International Appalachian Trail - A Longer Walk in the Woods

The following articce has been posted here with permission from TGO Magazine, England. All content Copyright Newsquest Magazines. This article may not be reprinted without express written permission.

To many of us who live in the western states of the USA, the Appalachian Trail is something of a wierd Eastern phenomenon. When it comes to hiking Easterners are obsessed, and the Appalachian Trail, or AT, as it's knows, is perhaps the Eastern hiker's grandest obsession.

Streching some 2167 miles (3488km) through georgia, North Carolina, Tenessee, Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, and Maine, some 300 to 400 people hike this insane length of track every year and all count it among their finest experiences. More than 7000 people have hiked the entire AT (from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mount Katahdin, Maine), according to the Appalachian Trail Conference (ATC), a non-profit organisation that fulfills a number of AT-related functions, including preservation and education. Hundreds of thousands of people hike sections of the trail each year.

The acquisition of land along the sides of the trail by the National Park and Forest Services, which has been going on since the trail was completed in 1937, has now put 185,000 acres of land into various kinds of publicly-managed conservation systems, and there is talk of this strip of buffer-land becoming the "nation's longest, skinniest National Park," according to the ATC. Clearly, this is a grand obsession.

But there's something funny about this trail, this proposed worm-shaped Park, and all these statistics -- that's because the Appalachian Mountains don't finish at Mount Katahdin in Maine. From there they continue up through Brunswick and Québec, and out to Newfoundland, finishing at Newfoundland and Labrador's (Newfoundland and Labrador is one province, remember?) Belle Isle -- a poinit so far to the east in Canada's maratime region you can smell the Guiness from Connemara! And from Belle Isle, the Appalachians dip into the ocean and arise -- although the chain doesn't actually go under the ocean, something I'll get to in a minute -- in parts of western Europe and Africa.

That the Appalachians exist in Europe and Africa is no surprise to geologists. Ever since the Earth was formed -- which was quite some time ago -- rocks and continents have been pushing each other around like kids in a schoolyard. When continents collide, they squash mountains up; when they draw apart, they crack the surface and form oceans.

As Maine-based geologist Walt Anderson noted, the Appalachian/Caledonide Mountains were formed about 369-380 million years ago, when the then-existing continents on the Earth's surface all collided to form the super-continent of Pangea. "This collision and uplift formed the Appalachians/Caledonides," Anderson told me. "There were no Appalachians before this time, although there might have been other and older mountains at other locations on Pangea (as some have speculated). About 275 million years ago, Pangea rifted apart, opening the proto-Atlantic ocean, and forming the continents as we know them today."

However, it's only in North America that the range is really regarded as a singular entity -- in Ireland, Scotland, France, Spain, Portugal, Norway, and the few parts of Africa where it can be found, it's just an occasional outcrop left over from a great period of earth-building that happens to share sediments and a history with the famed range along this country's eastern seaboard.

And this is where the story of the Appalachian Trail gets interesting, and promises a lot more gathering of statistics for Eastern hikers and number-wonks like me -- there is now talk of extending the Appalachian Trail into Europe. That's right -- Europe!

As I said, the mountains don't continue under the ocean -- rater, picture a carrot that's being sliced lengthwise. The chef doing the slicing has had a couple of glasses of Beaujolais and, weaving a bit during said slicing, has produced a rather random assortment of carrotine pieces.

On one side there is the majority of the lengthwise carrot still intact -- these are North America's Appalachians. On the other side are various gratings, thin slivers, and thick wedges -- this is the eastern side of the Atlantic. In countries like Morocco and Algiers, there are a few Appalachian-related rocks: the gratings. In northern mainland Europe (the Iberian Peninsula and across parts of France, for example) there are some Appalachian-related outcrops and hills: the thin slivers.

In Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia, however, you have some major chunks of the Appalachians -- which are, in my carrot salad analogy, the thick wedges, the tastiest bits. And this is where an eager salad chef -- or a trail builder with a seemingly inexhaustible garden -- would probably go. (And, as I said, in case you're wondering how this all occurred, it's due to techtonics, the shifts in big plates that cover the Earth's surface -- a topic too vast to be addressed here.)

