Chapter 1: The beginning

It is with a sense of nostalgia that I set the foundation of this blog. When hiking along the Appalachian Trail after graduating from college, a friend and I discovered a fundamental constant in the tangled, beautiful, wild mess of order that blanketed Appalachia - it was the 'blaze'.

Over the years, committed hikers and volunteers worked to identify a path, a genuine route, that would lead hikers along one of the longest foot trails in the world. And so it was, that a group of individuals, with a heart for the outdoors, set out to create a system of 'blazes' - 2x4 inch, white paint swatches located approximately 5' from ground-level on trees, rocks and other relatively immobile features along the trail. These blazes have been around for years and mark every half-mile vertebrae of the 2,100+ mile backbone of the trail.

Here I am, standing at a new trail head in my life, transitioning from the path of consulting in corporate America and the securities and challenges it offered, to a wholly new terrain of counseling and wilderness therapy. I'll be blogging about the lay of the land, the breath-taking vantage points, daily challenges, moments of triumph and the 'blazes' that I find or create along the way.

Thank you for joining me, this will certainly be an adventure worth sharing...