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Articles From Category “Member Articles” 4

Cafe Member Blogs

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  • Background

    I celebrated my thru-hike of the AT as part of an important birthday in 2000. Since then I have written and thought about what this experience of hiking over 2,000 miles might tell me about my day job in various leadership roles in large organisations.

    The simplicity of Trail life is reassuring and allows quiet contemplation about people and organisations.

    In this blog I seek to make a link between the lessons I learned from long-distance hiking and what this might tell me about leadership. Your comments and reflections are welcome.

    Strategy, planning and execution

    We need a shared and meaningful long term objective - in this case, Katahdin - which sustains us through difficult and challenging times. Put simply, the objective is the mountain.

    We need a tactical and strategic outlook - the former to get us through each day in good shape, the latter to focus on our objective, even when it’s more than 2,000 miles away.

    The routine of eating, hiking and sleeping… [Read More]
  • I've written before on this subject. It's something we all should squeeze a weekend in once a year. Not only because the trail needs it, but you need it to. It is just an awesome thing to actually be part of the trail besides just using it. We all know the feeling when we've participated in a job well done. Last year Overload and I walked alot in Mass, so we joined a work party up there. This year I've been on the NY/NJ trail 3 times and plan to wrap it up, so when LI hiker put the RPH thread up, Overload and I packed the Fish car and headed down.....but first OV made 2 cheesecakes. I just love the look on a hiker when they discover a fresh brownie cheesecake is for dessert that nite.
    So Saturday morning I headed off with the stair building crew and Overload stayed at the shelter and did jobs around it. They dug and put up a trail kiosk, weeded the perrennial garden, painted the porch. I moved boulders. I was put with a team from the NY/NJ trail Conference Technical building crew.… [Read More]
  • Pacific Crest Trail


    Overview: The Pacific Crest Trail is a lot different from the Appalachian Trail. Along its 2650 miles it hits a high of 13,180’ at Forester Pass & a low of 200’ crossing the Bridge of the Gods at the WA/OR border. The terrain is about as varied as you can get. One day you may find yourself on a ridge in a snowstorm & a day or two later searching for water in the desert. In some places navigation skills are required. There are no white blazes to follow & snow pack covers many part of the trail through July. Although it is getting more popular in recent years, it has no where near the traffic that the AT does. Also, resupply is a little further apart & there are fewer choices. While the AT follows the “Green Tunnel” the PCT provides plenty of vistas.

    Resources:
    Pacific Crest Trail Association: This is the organization that oversees the PCT. By becoming a member you help support the trail & they can give you assistance in getting your permit for hiking it. Each… [Read More]
  • after successfully completing my thru hike of the benton mackaye trail, i met up with homebrew at standing bear and hiked north on the at till trail days in damascus.i started out from trail days early monday morning, but found myself hiking within a huge bubble with anywhere between 15 and 30 people at the campsites and shelters.i pushed hard to get ahead, and as a result i tweaked my knee on a downhill that saturday.
    meantime,mountain mike had been trying to figure out how we could hook up,we had kept missing each other , and i was close to laurel creek at mile 580.3. he sent me a text to stay at fort bastian, gave me the number to call trubrit, which i did , let him know i would be there the following day.i walked down the hill from laurel creek, and eventually met mountain mike coming up to meet me.he took my pack and i followed him up the hill to the campsites, in a beautiful pine forest with plenty of great tenting and hammocking sites available. there was a log cabin under… [Read More]