But before we go to Europe, we must talk of Newfoundland and Labrador. Dick Anderson (no relation to Walt) of Freeport, Maine is the founder and president of the International Appalachian Trail/Sentier International des Appalaches (IAT/SIA), an organisation dedicated to creating an entity described by the group's name -- a trail through Canada and portions of Maine where one does not already exist.

Let me just correct a thought right now before it occurs to you. This is not the same thing as the AT, although I'll be the first to tell you they smell similar -- the official AT stops at Mount Katahdin.

"The AT is basically owned by the National Park Service," Anderson told me, "What we're doing is creating a new trail, the IAT/SIA, from Katahdin to Belle Isle. The basic concept is to create a trail that follows the Appalachian Mountains."

The concept of a longer-than-AT Appalachian Trail has been around awhile, but it was Anderson who started the realization process in 1994. Then, while working on former Maine Governor Joe Brennan's campaign, Anderson suggested the Brennan promote the idea of an international mountain trail -- connecting countries, languages and cultures in North America -- and the IAT/SIA was born.

A couple of months later, various organizations and individuals met for the first time to talk about extending the trail through Canada's eastern provinces.

Although New Brunswick (boasting about 160 miles of trail), and Maine (boasting 130 miles of trail beyond the AT), responded quickly and began working on trails, it was the province of Québec (which today has about 370 miles of IAT/SIA) that embraced the proposition seriously.

According to Anderson, the Québec government poured money into the project throughout the mid-to-late-1990's, so that today the entire route through the province lies on forest trails -- in other states and provinces, the "trail" follows roads, even highways.

"In Québec, they've done a spectacular job," Anderson said. "In Québec, it's complete. The trail is a trail. There are 27 completed campsites, and you can buy one pass for all of the campsites. They're organised."

"Some of the Maine Chapter members had met with geologists to look at maps," Anderson said. "While we were talking about a European extension, Newfoundland and Labrador called. So this spring we went up there to talk to them."

After an April meeting between representatives from a variety of organisations, Newfoundland and LAbrador were committed to creating a section of the IAT/SIA stretching to Belle Isle, although officials warn that the trail is not yet open for hiking.

Of course, such a warning never stops the hardcore from doing what their legs will drive them to do. Already, while parts of the IAT/SIA follows roadways in New Brunswick, maine, and Newfoundland and Labrador, about 60 "thru-hikers" have trekked from Katahdin, maine to Cap Gaspé, Québec, and another five have completed the Newfoundland section (roughly another 600 miles).

And while there is not even a name yet for the humungous trail now looming in the consciousness of Easterners, there are already three people who have hiked the gigantic distance, roughly 4500 miles.

I've visited bits and pieces of the AT in Tennessee and New York, and have hiked all overr the East, yet most AT fanatics aren't even aware that the best parts of the Appalachian Mountains exist -- those remarkable bits along the Saspésie peninsula, south of the St. Lawrence River as it dumps into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

This Gaspesiénne section, from near Fort Fairchild, close to the Maine-New Brunswick bprder, to Cap Gaspé in Québec, is easily the most enchanting and boasts several things the Georgia-to-Maine section lacks: an interesting culture, a language more beautiful than the Queen's, and a beautiful seaside along which to hike.

That last item on my list is pretty important. Where along the AT can one hike in view of the ocean? There might be a spot or two near the New York-Connecticut border from which you can spot Long Island Sound, but there are few places on the AT whaere you can happily amble for days at a time while simultaneously busting your thighs and whale watching.

I recently had an opportunity to wander portions of the IAT through Gaspé and found it so remarkably different from any kind of hiking activity I've ever undertaken, I'm now plotting (the way obsessed Eastern hikers plot) a way to get back there so I can do an extended jaunt -- and please don't tell my wife.

When you look at a map of the United States, there's a sort of panhandly part that sticks out in the upper right-hand corner. Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and some other maple syrupy states are here, lying just south of the St. Lawrence river.

In the thin stretch of these US states and the river itself are a couple of Canadian Provinces, New Brunswick and Québec -- not all of Québec, just the Gaspésie protion of Québec. This is the Gaspésie Peninsula.

