It is DSaturday morning and I am sitting in front of the fireplace at Skyland Lodge. The place I camped last night is only abolut 4 miles south of here, so I walked here this morning and had breakfast in the dining room. I had not intended to come here, but last night Midnight, the ridge-runner, mentioned that on weekends they serve a breakfast buffet here. Well, when I got here they told me it was not busy enough this weekend for the buffet, but since I was here I had breakfast anyway. So now I am relaxing waiting for the sun to burn through the clouds and fog, and I figured I would take a few minutes and answer a couple of the questions that have been asked in the comments of my blog.

Ridge-Runner – A ridge-runner is someone employed by one of the trail clubs to spend their time on the trail and provide information and guidance to hikers. In Shenandoah National Park there are two ridge-runners. They move up and down the trail and meet and talk with any hikers on the trail. They can answer questions hikers may have, they try to educate people on Leave No Trace ethics, and they can remind people to follow camping restrictions and the like. They have no enforcement authority, but they usually are able to contact park rangers or whatever other authority is needed if there is a real need.

Not every part of the trail has ridge-runners. There is one to cover the entire trail in Georgia, and only during the spring. There are a couple in GSMNP. There are two here in SNP. I believe there are some in New Jersey. They are several in the 55 miles of trail in Connecticut, which is heavily used by weekenders.

In addition to ridge-runners, in some locations there are summit caretakers and site caretakers. For example, in Vermont the Green Mountain Club employs caretakers at some of the higher summits to encourage people to stay on ther marked paths and not trample fragile alpine plants. The GMC also has site caretakers at some heavily used camping spots, which have been very successful in keeping people from camping in fragile areas.

Monkeywrench – Here is the sort of long version of the story: I am a big fan of the late author Edward Abbey. A number of years ago I discovered an email dikscussion list dedicated to Abbey, and have been a subscriber and active participant on the list for many years. Abbey is the author of "The Monkeywrench Gang". Every year there is a weekend gathering of members of the email list community, and at most olf these gatherings a flag with a monkeywrench on it is flown. I have never yet made it to one of these gatherings, but back in 2006 when Jodi and I went to Tanzania to bicycle tour and to climb Mount Kilimanjaro, one of the members of the email list community made me a monkeywrench flag which I carried to the summit of Kili.

When I decided to attempt this thru-hike of the AT I wanted to carry the monkeywrench flag, but the flag was too big and I asked the same person to make me a much smaller flag. I fly this little flag from the suspension line of my hammock, where it serves to denote the foot end of the hammock where the entrance is.

So, way back in Georgia, at the beginning of my hike, someone noticed my little monkeywrench flag and said "Hey Monkeywrench," and that became my trailname.

And by the way, Bob, I knolw very well what a monkeywrench is. 😉

Monkeywrench
Allen Freeman
allen@allenf.com
www.allenf.com
allenf.blogspot.com