Appalachian Trail Design, Construction, and Maintenance

Here are eight decades of experience gathered by the citizen-volunteers who design, build, and maintain the world-famous Appalachian Trail. How can a two-thousand-mile footpath through a fourteen-state area with a population of more than eighty million people, that attracts more than three million visitors each year, still manage to provide a primitive hiking and camping experience? By the art and science of "wearing lightly on the land." Coordinated and supported by the Appalachian Trail Conference, a nonprofit federation and membership organization, volunteers are charged with the task of keeping America's longest and skinniest national park safe and enjoyable for generations to come. Since the early 1920s, these volunteers have continually updated construction standards that balance the needs of hikers for a stable and lasting treadway with those of the natural environment through which the trail passes. Appalachian Trail Design, Construction, and Maintenance presents enduring stewardship principles and up-to-date techniques that every trail builder or maintainer should know about, from laying out trail routes to cutting and marking trail and "hardening" treadway through wet or fragile areas. Book jacket.Birchard, William, Jr. is the author of 'Appalachian Trail Design, Construction, and Maintenance', published 2000 under ISBN 9780917953729 and ISBN 091795372X.