A (Very Long) Walk in the Woods - Appalachian Trail Letterpress Print
The story behind our new Appalachian Trail print.
Benton MacKaye, a forester and dreamer, sketched out an idea in 1921 for a footpath along the Appalachian Mountains. Not a road or a highway, but a hiking trail. By 1937, nearly 2,200 miles of trail connected Georgia to Maine, or Maine to Georgia, depending on which direction suits you.
The Trail passes through fourteen states, across some of the oldest mountains on earth. What's left of these ancient ridges now are these old, worn-down hills. On a good day, a thru-hiker covers somewhere between fifteen and twenty miles. The full walk takes most folks five to seven months.
The Trail offers something increasingly rare: a chance to slow down and to remember that some of the best things can't be rushed. Like letterpress printing, for example.
Bill Bryson, in his inimitable style in A Walk in the Woods, described an America that millions of people scarcely know exists. That's a fair accounting. There is a version of this country that you just cannot exprience from an interstate. You have to lace up boots and earn it, a mile at a time.
We made this print because the Trail is a kind of monument to the notion that the journey matters. That the climb is worth the bother.
Georgia to Maine. Or Maine to Georgia. Either way, it's a walk worth honoring.