Well, I finally finished reading Where Less the Path is Worn by Nimblewill Nomad.

It's taken me awhile to get through it, but that's solely because I've been savoring each page and each step along the trail. And last evening Nomad and I reached the northern tip of Newfoundland at Belle Isle and the completion of his epic 5,000 mile journey from one end of the Appalachian Mountains to the other.

At the conclusion of his book, Nomad writes a short ditty entitled "Why Go!":

It's the people, the places,
The pain and the trials.
It's the joy and the blessings
That come from the miles.

It's a calling gone out
To a fortunate few.
To wander the fringes
Of God's hazy blue.

You rock, Nomad.

It was a no brainer, of course, to scribble this journey down on my life "to-do" list. I've been planning for some time now to do a repeat thru-hike of the AT, but maybe now I'll expand that idea and add in a few extra miles on either end. Like 2,800 or so. What's a few more miles anyway?

This far northern trail through Newfoundland is in its infancy and development of it is proceeding along rather well I'm told. It will be part of the ever-expanding International Appalachian Trail that will one day extend from our own Baxter State Park through New Brunswick, Quebec and thence across Newfoundland. There is talk now of an arm of the IAT also curving off into Nova Scotia.

If you're interested in the IAT, whether for a few days of hiking or a full-on thru-hike, or just for yucks, you can get a glimpse of the project at tomorrow night's Maine Outdoor Adventure Club (MOAC) meeting in Portland.

Dick Anderson of Freeport, the brainchild and tireless advocate of the IAT, will be the featured speaker and will detail efforts to build more IAT trail in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia.

I'll see you there...