Benton Mackaye

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2590 – Nov 15, 2022

/ Jim Schmid
Sandra-Schmid-and-Richard-Williams-Dive-Shop-scuba-weekend-Himalaya-Mexico-10-10-93

Sandra-Schmid-and-Richard-Williams-Dive-Shop-scuba-weekend-Himalaya-Mexico-10-10-93

For we need this thing wilderness far more than it needs us. Civilizations (like glaciers) come and go, but the mountain and its forest continue the course of creation’s destiny. And in this we mere humans can take part—by fitting our civilization to the mountain.

—BENTON MACKAYE, letter to Smoky Mountains Hiking Club, 1933

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

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Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2579 – Nov 4, 2022

/ Jim Schmid
Jim-Schmid's-Bacchetta-Giro-recumbent-RP-25-Paul-Bunyan-Trail-MN-5-14-17

Jim-Schmid’s-Bacchetta-Giro-recumbent-RP-25-Paul-Bunyan-Trail-MN-5-14-17

Wilderness is two things—fact and feeling. It is a fund of knowledge and a spring of influence. It is the ultimate source of health—terrestrial and human.

—BENTON MACKAYE, Founder of the Appalachian Trail, 1879–1975

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2505 – Aug 22, 2022

/ Jim Schmid
Jim-Schmid-with-mtn-bike-next-to-Florida-Trail-sign-at-Camel-Lake-Apalachicola-Nat-Forest-1-5-14

Jim-Schmid-with-mtn-bike-next-to-Florida-Trail-sign-at-Camel-Lake-Apalachicola-Nat-Forest-1-5-14

One function, at least, of true wilderness is to provide a refuge from the crassitudes of civilization—whether visible, intangible, audible-whether of billboard, of pavement, of auto horn—all of these are urban essences; all are negations of wilderness.

—BENTON MACKAYE, Founder of the Appalachian Trail, 1879–197

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2292 – Jan 21, 2022

/ Jim Schmid
Sandra-Schmid-hiking-to-Len-Foote-Hike-Inn-GA-10-22-2008

Sandra-Schmid-hiking-to-Len-Foote-Hike-Inn-GA-10-22-2008

To walk; to see and to see what you see.

—BENTON MACKAYE, on the ultimate purpose for hiking on the Appalachian Trail, 1971

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2277 – Jan 6, 2022

/ Jim Schmid
Sandra-Schmid-at-shelter-on-Blood-Mtn-on Appalachian-Trail-GA-10-2-99

Sandra-Schmid-at-shelter-on-Blood-Mtn-on Appalachian-Trail-GA-10-2-99

The Appalachian Trail is a wilderness strip; it could be very wide—several miles wide—if possible. It is not a trailway. Actually, the trail itself could be a strip no wider than space for a fat man to get through. And that’s the trouble: ‘Trailway’ is a very unfortunate word; it gives the impression of a Greyhound bus and a great cement, six-lane highway, which is just the opposite of what the trail is supposed to be. The idea is a foot trail, and if there is a wheel on it at all, there is no point in the Appalachian Trail. People should get that through their heads….

—BENTON MACKAYE, AIA Journal interview where he bluntly repudiated the Trailway concept as adopted by the Appalachian Trail Conference, 1971

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2257 – Dec 17, 2021

/ Jim Schmid
Sandra-Schmid-hiking-Edisto-Nature-Trail-SC-3-28-97

Sandra-Schmid-hiking-Edisto-Nature-Trail-SC-3-28-97

My own doctrine of organization is that any body of people coming together for a purpose (whatever it may be) should consist of persons wholly wedded to said purpose and should consist of nobody else. If the purpose be Cannibalism (preference for Ham a la Capitalism) then nobody but a Cannibal should be admitted. There should be plenty of discussion and disagreement as to how and the means but none whatever as to ends.

—BENTON MACKAYE in a letter to Bob Marshall discussing membership for newly formed Wilderness Society, December 12, 1935

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2231 – Nov 21, 2021

/ Jim Schmid
Sandra-Schmid-hiking-to-Len-Foote-Hike-Inn-GA-10-22-2008

Sandra-Schmid-hiking-to-Len-Foote-Hike-Inn-GA-10-22-2008

It was a clear day, with a brisk breeze blowing. North and south, sharp peaks etched the horizon. I felt as if atop the world, with a sort of planetary feeling. I seemed to perceive peaks far southward, hidden by old Earth’s curvature. Would a footpath some day reach them from where I was then perched? Little did I dream….

—BENTON MACKAYE, (Founder of the Appalachian Trail), relating his climb to the summit of Stratton Mountain, VT, summer of 1900, in a letter to the general meeting of the Appalachian Trail Conference, 1964

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2175 – Sept 26, 2021

/ Jim Schmid
Jim-Schmid-on-Appalachian-Trail-at-Pine-Grove-Furnace-State-Park-PA-07-25-2009

Jim-Schmid-on-Appalachian-Trail-at-Pine-Grove-Furnace-State-Park-PA-07-25-2009

The Appalachian Trail as originally conceived is not merely a footpath through the wilderness but a footpath of the wilderness.

—BENTON MACKAYE, address to the members of the Seventh Appalachian Trail Conference, held at Skyland, VA, June 22, 1935

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2155 – Sept 6, 2021

/ Jim Schmid
Sandra-Schmid-at-start-of-Appalachian-Trail-Approach-Trail-Amicalola-Falls-State-Park-GA-1999

Sandra-Schmid-at-start-of-Appalachian-Trail-Approach-Trail-Amicalola-Falls-State-Park-GA-1999

.…ultimate purpose is to conserve, use, and enjoy the mountain hinterland which penetrates the populous portion of America from north to south. The Trail (or system of trails) is a means for making the land accessible. The Appalachian Trail is to this Appalachian region what the Pacific Railway was to the Far West—a means of ‘opening up’ the country. But a very different kind of ‘opening up.’ Instead of a railway we want a ‘trailway’…
But unlike the railway the trailway must preserve (and develop) a certain environment. Otherwise its whole point is lost. The railway ‘opens up’ a country as a site for civilization; the trailway should ‘open up’ a country as an escape from civilization…. The path of the trailway should be as ‘pathless’ as possible; it should be the minimum consistent with practical accessibility.

—BENTON MACKAYE, founding meeting of the Appalachian Trail Conference, March 2-3, 1925

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.

Jim Schmid’s Trail Quote of the Day #2074 – June 17, 2021

/ Jim Schmid
Sandra-Schmid-at-start-of-Appalachian-Trail-Approach-Trail-Amicalola-Falls-State-Park-GA-1999

Sandra-Schmid-at-start-of-Appalachian-Trail-Approach-Trail-Amicalola-Falls-State-Park-GA-1999

High and dry above the stupendous detail of our job we should hold the reason for it all. This is not to cut a path and then say—‘Ain’t it beautiful’ Our job is to open a realm. This is something more than a geographical location—it is an environment.

—BENTON MACKAYE, on the vision of the Appalachian Trail, 1925

Click to find over 2,000 additional Trail Quotes  arranged loosely into 60 subjects. I want the Trail Quotes to be a readable source for inspiring, challenging, and amusing information and knowledge; as well as a reliable, easy-to-use reference work for finding the precise wording, author, date, and source of the trail quotation.