Gone for the summer

Gone for the Summer

The Tuesday Column will return the last week of August--I’m gone for the summer. Since 1985 I have taken the summers off from writing my weekly column. Mostly I go to the wilderness for in summer.

When I started these summer walks I was a terribly out of shape fat man of 51. I promised myself I’d stay out on the trail a full month that first year no matter how few miles I made. That steadiness paid off—by 1998 I had completed the 2100 mile Appalachian Trail, my goal since childhood.

In 1999 I backslid from walking and canoed the entire Missouri River. I didn’t like canoeing as much as backpacking but I did complete the river and write a guide for future canoeists.

The following year I returned to hiking and five years later in 2005 I completed my final leg of the 2600 mile Pacific Crest Trail -- just before I turned 60.

What next? What does a 60 year old do after completing two of the three long trails in America (and you’re afraid you’re too old to do the third? Last summer I walked the 660 mile Potawatomi Indian Trail of Death and wrote this book. The chronicle of this journey just became available May 1, exactly one year from the day I started last summer’s trip—click the picture at right if you want this book.) After this hot and painful road walk I decided that was about all the road walking I want to do for a while, even though it produced a neat book.

So what do I do this year? I think I’ll check out the third great Trail of the America’s Triple Crown, the Continental Divide Trail. The longest of the three trails (3100 miles) it begins at the Mexico border and follows the backbone of America along the Continental Divide to Canada. I’m not making a final commitment to hike it all yet—we’re just going to live together this summer and I’ll see if I want to get more serious later on. The Rockies are an awesome challenge, and this Trail is not finished yet. Sometimes it just evaporates and the hiker is left to wander on their own for a few days until they pick up the developed trail again.

Actually this summer won’t be the first time I’ve been with this Trail. I’ve already walked several hundred miles of it in Colorado where it coincides with the “Colorado Trail” a well developed and excellently marked Trail from Denver to Durango. This July I’m “Cherry picking” the second most beautiful part of the CDT— Northwest Wyoming—the Wind River Mountains, the Tetons and Yellowstone. I can’t go until July because the snow is still too deep until then. I’m a bit nervous about this Trail. Being used to the well marked Appalachian Trail and PCT I get jumpy with the CDT style of “hike over toward that highest mountain off to the South and you’ll find the Trail again.” But I’m gonna’ try it.

So what will I do with the rest of my Professor’s Summer? The following:

MAY

Kick off the month with a week’s hiking on Indiana’s Knobstone Trail with Sharon.
Write four lessons for a booklet on the Sacraments.
Write a chapter for a new holiness book emergent Wesleyans are putting together.
Write the final three chapters of my new book on The Apostle’s Creed.

JUNE

10 days in Turkey on a Father-sons trip with John & Dave.
20 days of editing on the Apostle’s Creed book.

JULY

Continental Divide Trail in Wyoming.

AUGUST

11 days final rewrite-editing on the Apostle’s Creed book.
Wrap up summer with 100 miles on the Colorado Trail with IWU faculty hiking club.
Return the day before Faculty retreat and revise my syllabi.

I will check the responses to this on my blog when I’m in a town that has Internet access and respond from time to time. (I seldom check email in the summer) so drop a note there to communicate.

I’ll leave the commenting open on all this year’s columns all summer so if you’ve been lurking here (and my visits data shows more than a hundred of you lurk for every one that comments) this is a good time to drop a friendly note at the blog to entice me to write columns next Fall.

Post a summer comment to Keith Drury

May 1, 2007