I am not sure what animal this little guy is from (see the Feature Photo), but obviously he has A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE ON THE TRAIL. I ran across him as he was moving his little body… I looked around to investigate and see if I could spot his mother… but to no avail.
Slipper and I were touched by the above monument we viewed at the top of a mountain. How could a 4 year old little boy wonder 7 miles from a 1-room school house in the 1800’s and die at this specific spot. Obviously, there was a struggle for life where the Appalachian Trail now exists.
The photo above is a rock wall from a historic community of freedom where a group of freed slaves lived… struggled… and survived.
We were moved by the remains that exist from a people who understood A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE ON THE TRAIL.
There are various memorials along the trail (from shelters… to footbridges… to monuments… to historic remains…) that convey there has always been A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE ON THE TRAIL.
In each instance above, I couldn’t help but to put myself in each situational story and imagine the struggles that each event provided (from an animal fetus unable to mature in life… to a inquisitive little boy wandering through the woods… to a community of people learning to progress forward with an all new sense of freedom).
Who would ever think that by thru-hiking The Appalachian Trail, a Hiker would encounter what it might have been like to expeience A STRUGGLE FOR LIFE ON THE TRAIL? It is quite humbling, to say the least.
