I began backpacking in the Smoky Mountains in 1970. By 1971 I was carrying a Canon FX, a real brick, and that started me on the road to photography. For the next 23 years I hiked bits and pieces of the Appalachian Trail but always returned to the Smokys for at least one backpacking trip each year. I hiked in Yosemite, Rainier, the Olympics, the Shenandoah, Acadia and other locations but the AT and the Smokys were my passion. This was taken by one of my hiking buddies in 1988 going up Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northern terminus of the Appalachian Trail.