As a child, I loved running wild through the thick forest surrounding my home, following deer trails, climbing huge rocks. From my bedroom, I could watch the change of seasons on Bearfort Mountain, fingers of frost creeping across the windowpane. At my best friend’s house, on Waywayanda Mountain, we would hike the snowmobile trails to find the Appalachian Trail. From our rocky perches, we’d see backpackers pass by, bent low under their loads. My high school friends and I made a pact. We would walk that trail someday.

Before I turned sixteen, my family left New Jersey. I went to college, started up the corporate ladder, forgot about my hiking plans. And then came a turning point, when I faced my own mortality in the eyes of a co-worker dying at my office. Why was I working sixty-hour weeks? I packed my things. Went to a therapist. Dug out the dusty teenage journals. And rediscovered my dreams.

I joined the Appalachian Trail Conference, amassing a stack of books a foot high through mail order. I read voraciously about backpacking. Although I’d hiked all my life, I’d never spent a night in the woods. Using the Internet, I searched for anything I could find on the A.T., but in 1995, there wasn’t much. The newsgroup alt.backcountry was the be-all and end-all of trail talk. It had the atmosphere of a Dodge City bar – noisy, rough, and gritty –  and I didn’t feel welcome. But then I saw a message:  “Come check out the new A.T. mailing list!”

I found the new National Trails Mailing Lists website, and joined the brand-new mailing list, the AT-L. Here, the banter was all A.T., all the time. People spoke passionately about section hiking, thru-hiking, and gear. About being outdoors, and loving the A.T. I watched stories unfold as hikers shared snippets from their journals. One woman in particular, Gutsy – Gail Johnson – amazed me. Posted as she hiked, Gail’s journal clued me in to the real highs and lows of spending so much time alone. She braved weeks in snow and downpours, the terror of lyme disease, and the sadness of separation from her family. But she persevered and won her goal, reaching Kathadin in the fall of 1996.

I sent postcards to Gail as she hiked, and we corresponded. I wanted to try my mettle on seventy miles of trail in Pennsylvania. She offered to visit in the spring and hike with me. Meanwhile, AT-L members raved about The Gathering, the annual meeting of the Appalachian Long Distance Hiking Association—and it was being held in Carlisle, PA, only three hours from my home! So I went. Afraid to try out my new tent because I didn’t know how to put it up, I stayed in a cheap motel room, right next door to another member of the AT-L, Pete Fornof. He’d hiked with Gail on the AOL Tag Team the previous year, and transcribed her journal to the list.  

I met a couple dozen people from the AT-L at The Gathering; we even did a group photo together. Soon after, the list buzzed with excitement. These people were for real! Group hikes got underway, and individuals found new hiking partners. In my case, Pete also knew Kahley Hubitsky, another Pennsylvania hiker, so Kahley and I made plans for an outing. My introduction to backpacking began in earnest with our weekend trip on the Mid-State Trail. Then Gail came up from South Carolina. She and I spent a wonderful week hiking the Laurel Highlands Trail. When we stopped at the midpoint for a night in a motel, guess who showed up? Kahley! She’d driven across Pennsylvania just to meet the lady whose online journal she’d admired so much.

Two weeks later, I trundled down to Trail Days to bump into Gail again, meeting a whole new crop of faces I hadn’t seen at The Gathering—more “virtual friends” from AT-L. These folks (some of them in the middle of their thru-hikes!) – shared meals, stories, and crazy experiences around Damascus. Picking a spot at random at the pancake breakfast, I ended up sitting between two thru-hikers whose journals appeared on Trailplace, a new trail resource maintained by Dan “Wingfoot” Bruce. Offering a more structured environment than AT-L, the new ATML mailing list brought more A.T. enthusiasts into the fold. Many of them joined AT-L as well, cross-pollinating their humor and good solid advice.

As the groups increased in size, more hiker friendships formed, on the trail and online. Growing out of a need for list members to share their pre-hike planning in person, the AT-L spawned the Ruck, an annual winter get-together of folks who swap stories, share slides, cook dinner together, and test out gear. ATML held its own gathering, TrailFest, attracting quite a crowd. I attended the first Ruck, and got my first taste at hiking on the A.T. as an adult—learning that despite being out of shape, I could hike six miles in a couple hours and feel good about it!

I’ve been going back to the trail ever since. Every Ruck includes a bit of hiking, and I’m always up for that. I’ve done A.T. sections with other members of the AT-L, and met up with friends on their thru-hikes. I send postcards and maildrops to folks on the trail. When I was feeling low, my AT-L friends took me in and cheered me up, sending me down the trail whistling a new tune. It’s been a support group and a source of expert advice on dozens of topics; a virtual campfire, a place for tall tales, short stories, and friendly banter that lifts the spirit.

I’m counting down the days when I can drop everything and take to the trail for a full six months. But in the meantime, I’ve got my section hiking—and my cybertrails. As more and more people contribute to the mailing lists, and their information is tucked away in archives, they leave an electronic trail of shared knowledge and hiker lore that will educate and entertain hikers who discover that the Appalachian Trail calls to them, too.

SIDEBAR: MAILING LISTS
To get the most out of any backpacking mailing list, be sure to scan through the archives before introducing yourself to the group. You’ll be tapping years of accumulated knowledge, and may just find the answers to the questions that you plan to ask!

The National Trails Mailing Lists website, managed by Ryan Brooks, houses not only the AT-L but also covers the Pacific Coast Trail, the Continental Divide Trail, the Ice Age Trail, and the Florida Trail. Stop by http://www.backcountry.net/ to sign up!

Dog lovers will want to check out the Traildog Headquarters at http://www.geocities.com/Yosemite/Gorge/5538/ for a mailing list catering to hikers and paddlers who travel with their furry friends.

A smattering of smaller groups meet in mailing lists across several major mailing list server sites. http://www.onelist.com hosts dozens of small mailing lists. Visit the main page, then type in “hiking” for the full roster. New lists appear on an almost-daily basis, and include groups from hikers with disabilities to women, gays, GPS users, and lightweight backing enthusiasts. Similar small groups can found on http://www.topica.com/, http://www.globelists.com, and http://www.egroups.com/

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