At 5 years old, Harvey Sutton — also known on the trail as "Little Man" — is one of the youngest people known to have completed the roughly 2,100-mile hike.
Hikers were advised to put their dreams of walking all 2,190 miles on hold because of the pandemic. But some people decided to stay the course to the consternation of public health safety advocates.
At the heart of the case was a legal question about which federal agency — if any — had authority to grant a permit for the pipeline, which would cross under the trail in central Virginia.
The federal judges noted "the Forest Service's serious environmental concerns that were suddenly, and mysteriously, assuaged in time to meet a private pipeline company's deadlines."
There is no greater source for science, for the inspiration to do science, than the wild; that is where the sense of sacredness at the root of science's aspiration lives, says blogger Adam Frank.
Rhys Hora hopes walking the some 2,2000 miles from Georgia to Maine will nudge him out of a rut. Sara Leibold did it in 2011 and says adjusting to the solitude, and then life afterward, are difficult.
The increasing popularity of the Appalachian Trail is raising concerns at Baxter State Park in Maine where thru-hikers often complete their arduous journeys with a celebratory climb up Mount Katahdin.
