Episode #215 - Paul Curtin (Magnum)
Mighty Blue On The Appalachian Trail: The Ultimate Mid-Life Crisis
Steve Adams
4.8 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2020
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
With the trails now quieter than they've probably ever been at this time of year, it seems appropriate somehow that we should have a trail maintainer AND thru-hiker as our main guest this week. Paul Curtin hiked the AT in 2015 with his son, Kyle, and now gives back to the trail through his work with the Carolina Mountain Club.
Paul and Steve talk about Paul's hike and the very important lessons that he learned for his post-hike life. You can read more about the hike on his blog at this link - https://pckc.tumblr.com/
Then, Paul and Steve go on to chat about the work that Paul and the rest of his Carolina Mountain Club members do for the respective trails that they care for.
You can learn more about some of this work at the following links:
Overnight crew - https://youtu.be/sSjE-HKFmaY
Regular crew work - https://youtu.be/0pmb0yXkTLs
Carolina Mountain Club website - https://www.carolinamountainclub.org/index.cfm
CMC trail maintenance
https://www.carolinamountainclub.org/index.cfm/do/pages.view/id/12/page/TRAIL-WORK
National Trail Day at Max Patch
https://vimeo.com/341199743
Also on the show, sharing his passion for the Great Plains Trail, Clay Bonnymore Evans gives us news of this relatively fledgling trail that promises tons of solitude.
Website for Great Plains Trail Alliance - http://www.greatplainstrail.org/
Clay's website Wonderland (menu on top has a link to a long blog about his GPT hike) - https://claybonnymanevans.com/
People can always reach out to Clay through email at - claybonnyman@gmail.com
The photo above is of Bear Butte from the Centennial Trail, to give you a sense of what it's like. The butte is truly the "Katahdin" of the Centennial Trail, a spectacular place to finish or start.
Finally, on today's show, Grandma Gatewood crosses the Hudson River at the lowest point on the trail.
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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 |
| 0:05.3 | about hikers for everybody. Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail, the ultimate midlife crisis, joins Stephen his guests every week as he staggers from Georgia to Maine. |
| 0:33.0 | Hi guys and welcome back to the show. This is Mighty Blue on the Appalachian Trail, the ultimate |
| 0:38.1 | midlife crisis and I am Mighty Blue or Steve Adams. Of course, I don't know how many of you are |
| 0:43.6 | coping with this current coronavirus pandemic, but whatever you're doing, I hope you're staying |
| 0:48.1 | safe and perhaps more important you're keeping your family safe. I know there are still |
| 0:52.2 | people out on the trail and hopefully that number is reducing day by day because, as you know, we aren't supposed to be out there right now. |
| 0:58.1 | Mind you, I'd imagine that those of you who are still out on the trail are about as socially |
| 1:02.9 | distance as you can possibly get. This is going to pass and I'm sure that everybody's itching |
| 1:08.0 | to get out into nature again. If nothing else, this time has shut down has probably caused people to reflect more on what is really important in their lives. For me, I've become even more of a loner, and I'm gutted because I was hoping to be hiking in Scotland in a few days' time, but that, of course, is now not possible. It's funny, when you're older, you realize how much this time is as a percentage of your |
| 1:29.1 | remaining years. |
| 1:30.3 | I can tell you, I've resolved not to waste so much time in the future. |
| 1:34.9 | Actually, I've just noticed coming up on my screen as I'm recording this that the president |
| 1:40.4 | is opening the national parks up again, it being Earth Day. |
| 1:44.1 | So who knows, maybe the ATC will put out something about the Amper Action Trail. |
| 1:48.9 | And all that was really more than I wanted to say, so we'll just get on with it, |
| 1:52.0 | and I'll tell you about today's show. |
| 1:54.4 | Our first guest is somebody who will be very important when we get back to a semblance of real life. |
| 2:00.2 | It's Paul Curtin from the |
| 2:01.3 | Carolina Mountain Club in Asheville. Paul did a through hike of the AT with his son, Kyle, in 2015, |
| 2:07.3 | then moved to Asheville and now goes back to the trail as a trail maintainer with the |
| 2:10.8 | Carolina Mountain Club. Paul is going to tell us about both his hike and the work that the |
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