Earl Shaffer's missing sections in 1948

[Sly]

Yeah, I suppose. I think my own sense of adventure has spoiled me. There was at least one time on the AT I recall and several times out west, where I knew I had lost the trail and rather than do the prudent (and purist) thing, and retrace my steps, I'd look at the terrain, or my map, and start bushwhacking, or strike out cross country, to where I thought the trail had to be. Never quite sure, with the adrenaline pumping, there's nothing more satisfying than reaching the ridge, or plopping your foot in the narrowing clearing, and seeing the blaze or trail proper.

Sly I enjoyed your post #115 but meaningless, nah, all this reinforces that the concept of a 'thru' is like religion and honor-a very personal decision and reminds me of a hike with my 82 year old Scoutmaster 4 or 5 years ago to a peak near my house....from there you can see points along roughly 70 miles of the trail...I said 'well Earl came right through here' and my Scoutmaster replied 'he was nowhere near here' then explained to me where the trail was at the time relative to the present location. So some readers of this thread may be completely new to the huge history of the trail and are now getting some insight into its placement over time despite the wonders of purism.

[hikerboy57]

Ah, the joys of bushwacking!! I cant think of anything better than being "lost", and finally finding out you know exactly where you are and know how to get to where you're going.Myself, Im just not that goal oriented. If I hiked from GA to ME, Id still feel some sense of accomplishment, even if I blue blazed a bit and couldnt call myself a true thru. although I've wanted to thru hike the AT since 76, I finally decided to break it up into two trips.I met too many thrus in NH and ME, and many have told me its too long to be "out of it", although some were sad to finish, others couldnt wait to get back home to their families. Im hiking 3 months NOBO next year, and my boss already has been told that, depending on how I feel at the ned of 3 months, he may get a call from me that I need to finish(and hes cool with it if I do). But for now, I think Id rather enjoy more of trail, and worry less about getting back to my other life

[southpaw95]

What blows my mind about Earl Shaffer's first hike is that Gatlinburg had only ONE store!

[thepathsproject]

I've been reading with interest this thread and thought I'd become a member of Whiteblaze to join in the discussion. As the author of the Report on Shaffer's 1948 AT hike that triggered this thread, I'll be glad to answer any questions or respond to comments about the Report from Whiteblaze members.

I would encourage those interested to read the Roanoke Times article about the Report (found at http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/291803 ) and read the actual Report (available on this site). I know its a long document, and isn't easy reading. But reading Chapters 1-3 and 19 will give a reader a good feel for the Report.

My intention is to respond to any specific responses to this post, and perhaps make general comments about existing posts on the thread in reference to the Report.

I wrote the Report in hopes of encouraging a discussion about the old AT and early thru-hikers. I hope my joining in this thread will further that discussion.

I do want to initially comment about the lack of convenient public access to the text of Shaffer's 1948 hike journal. That is the "Little Black Notebook" that Shaffer frequently cited in Walking With Spring. I refer to it as the "LBN." Lack of public access to LBN severely hinders the study of his hike. While LBN is now available for review and copying (at 0.20/page) at the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C., it has not, as far as I know, been published or made available on-line. As a person who has read and studied the text of LBN as it reports Shaffer's hike from its beginning to Rockfish Gap, VA, I can confidently state that a discussion of Shaffer's 1948 hike would involve a lot less speculation if everyone could conveniently read LBN.

What I don't know, and wonder about, is how many people (other than myself) have ever actually read LBN? Several posters allude to knowing Shaffer during his lifetime -- I wonder if those who knew him ever got the chance to read LBN? Who out there had the opportunity to examine or read LBN during Shaffer's lifetime?

I guess that is my first question to the Whiteblaze community. Who has actually read LBN? I'd appreciate your response.

There are other important sources of information as well about his hike that I found during my research. I detail those in Chapters 2 and 3 of the Report. But LBN is a primary source for information about his '48 hike. I hope if there are sources of information I was not aware of, that will be noted in this discussion by those who are aware of such information.

Now, do you have questions for me, or comments I can respond to, about the Report?

Jim McNeely

[Wil]

Now, do you have questions for me, or comments I can respond to, about the Report?

Jim McNeely

When is Earl going to release his birth certificate? The long form. Also I heard he was dead, but have never actually seen a death certificate published. Would you look into that, please. This conspiracy may be larger than any of have imagined and Earl may very well, at this moment and in secret, be being pushed along the trail in a wheel chair to establish still another fraudulent "hiking" trip.

