Episode #202 - Silvia Cassano (Momma Sil)

Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis

Steve Adams

Sports, Wilderness

4.8 • 599 Ratings

🗓️ 23 January 2020

⏱️ 73 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

This interview with Silvia Cassano was recorded nearly a year ago, but I've only just recovered it. Silvia is a "Trail Angel" referred to by a previous guest, yet she has so much more to offer than that. Her knowledge of all things trail shines through here, with her many positions within the AT community contributing, particularly to the trail in her own community.

Image courtesy of Jeff Yardis.

Silvia admits to being opinionated, so her views on the trail are pretty much unvarnished and welcome at this time. She is passionate about the true meaning of Trail Magic and isn't a big fan of hiker feeds, with Leave No Trace principles uppermost in her mind.

The Vermont theme is continued by a conversation with Jess Treat, a woman in whose home I have now stayed twice, both on my 2014 thru-hike and my hike last year. Jess tells us about her home and the service that she offers hikers seeking some warmth and comfort on the trail.

Finally, Paul Stutzman is on the verge of New Hampshire–also in Vermont!!

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	You are listening to the Hiking Radio Network, where we talk the walk with shows by hikers
0:05.2	about hikers for everybody. Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail, the ultimate midlife crisis,
0:24.1	joins Stephen his guests every week as he staggers from Georgia to Maine.
0:33.9	Hi guys, and lovely to have you all along again for Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail,
0:38.1	the ultimate midlife crisis.
0:40.6	It's a New England show today with Connecticut and mainly Vermont featured purely accidentally in each section.
0:47.8	Funny enough, the main guest, Sylvia Casano or Mama Sil, was recorded in February last year.
0:54.3	Sylvia has spent much of her life in Vermont and has been a great advocate for all things
0:57.6	trail.
0:58.5	I knew I had a recording of Sylvia somewhere and just I'd lost it.
1:03.2	Then earlier this week as I was sorting out one or two files, I realised where it was and
1:06.7	went straight to it and decided that this would be a perfect episode for today.
1:11.4	Remember, this was done prior to my 2019 through hike and I was interested to see if some of my
1:16.2	pre-hike thoughts were as solid as I'd presume them to be. I'm going to let you be the judge of that.
1:21.4	Sylvia will be along soon and while I remember, I was living at the time, annoyingly close to a road, so the editing has been
1:29.5	an utter nightmare. But the sound isn't bad now, even though you can hear the old car
1:33.6	roaming pass from time to time. And irony of ironies, the second guest, Jess Treat, has a home
1:41.4	in Sheffield, Vermont, and that is where I stayed both this year and in 2014.
1:46.5	Sylvia in my first interview even mentions Jess and her home.
1:49.8	You just can't make this stuff up.
1:52.3	Finally, Paul Stutzman is also in Vermont, heading to those last two great states of New Hampshire and Maine.
1:59.2	Unfortunately for me, he meets up again with Fargo, so my crappy Fargo accent had to be dusted down again. Oh well. Actually, while I'm talking about Paul Stutzman, as I said I would last week, I went to meet him in Sarasota near me the day that last week's episode dropped. What a charming and humble man. He's actually staying nearby for a couple of months and agreed to come on the show to talk about his journey after I finished reading his book. So that would be a treat
	...

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