IAT/SIA SENDS DELIGATION OF MAINE CHAPTER BOARD MEMBERS TO APPALACHIAN LONG DISTANCE HIKERS ASSOCIATION GATHERING
On October 5 at 6AM, in the darkness of the early Fall morning, Maine Chapter Board members; Torrey Sylvester, Will Richard, Walter Anderson and Dick Anderson packed their gear into Walter’s car and headed for Gettysburg and the ALDHA Gathering. About 600 miles, and 10 hours, later they had arrived at the Gathering, registered, set up the IAT/SIA information table and started meeting old friends. We enjoyed the evening program and hit the hay early after a couple of beers while watching the Red Sox.
On Saturday we started early, Will and Dick to set up their room for their six presentations including: History of the IAT/SIA, Nova Scotia Developments, Role of thru-hikers, Newfoundland&Labrador and Marketing the IAT/SIA Through the Years. They also took time to decorate their presentation room with the flags of all the partners.
Walter and Torrey staffed our information booth and sold raffle tickets on the Brunton compass and an autographed, first edition, copy of 10 MILLION STEPS(see accompanying article and pictures of the raffle winners). Printed material from the information table was in great demand, as was the POLAND SPRING water(recently contributed by them along with a grant) and we distributed almost everything we brought with us.
Saturday at 5 PM we hosted our Annual Thru-hikers Reunion. It was great to see past thru-hikers; Jim Rowland, Denis Webster. Fred Kirch, and Joe Norman. The MOUNTAIN HARDWEAR pack was presented to 2006 thru-hiker Jim Roland “Mechanical Man”. We also got to chat with several other IAT/SIA thru-hikers at the event, They were: “Linguini”, “Scotty and Van Go”, “Spur”, Henry Edwards, JoJo Koby and Suzanne Goulet.
We departed Gettysburg at dawn on Sunday and arrived back in Freeport after another 10 hour drive. On the return trip we were entertained by listening to the New England Patriots win over Cleveland and the Red Sox win over the Angels.
It was a very enjoyable trip, we got to see all of our old long-distance-hiking friends and we had a good chance to tell a large proportion of the 700 attendees about the International Appalachian Trail/Sentier International des Appalaches.
See pictures accompanying this article and for more information on the ALDHA Gathering go to www.aldha.org
Photo Descriptions:
Photo 1: Opening Slide
Photo 2: Opening Speaker, Dave Hennel, Program Chair
Photo 3: "Walking Jim" Stultz
Photo 4: Dick Anderson, Jim Roland “Mechanical Man”, Walter Anderson, Torry Sylvester, Dennis Webster "Forward March", Joe Norman "Cotton Joe", and Fred Kirch "Spring Fever.
Photo 5: Torrey Sylvester presenting pack to Jim Roland “Mechanical Man”
Photo 6: Cotton Joe with PEI hikers
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