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Home Page for Thru-hikers



Hi, folks!
Haven't been able to participate much lately, spending day and night
working on the new home page that the Center will have in operation
around January 1st. The structure and navigation are about complete, so
I'll give you a little preview of what the page will contain (we'll put it
online in about a week or so, so that you can give us feedback). It's
going to be a big page ... already it has more than a thousand files, and
it is designed to serve the needs of the entire spectrum of thru-hikers,
from the people that are dreaming about a thru-hike, that are planning a
thru-hike, for those doing a thru-hike in '97, and those who have
completed a thru-hike. Here's a brief outline of the page features. Let me
know if you can think of a need we haven't met, we'll add it!

1. What's New? What's Up? ... with new features, announcements, recent
Trail news, and a calendar of hiking events for 1997.
2. AT Forum ... with editorial, topic of the month, sub-forum on gear,
food, women's topics, and trip reports (we'll also have a "For women only"
mailing list)
3. Alumni News ... with newsletters from alumni thru-hikers, newsletters
from hostel hosts, etc., an alumni directory of names and addresses, the
Trail name directory, articles about thru-hikers, and the 2000-Milers
Club.
4. Hiker Services ... shuttle information, Trail condition reports,
partner want-ads, Handbook updates, speakers bureau, seminar schedule
(ours
and anyone elses), thru-hikers catalog (products by and for thru-hikers),
job opportunities for thru-hikers, and links to other organizations and
information resources.
5. Gear & Food ... with the results of our 1996 Gear Survey of more than
2500 long-distance hikers (you can go to any piece of gear and find out
what thru-hikers said about it!), new gear previews and reviews, used gear
for sale (you can post ads), directory of manufacturers (with search by
gear category), and trail foods and recipess.
6. Magazine ... with articles, poetry, cartoons, photos, all about the AT
and thru-hiking.
7. Planning Info ...FAQs about thru-hiking and the AT, planning
publications, bibliography and reviews of nature guides, etc., special
planning considerations (hiking with pets, diabetes, etc.), directory of
thru-hikers in your area you can contact and who are willing to talk to
you about the AT and thru-hiking, glossary of Trail terms.
8. Volunteer Opportunities ... dozens of ways you can use your hiking
expereineces and experience to help other hikers enjoy the AT.
9. News from the Class of '97 ... daily reports from 1997 thru-hikers,
listed by shelter as they trek from Georgia to Maine of vice versa, plus
the daily journals of several dozen '97 thru-hikers (anyone wishing to
participate in this project can call the Center now at 704-622-7601).

This is just a brief rundown of the page features. As you can see, it is
very much a participatory page, and everyone in the AT hiking community is
invited to participate to make this a great page. I'd like your feedback,
and we hope that everyone will check out the page over the next few months
as we head toward the grand opening on January 1, 1997.

-- Wingfoot

P.S. The address is http://trailplace.com (after November 1st). We're up
now, but all you'll get is an old graphic that we used just so we could
register the domain name.


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