My first section was in the Chic Choc Mountains, a sub-range of the Appalachians, in the Parc National de la Gaspésie, in the center of the peninsula.

Here, the steep, rocky, and well-defined mountains remind one of the Cairngorms in Scotland or the Franklin River area of Tasmania, not the murkily-wooded hills of Georgia, Tennessee or New York. Indeed, the term "Chic Choc" means "unclimbable wall" in Micmac, the language of the Micmacs, the peninsula's native people.

In parc national de la Gaspésie, I wandered a brief section of the IAT, upt o Lax aux Américains, a stunning lake in a high galacial crique, with Jean-Philippe Chartrand, of Parcs Québec. I was a little surprised at how pristine the Lax aux Américains area was -- it literally looked like no one had ever touched it -- and wondered why there were no edge-of-shore trails or fisherman's tracks circumnavigatinig the lake? According to Chartrand, that's because in all Québec's Parks, people aren't allowed off-trail.

In 1977, Québec legislators decided that their Parks should follow the highest world standars that then existed for national Parks (set in 1966 by the World Conservation Union) so that today the province's Parks are some of the most restrictive and unspoilt places on Earth.

After a night at the beautiful chateau called the Gite du Mont-Albert, I headed for the north coast of the town of Mont-Saint-Pierre and visited several sections of the trial -- some of which literally wander the rocky shores of the St. lawrence -- before spending a night at La Maison Lebreux, in a town called Petite-Vallée.

While wathcing the sun se over the St. Lawrence, out the back of the auberge, a few Minke whales plied by. It was all rather magical, until we were called by Madame Lebreux to the auberge's evening meal beef and sautéed potatoes, red wine, and fruited meringue cakes. This is a cool hiking trail...

I'm not the first to appreciate the Gaspésienne chunk of trail by any means. Among the most famous of those who have hiked the "Eastern Continental Trail" is Nimblewill Nomad, AKA M.J. Eberhart. After his trek north -- later repeated when he walked the entire trail north to south -- he wrote Ten Million Steps, a memoir of the experience:

"... Even though there has been much contrived controversy, naysaying, and wringing of hands against this joint nation IAT/SIA effort, the trail is becoming, and will continue to be a great asset to the people of the United States and Canada," he wrote, "I am fiinding it to be an incredible trail..."

Nimblewell's right. At the end of my own trip I visited Cap Gaspé in Forillon National Park, a widely stunning chunk of terra firma, a place screaming for young geologists who need to learn about bedding but also a natural, unspoilt place that appeals to everyone the way the completion of a tough logical problem appeals.

I wandered a section of the track out towards the cape, and the ocean was overwhelming (a local tourist brochure mentioned the possibility of kayaking while watching blue whales); I itched for a paddle. And it was here I watched as the IAT/SIA dropped into the sea... and pondered its new journey through Newfoundland and its possible journey to Africa and Europe.

After Newfoundland, it's a bit of a guess where Anderson and his chums might take the trail next, although I can say for sure that, upon reaching Cap Gaspé at Forillon, I was more than ready to hop in a kayak and head for Dingle, Ireland.

On the IAT/SIA website, there's a quote from Anderson that both sums up much of his philosophy and probably tells us his track isn't complete yet: "I have always like the concept of bio-regionalism, which defines areas not by political borders, but as biological systems."

In other words, Anderson and his chums want to see an international, multicultural, multicontinental entity that shares a singular mountain range and brings people -- and nations -- together. An international trail -- which it already is -- with distinct sections and scenery, with distinct cultures and climates, with distinct hulls and huts, and with distinct characters and climaxes -- sounds okay by me.

"We (the board members of the IAT/SIA) have discussed the idea of extending the IAT/SIA to the other side of the Atlantic," Anderson told me. "We would very much like to be in touch with hiking clubs in France, Scotland, Ireland, Norway, or any of the 23 countries that have remnants of the original Appalachians."

And if "bio-regionalism" is the goal, it's not hard to imagine Africa, mediterranian Europe and Scandanavia -- at the very least -- becoming bioregions through which the IAT?SIA travels. And I, for one, am ready to hike it.