If your mother (or daughter or son or someone who loved and trusted you) asked you, "Why are you doing this, and are you proud of it?" and let's suppose she had a short/moderate attention span and a built in BS-detector, how would you sum it up?

[Captain Blue]

When is Earl going to release his birth certificate?

Jim - Thanks for posting. You can see the intellect of some of the people who post here.

[thepathsproject]

I suggest you read Chapters 1 and 19 of the Report if you are interested in how I came to be interested in the subject of the early thru-hikers and my reasons for writing the Report.

[Wil]

I suggest you read Chapters 1 and 19 of the Report if you are interested in how I came to be interested in the subject of the early thru-hikers and my reasons for writing the Report.

I did. It reads like any expose intro and conclusion I have ever read. Open minded; looking for something else, with the best of positive and honorable intents, and just _happened_ to stumble across the scandal.

I was probing to see if there were something real there that I could respect.

[thepathsproject]

I did. It reads like any expose intro and conclusion I have ever read. Open minded; looking for something else, with the best of positive and honorable intents, and just _happened_ to stumble across the scandal.

I was probing to see if there were something real there that I could respect.

If you read Chapter 19, you read that the whole thing was about my long-term plan to walk the old AT through southern Virginia in the footsteps of the first AT thru-hiker to have done so. Would it be "real" enough for you to respect to know that I just finished, on July 20, that hike? I left the current AT near Sugar Grove (Va. 16) and rejoined the current AT on Catawba Mt. (Va. 311). I followed, in general, the AT described in the 1950 Guide To Paths In The Blue Ridge, with a number of modifications in the route to accomodate modern conditions. It was a hike of about 220 miles.

I based the timing of my hike on my walking into Galax, Virginia, on July 2, 2011, 60 years to the day from the date that Gene Espy walked into Galax on July 2, 1951. If you read Chapter 19, you know why I based that hike not on Shaffer's 1948 hike, but on Espy's 1951 hike.

So I've hiked the old AT route up the New River from Byllesby, through Galax, over the ridge of Fisher Peak, through Fancy Gap, over Groundhog Mt., over "the Buffalo" (Buffalo Mt.) in a route modification substituting Buffalo Mt. for the Pinnacles of Dan, across Rocky Knob, through Smart View Park, across Poor Mt. and Ft. Lewis Mt., and finally walking up Catawba Mt. under a blistering sun on July 20 to rejoin the current AT on Catawba Mt.

And, by the way, when I hiked from Georgia to Maine in 1985 on the AT and other trails, I started not at Springer Mt., but at Mt. Oglethorpe. Did you read my Oglethorpe chapters -- Chapter 6 and 16. I walked the old route, so its not theory. In 2008, I rode a fully-loaded touring bicycle to the base of Oglethorpe and pushed the d___ thing the rest of the way up just to get on the summit. So I've been there. In fact, I took so many old sections of the AT during that 1985 hike that my motto was "If it was good enough for Grandma Gatewood, its good enough for me!"

And so far, I have found, or been there when it was found, six old rusted AT metal markers still hanging on trees on long-abandoned sections of the AT -- and one "ghost" shelter, still standing. And several old bridges. And one old sign, on Big Walker Mt. in VA, still pointing the way to the
Long Spur" Trail many decades after that side trail, and the AT, disappeared from that mountain.

And did I tell you about my camp in that gap near Perkins Knob along the old AT route on Iron Mt. during my old AT hike -- on June 26. I was very tired and desperately needed water, which there is little of on Iron Mt. So I went looking for that spring in the hollow described by the 1934 Guide To Paths In The Blue Ridge and found it, with the iron pipe described nearly 70 years ago still there. It wasn't just drinking amazingly cold water -- it was touching history.

Is that kind of study and labor over many years to find and travel the old AT, to preserve the record of its features, and to demonstrate that it can still be traveled today, "real" enough for you to respect, Wil? And that, you understand, was the genesis of the Report -- just like I explained in Chapters 1 and 19.

[Wil]

And that, you understand, was the genesis of the Report -- just like I explained in Chapters 1 and 19.

No. I don't understand that. I don't respect it. I don't believe it.

