If you were at last evening's meeting of the Maine Outdoor Adventure Club in Portland, then you got a pretty good eyeful of the incredible natural beauty to be found by hikers along the International Appalachian Trail.

Dick Anderson, the founder and president of the IAT, detailed his organization's latest efforts at international trails collaboration with the extention of the trail across Newfoundland to the farthest natural reaches of the Appalachian Mountains (on this side of the North Atlantic Plate anyway) amid the icebergs of Belle Isle.

Dick's group is also negotiating with the good folks of Nova Scotia to bring an arm of the IAT through the lovely countryside of that province as far as windswept Cape Breton Island.

And here at home in Maine, the IAT is working with landowners to carve out a corridor and move more of the trail off road and into the woods.

It's an incredible effort, and if you listen to Dick and see the devoted group of advocates working tirelessly to make this concept a reality, you can understand just how it all came to be and why it will be successful in its bold vision.

Which, by the way, ultimately calls for IAT trail in Scotland and Ireland as well. Without going into plate tectonics and all that, suffice it to say that the IAT may one day indeed cover all of the original Appalachian Mountains, regardless of what side of the Atlantic Ocean they may now be.

I'm sending in my check today to become a member of the International Appalachian Trail. Maybe you'll want to also. This is an amazing and ever-evolving trans-cultural and trans-continental project. I not only want to support it, but now I want to hike it. All of it!

Thanks for your inspiration and leadership, Dick!

Dick Anderson (right), founder and president of the IAT, with IAT board members Jack Seigel (left) and Walter Anderson (middle) at last night's MOAC meeting in Portland.