To Biodiversity
August 1999
Our nation's trail system is vast. Long distance trails explore peaks and valleys from Canada to Mexico, and from Maine to Georgia. They pass among forests of balsam fir and . . . .Download this article.

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American Hiking Society's bimonthly membership magazine, American Hiker, is the news and information source for the hiking community. With each issue, American Hiking Society members get national and regional news on trail issues; in-depth features on the ideas and trends shaping conservation; reports on American Hiking's Volunteer Vacations, National Trails Fund, Trailheads and Trail Conservation and Policy programs; and essays on the hiking experience by some of America's best outdoor writers.

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