All the things you talked about in your post (and in much of the report) are admirable. I have no reason to think that you are not an admirable person, on balance. But you have done a worthless, useless, and (until I learn otherwise, which was the purpose of my probing) a basely-motivated character assassination of a man not here to defend himself.

Now historians character assassinate all the time (e.g. Vidal's Lincoln bio). But claiming to have hiked the MYTH of the AT when it really didn't even exist and everyone, including Shaffer agreed with that, is not the same as presenting yourself as a public figure like the President of the United States. Yes Earl did a few slide shows for meetings; but hiking the AT does not rise to that level of public figuredom. I'm sorry: you present a pitiable figure in attacking an old dead man.

My God man, if you looked at my hiker notes (not talking about the AT here but less-charted "trails" more like the AT of Shaffer's day) scribbled in the rain, fatigued beyond what 99.9% of the human race would be insane enough to subject themselves to, barely knowing what YEAR it was most nights much less the day, my notion of exactly where I was mostly a fantasy, just wanting to scribble a few notes for my PRIVATE reference and get some sleep, you'd conclude I was hiking on Edgar Rice Burrough's version of planet Mars. If I took rides (for a break or to get back in sync or for whatever reason and forgot or didn't record it correctly), and later decided to make my notes available, for whatever they were worth, for people to glean a few nuggets from, I'd have to worry about vultures picking on my remains? This is insane.

You make the fundamental error of judging history by today's standards. Accurate maps; GPS's; trails groomed, blazed and documented by legions of volunteers and professionals, wall-to-wall shelters. Communications: other hikers, the internet. Earl Shaffer's AT experience is as foreign to us as trying to understand Stanley seeking Livingston.

[Wil]

I would like to reevaluate every home-run in Major League baseball ... The concept of an AT purest did not exist in 1948.

How many home runs did Babe Ruth hit in his career. You're saying 714, aren't you.

But today, a number of those so-called home runs would be judged ground-rule doubles (balls bounced into the stands were HRs for much of Ruth's career).

I think whasisnamehere should write a baseball expose report about the Babe Ruth home run fraud.

Actually, Ruth probably "lost" a lot more HRs compared to today's standards because the times are different. Hit a walk-off home run (say tied bottom 9 and you hit a grand slam home run?)? Sorry, Babe, you get credit only for driving in the winning run, a single. Hit a ball inside the foul pole (HR today) but it then curves foul? Foul ball, sorry, Babe. Hit a ball off the foul pole (inside it) but the ball lands in foul territory? NO HOME RUN for YOU, Babe, only a double by the standards of the time. Some ballparks in Ruth's time had center field fences 560 feet from home plate. 559 foot shot? Sorry Babe, fly ball out.

Why would the Shaffer "dubunker," a hiker, a person who seems to have some understanding of what we do, **** directly into our collective water supply? I am trying to understand this person and give him some benefit of the doubt. It is very hard.

[Kaptain Kangaroo]

If you disagree with the report, how about you put forward a rational, reasoned argument.

It's OK to disagree, but a rant just makes a person look ignorant.

[MedicineMan]

uncomfortble. hmmmm. thinking about my blood pressure 2 weeks ago and the doc's statement 'new tables say your too high' but of course tables of a year ago said i'm good to go. Earl had no tables. Why compare yesterdays performance with what is standard today when the standard is/was yet to be defined then or now? e.g. remember when Sgt.Rock set out on a thru using the BMT from Springer to Davenport Gap...post hike I would easily and congratulatorily said 'how was your thru-hike'.....
Yet I think it totally cool to hike the old AT and even cooler to research and find it. That is seriously walking in footsteps of old.

[rickb]

You make the fundamental error of judging history by today's standards.

To my reading there was little or no judgement in the report, just an exposition of facts.

Any judgement seems to be a projection of those who are uncomfortable with the what the report says.

The first thru hike has and always will be a combined accomplishment. An accomplishment on the part of the individual who concieved and executed the trip to be sure. But also an accomplishment of those many people who worked so hard to build, map and promote a connected footpath from Maine to Georgia. And make no mistake about it: creating a connected, continuous footpath was very important to the ATC right from the beginning.

That it looks to have been an anonymous hiker that was the first to hike the entire connected footpath should be embraced as a wonderfull thing, given that hiking is not about awards, aclaim and recognition.

