The Appalachian Trail Conference and Arcadia Publishing has announced the release of award-winning author and former Roanoke resident Leonard M. Adkins’ 20th book, Along the Appalachian Trail: West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania.
This is a companion book to his other ATC/Arcadia Press publications, Along Virginia’s Appalachian Trail; Along the Appalachian Trail: New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut; and Along the Appalachian Trail: Georgia, North Carolina, and Tennessee.
Selected from the archives of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the National Park Service, historical societies, local Appalachian Trail maintaining clubs, and regional hikers’ private collections, the approximately 200 vintage photographs (many published for the first time) and corresponding narrative in the newest book present a historical perspective on what it took to create the trail, including those who lived along it before and during its creation, the thousands of volunteers and arduous tasks they performed, the many more who have enjoyed the trail through the years, and original routes no longer on the present-day Appalachian Trail.
Unlike counterparts on other sections of the 2,180+-mile Appalachian Trail who could locate the pathway within national parks and forests, builders of the 270 miles of trail detailed in Images of America: Along the Appalachian Trail: West Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania did not have vast tracts of federal lands on which to construct the footpath. Yet, they succeeded in creating a trail within an array of the states’ scenic areas.
The new book chronicles the trail’s passage on open meadows along the West Virginia/Virginia border, into Harpers Ferry National Historic Park, scenic vistas of the Potomac River, past the original Washington Monument, and over rocky Pennsylvania ridgelines with long-ranging views.
Author Leonard M. Adkins has hiked the entire Appalachian Trail five times, and is the author of 20 books about the outdoors and travel, including eight concerning the trail. He has aided the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in protecting rare and endangered plants by being a Natural Heritage Monitor and a ridgerunner. He has also been a volunteer trail maintainer and is The Hike columnist for Blue Ridge Country and a field editor for the Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s Thru-Hikers’ Companion.
Along the Appalachian Trail: New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut is available through local and online bookstores, outdoors outfitters, and Mr. Adkins’ website, www.habitualhiker, where you may learn more about him.