WORK COMPLETED

Waipa Post, Volume 48, Issue 3483, 23 June 1934, Page 11

WORK COMPLETED

THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL. The great Appalachian Trail is finished at last. For over ten years enthusiastic parties of American ramblers haA r e chopped, saAvn, and cleared, and now there is a continuous Avoodland path for more than 2000 miles along the crest of the Atlantic Highlands. From Mount Katahdin in the forests of Maine to Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia it connects wild areas of country, but millions live in the States through Avhich the Avoodland path Avinds its Avay. This splendid plan Avas originated in 1921 by Mr Benton Mac Kaye, his object being to make available to the people at least part of the Eastern primeval region that should be their heritage. Clearing; the Way for Ramblers. In 19 25 he got the local rambling clubs to form an Appalachian' Trail Conference, and 'groups from one end of the path to the other cleared the way and built shelters for the ramblers.

Already thousands of people have walked "along sections of the route. "To learn to read first hand," Mr Mac Kaye says, "on the horizon and along the stream, the big outlines of the primeval drama; to take .-specifically the Appalachian country as the common school and playground; to Aveave together the threads containing the total story of this country, even as already we have woven the separate sections of our total footpath; this appeal's to be the logical second stage of our enterprise.'' For this Nature trail is. to be a sort of outdoor museum where Man will come to Nature and not Nature to Man. Trees, flOAvers, rocks, and ferns Avill be labelled and" described as they stand, and the animals to be seen along the way will be illustrated. England's Hilltop Roads. In a commentary an English paper says: There are noAV several of these trails in the wide spaces of America, but England has nothing of the kind. Yet nearly all over our country run green hilltop roads giving wonderful views, grassy routes that have been little used since Man deserted the heights for the valleys. No villages are along them now, but only the fortified camps and grass-groAvn barrows of the men of long ago. Such is the 50 miles of ridgeway along the South Downs between Butser Hill in Hampshire and Beachy Head in Sussex, with 400 mysterious earthAVorks along it, one every feAv hundred yards. What a splendid thing it would be if some of our ridgeways could be opened and preserved as Nature trails.