That the first person to hike the entire connected footpath was not Earl Shaffer does not diminish Shaffer's role in the history of the AT even one little bit. From the reading of the report it seems clear that Avery understood the importance of Earl Shaffer's journey to the promotion and protection of the Trail, and that has been born out by history.

[k2basecamp]

Mcneely admits that he didn.t hike the existing trail in 1985 so if he has a thru-hiker's certificate It should be revoked by the ATC. He also feels it's okay to trespass in his quest to follow the 1950 trail so keep this in mind when you evaluateHis self-serving comments.

[Majortrauma]

The comments directed against jwmcneely are stunning because of the vitriol and the lack of logic. Instead of criticizing his work, people here seem to be more interested in criticizing him because he has dared challenge the God like status bestowed upon Earl Shaffer.
Earl seems to have achieved the status of a deity and his journal (LBN) is the equivalent of some type of infallible, holy scripture and those who dare question that are heretics worthy of being burned at the stake.
I did read the report and it's a fact that he did not actually thru-hike by current standards so why is this such an issue? I guess if the ATC were to decide to revoke his status as the first thru-hiker because of jwmcneely's article he wold have to do what Salman Rushdie did and go into hiding for 10 years.

[vamelungeon]

The comments directed against jwmcneely are stunning because of the vitriol and the lack of logic. Instead of criticizing his work, people here seem to be more interested in criticizing him because he has dared challenge the God like status bestowed upon Earl Shaffer.
Earl seems to have achieved the status of a deity and his journal (LBN) is the equivalent of some type of infallible, holy scripture and those who dare question that are heretics worthy of being burned at the stake.
I did read the report and it's a fact that he did not actually thru-hike by current standards so why is this such an issue? I guess if the ATC were to decide to revoke his status as the first thru-hiker because of jwmcneely's article he wold have to do what Salman Rushdie did and go into hiding for 10 years.

Thank you! You summed up my thoughts as well and expressed them better than I could have done.

[rhjanes]

read it, I understand your reason to put it together, I get WWS (Walking With Spring) and LBN (Little Black Notebook), both of which I find you spellec out in the beginning......but I don't find where you ever say what "SR48" is? I concluded it was what Earl wrote and turned in to the ATC?

[thepathsproject]

read it, I understand your reason to put it together, I get WWS (Walking With Spring) and LBN (Little Black Notebook), both of which I find you spellec out in the beginning......but I don't find where you ever say what "SR48" is? I concluded it was what Earl wrote and turned in to the ATC?

Right. SR48 is my short-hand for Shaffer's 1948 report to the ATC. There is some confusion about the document because the Shaffer Foundation "Walking With Spring" DVD presents the daily record included in SR48 as Shaffer's daily hike journal. That is LBN, not SR48. SR48 was prepared by Shaffer after his hike for submission to the ATC in support of recognition of his hike as a thru-hike. For that reason, it is very interesting to compare what Shaffer noted in LBN, what he reported to the ATC in SR48, and what he published decades later in WWS (Walking With Spring).

[thepathsproject]

Mcneely admits that he didn.t hike the existing trail in 1985 so if he has a thru-hiker's certificate It should be revoked by the ATC. He also feels it's okay to trespass in his quest to follow the 1950 trail so keep this in mind when you evaluateHis self-serving comments.

What is a thru-hiker's certificate? Ain't got one, never asked for one. Since my hike in 1985 wasn't an AT hike, but instead a hike that followed, at times and only when necessary, the modern AT, I doubt I'm listed as a 1985 thru-hiker. I certainly never asked to be listed. In fact, I might suggest that I walked about as much of the AT during my 1985 hike as anyone did who was constantly trying to figure out a way to stay off the modern AT while walking from Georgia to Maine.

And as for trespassing --- the route for my old AT hike was planned to be one available to the public. I intended it could be followed by other hikers with sufficient experience and independence to leave the rather artificial "bubble" of the modern AT to explore on foot the features of the old AT corridor along the Virginia Blue Ridge. That is why there were a number of modifications to the actual old AT route. For instance, I crossed Ft. Lewis Mt. (near Salem, VA) not on the old AT route, but instead through the Havens WMA. I substituted "the Buffalo" (Buffalo Mt.) for the Pinnacles of Dan because, first, the spectacular nature of that summit and, second, because the modified route stayed on public lands or rights-of-way. So the route I followed is one other hikers could follow as an alternative to the modern AT.