About

After my first trip with the Boy Scouts at the age of 12, I’ve had a passion for backpacking, but it
wasn’t until 1988 that I became an avid backpacker. Since 2011 backpacking has become an
integral part of my life, averaging 75 to 100 nights a year. In the last 35 years my backpacking
miles have exceeded 13,000, with almost 2,000 nights on the trail.
Living in east Tennessee with thousands of trail miles within three hours has provided many
incredible backpacking opportunities. In 1997, I finished hiking all 900 miles of trails in the
Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Since then, I’ve hiked about 60% of the trails twice and
some trails multiple times. After finishing the trails in the park, I branched out to hike all the
trails in the nearby wilderness areas, including Citico Creek, Joyce Kilmer-Slickrock Creek,
Little Frog, Big Frog, Cohutta and Shining Rock Wildernesses. Along the way I’ve hiked most
of the trails in Big South Fork National River and Recreation Area and the Mt. Rogers High
Country, and about 750 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain, Georgia to State
Route 42 northeast of Newport, Virginia.
There are many beautiful places and I’ve been fortunate to have backpacked in 26 different
states. Since the early 1990’s I’ve traveled out west to backpack often, and since 2014 I’ve spent
four to six weeks during August and early September backpacking out west, mostly in
Wyoming’s Wind River Range, with a side trip to Canada in late August of 2019 for an eleven-
day trip in Jasper National Park. With vast open spaces and big, beautiful views the west
provides great backpacking adventures, but day in and day out I prefer the Southern
Appalachians.
Hope you enjoy the videos and pictures. Thanks for visiting my website.
Bryan DeLay