[at-l] Hayduke Trail

[RoksnRoots at aol.com (RoksnRoots@aol.com)]

            From Outside Magazine;


           HAYDUKE HIKES!


           An 812-mile effort to revive the spirit, if not the tactics, of 
the West's most notorious monkey-wrencher

         "WE KNEW IT WASN'T a very politically correct name to put on a 
desert trail," says Moab, Utah, resident Mike Coronella. "It's not that we advocate 
vandalism, but some people truly do have a passion for these areas." The 
41-year-old environmentalist is talking about the Hayduke Trail, a new, unofficial 
812-mile footpath, which links six national parks in southern Utah and 
northern Arizona.

       Coronella, along with 35-year-old Joe Mitchell, a fly-fishing guide 
from Park City, Utah, patched the trail together during a dozen reconnaissance 
trips over an eight-year span. Using existing trails, cow paths, dirt roads, 
and washes, they created the route and named it in honor of George Washington 
Hayduke III, the infamous fictional saboteur in Edward Abbey's 1975 novel 'The 
Monkey Wrench Gang'. In March, Coronella and Mitchell will begin their 
inaugural through-hike, which begins in Arches and ends in Zion, traversing 
Canyonlands, Capitol Reef, Bryce Canyon, and Grand Canyon national parks, as well as 
Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument and Glen Canyon National Recreation 
Area. They expect to be gone for 94 days.

          What would Abbey's principal monkey-wrencher think of a trail named 
after him? "Old Hayduke didn't like trails," says Doug Peacock, 62, Abbey's 
inspiration for the character. "Real adventure takes place off the trail; it's 
a bushwack of the mind and body. But it's a nice gesture, nonetheless." For 
trail details, visit 

            www.deepdesert.com


                                                                              
              - Katie Showalter