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 then, I’ve backpacked over 13,000
miles and over 1,700 nights, averaging 75 to 100 nights a year since 2011.

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.

There are many beautiful places and I’ve been fortunate to have backpacked in 25 different
states. Since the early 1990’s I’ve traveled out west to backpack often and since 2014, I’ve
spent the month of August backpacking in the Wind River Range and a few times in Cloud Peak
Wilderness. In 2018 I left the Winds and did a trip in Yellowstone and in 2019 drove from the
Winds to Canada and did 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 my videos and thanks for watching!