Local Authors Share Ideas for Hiking The Appalachian Trial

Authors Carol and Jim Steiner will present a program Wednesday, Dec. 19, on pairing hiking trips with explorations of nearby communities with stops at waterfalls, wineries, museums, pottery shops, and more. The couple will be talking about their new book in which they share their expertise on day hikes as well as their adventures on the Appalachian Trail.

The Steiners will appear at the Ponce de Leon branch of the Atlanta-Fulton County Public Library System at 6:30 p.m. to discuss and sign The Appalachian Trail Day Hikers' Guide: Downhill to Fine Wine and Accommodations: Georgia, North Carolina and Tennessee. The event will give local residents new ideas for explorations in the new year as well as the chance to purchase signed books for the travelers and hikers on their holiday gift lists. The branch is located at 980 Ponce de Leon Avenue in Atlanta.

The book outlines short, moderate hikes as well as longer, more challenging adventures. It is uniquely geared to hikers who'd prefer to crawl into a bed at night instead of sleeping in the woods. The authors tell readers about lodgings where they've found delectable breakfasts, friendly hosts, and front porches that were perfect for an evening glass of wine. The book also features tales from Carol's hiking journals. These include occasional mishaps on the trail as well as encounters with nature at its finest. The couple also details favorite stops close to the trail, such as North Carolina's Fontana Dam, where some 5,000 workers labored around the clock to build the dam in record time to provide power to nearby industries during World War II.

Carol wants to pass along her love for hiking to people of varying skill levels who she says may not be aware of the beauty to be discovered on the trail. Non-hikers may not know, she says, that it's possible to walk through tunnels of rhododendron and mountain laurel blooms that go on for fifty feet or more. "I did not expect to see mushrooms in red and yellow and purple colors," she says. "Some people have no idea how much is out there God created."

The authors targeted the book to people over forty, but say they have been surprised at how many younger readers have embraced the concept of pairing day hikes with explorations of sights close to the trail.

Day hiking, for example, makes the trail accessible for young families who'd like to walk portions of it with their children.

Day hiking wasn't always Carol's first choice as a way to walk the trail. She planned a longer family hiking trip after her retirement, but she learned fairly quickly that sleeping in the woods was not her husband's idea of a good time. Since 2007, the couple has hiked more than eight hundred miles of the Appalachian Trail. "There's so much we've learned," says Carol, "and we've been to a lot of places we thought people would love to know about."

Along with planning tips, the book details how to choose gear such as a daypack and what you need to put inside it for your hike. Other topics include fitness programs to prepare you for hiking the trail, how to find shuttle services to and from the trail, restaurant recommendations, and more. All of it is mixed in with the authors' own experiences as they try out hiking gear and other products on the trail and describe what they've learned on their own adventures. Much of the advice is packed into lively journal entries in which the couple takes wrong turns, meets fellow hikers with colorful tales to tell, and discover hidden gems such as civil war grave sites and the site of an old cheese factory along the trail.