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The Appalachian Trail is quite a long path.
Not many can go the whole way.
For those not content to do the math
It’s five million strides, so they say.

Most hikers elect to go part of the way.
A distance which can be done rather fast.
They usually walk less than a day.
An unusual and do-able week end task.

Ball teams love it to get into shape.
Boy scouts earn badges that way.
Others just want to view the landscape,
In an “up close” and personal way.

I once took my scouts to hike the trail.
We seven averaged twelve miles each day.
Six days without TV, Radio, or Mail
Newfound Gap to Fontana ... a long way.

We walked along beautiful ridges and peaks.
The view was ten miles more or less.
We walked along bottoms and followed the creeks.
Lined with fern, willow, moss and water cress.

We walked along hog wallows... smelling rank.
And many clearings filled with wild flowers.
We trekked many a long rocky bank,
Which took minutes which seemed like hours.

The buildings provided, to shelter and protect,
Are crude beyond normal expectation.
Twelve bunks inside and fireplace...I suspect.
Less for cooking than warmth and ventilation. 

Three sides and a chain link fence with gate.
Ropes to tie shut and keep critters back.
All except the mice, chip monk and snake.
They were the real owners of the Adirondack.

At one such place we retired for the night.
Woken at midnight by shouts and lights aglow.
Men at the gate holding a young man upright.
He seemed bloody from head to toe.


The building full, yet no turning back.
They stumbled in along with ten more.		
Twenty-two piled into the small Adirondack
They covered the bunks and the floor.

Sixteen holes in the young man’s back.
I talked as I cleaned but he needed to vent.
He began to tell of the vicious attack,
While I painfully applied antiseptic ointment.

He was alone in his tent, eating a candy bar.
Suddenly, as the bear’s head loomed into sight,
He dove into his sleeping bag, not getting far.
The bear, ripping and biting, carried him into the night.

Some forty feet down a slope where he stopped,
He released the young man momentarily.
With all of his might, what was hanging down, he socked.
The bear, in total despair, ran but somewhat impairdly.

The young man ran back, meeting help on the way.
After that, it was as I already have said.
He was later airlifted, checked, and pronounced a-OK.
But the five hundred pound bear ended up dead
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