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JUNE 2016 2015 Annual Report William Saunders, MCM President 2015 marked the 81th year since the Mountain Marcuse the Unsung Hero/Heroine Award. In addition, Steve and Club of Maryland (MCM) was founded. MCM activities Patty Williams received National Park Service plaques recognizing can be grouped into four major programs: scheduling and con- their 25 years of service for the Appalachian Trail. ducting hikes; serving as an Appalachian Trail (A.T.) maintaining We engaged in several public events. MCM co-spon- club, supporting local trails; and carrying out underlying business sored (with the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club) a very success- support operations (membership, budgets, communications, etc.). ful 2015 Appalachian Trail Biennial Conference, which was held in In 2015 we continued to be very productive in all of these pro- July 2015. Bob and Janine Grossman worked closely with PATC for gram areas. We offered a vigorous program of hikes, continued our more than a year on the conference planning. In addition to our strong historic commitment to maintenance of the A.T. and also presence at the Biennial, we exhibited at a wellness fair in Howard made significant contributions to local trails, and worked to im- County and at the Boiling Springs Foundry Day, and we sponsored prove Club operations in numerous ways. MCM’s continuing suc- a hike and a display at the Duncannon Trail Day. cess is due to extensive volunteer efforts from a cadre of dedicated members. We provided grants to local trail organizations from the Miles Fund. Our size and activities in 2015 were This year grants totaling $9,559 were given consistent with recent years. We ended the for three projects. One grant was given to the year with 701 memberships, with an estimated total Friends of Gwynn Falls/Leaking Park to build of 891 individual members (based on two persons a boardwalk. Another was given to the Cen- for family memberships). This is a slight decrease tral Pennsylvania Conservancy to purchase from 2014 membership levels. We are primarily a and conserve land near the Appalachian Trail. day hiking club, but we also have continued to of- A third grant was given to Benjamin Banneker fer backpacking and canoe/kayak trips. Our total Park to construct a tool shed. number of activities was 281 and we had a total of 3,642 participants at these activities, including 174 MCM continued to maintain and guests. These results have been fairly consistent improve hiking trails. We maintained 42.2 over the last few years. miles of the Appalachian Trail in PA and MD, as well as four A.T. shelters. There are many individual Club vol- There were some changes in the club leadership unteers who take responsibility for a section of trail. There are also over the past year. Jody Blatt replaced Leslie Marcuse as a several members who contribute by monitoring the A.T. boundary. councilor. Joan Montanari took over the recording secretary posi- Under the leadership of our Trails Supervisor, Jerry Wright, MCM tion. Rose Johnson became the editor of Hiker High Points. Mike perform successful clean-ups of graffiti at several place along the Jenkins stepped down from the Supervisor of Trails position and A.T. We conducted two environmental service projects during the was replaced by Jerry Wright. year--in April and May we removed invasive plants on the A.T. in We hosted two Club meeting events—our June Pine Grove Furnace State Park and near Hunters Run in Pennsyl- picnic and December holiday party. At the December vania. In recognition of increasing bear presence along the A.T., we holiday party, the following awards were announced: Robert and prepared four bear boxes—to provide bear-proof storage for hiker Janine Grossman received the Outstanding Service Award; Mike food—that were delivered to our shelters in the spring. Overall, we O’Connor was given the Eleanor Sewell Lifetime Achievement devoted about 2700 volunteer hours to the Trail. Award; Ann Roberts the Outstanding Trip Leader, and Leslie Besides our A.T. work, we also continued to perform light main- tenance and monitoring of the Valley View and Tall Poplar trails in Patapsco Valley State Park, and MCM volunteers performed ser- vice at the Howard County Conservancy. Only those who will risk going too far We continued efforts to improve Club operations. can possibly find out how far one can go. Steve Williams conducted a training session for new hike leaders in March 2015. Ann Roberts purchased first aid kits and made them –T.S. Eliot (Continued on page 9) ♣ “JUNE 2016 HIKER HIGH POINTS • 1 ” Zen of the Art of Hike Leading: An Irreverent Primer Reuben Dagold There are various types of hikes, some combining several during a separation on a hike in a county park, a park ranger characteristics. The most strenuous hike goes at breakneck (or sauntered by and issued our club a warning for our indecent ex- break-ankle) speed, over rocky terrain, up and down long steep posure! hills, with deep stream crossings—where you see nothing but It is useful when circling around before the hike—introducing the shoes in front of you. The mildest hike might be a short na- ourselves and making announcements—if there are new people ture hike where you amble along noting every fern, mushroom, on the hike, to explain what a separation is. There was a hike native orchid, invasive when the leader at some point said that the women should stay ivy, and so on, slowly behind and the men would go ahead. A female guest, not be- and meticulously. ing familiar with the separation concept, was incensed that the There are various women were being treated as the weaker sex, and weren’t able to types of hike leaders, continue on to a more difficult section of trail! some combining sev- Hike leaders need to determine if a new member has the fit- eral characteristics. ness level required for a specific hike. One must be aware that The macho leader is meanings of words in English can vary, depending on region or out to prove that he country. One time a leader was questioning a newcomer about is the strongest, not his hiking experience and was told that he had done a lot of concerned with those walking. Well, it turns out that in the U.K. a walk is synonymous attempting to follow. with our hike. That walker was able to out-hike the leader. There is the humane Seasonality provides several considerations, in addition to the leader, who at least already mentioned separation difficulties. When there is no foli- waits for his followers age, one’s line-of-sight is longer—you are no longer in a green at the top of the hill. Weekend hike to White Rock Overlook on tunnel. Also, you can better see relics of past habitation and This writer has ob- the Appalachian Trail, sometime from 2007 use of the now-forested land. It is possible to find foundations, to 2009 served that often when gravestones, millraces, railroad spikes, unpaved wagon roads, a leader stops to allow laggards to catch up, they then slow down etc. If you hike the Valley View Trail in Patapsco in the sum- even more. mer, you might wonder where the “valley view” is; in winter it Hikes can be classified by their routing. The more usual is the is obvious. out-and-back, which does reduce the amount of scouting need- Some leaders might scout out hikes in order to re-live some ed when planning the hike. One could say that you are covering of their childhood. For instance, the Cascade Falls in Patapsco the same territory twice in one hike. On the other hand the foot- Valley State Park is now less high than it was as The Cascade path and vegetation appear differently in the reverse direction, in Patapsco State Park, when brought there by parents. The cast and the previous uphills are now downhills and vice versa. The lions guarding the door at the mansion in Leakin Park that one point-to-point hike, which is unidirectional, resolves the out- climbed on as a child, are and-back issues, but then car plants are required. That lengthens now living at The Balti- the hiking day and requires more planning at the beginning. more Zoo. The cannons The loop hike neither requires a car plant nor forces the hikers at the Old Fort at Leakin to backtrack, providing a brand new adventure during the entire Park that one straddled hike. And there is the lollypop hike, which is a combination of are no longer there. The an out-and-back and a loop. (I think that a cotter pin would be a Three Sisters ponds in better descriptor than a lollypop, but who listens!) Druid Hill Park, where The most difficult items for a hike leader are arranging -car one caught minnows and pools and selecting appropriate sites for separations. There tadpoles, are surrounded doesn’t seem to be much point in arranging carpools ahead by broken fencing and of time; e.g., when members call in to register. There are sev- are silted in. eral types of occurrences that can foul up prior planning: driv- Stream crossings can ers who had agreed to be carpool drivers are no-shows and/or be challenging, espe- members show up who had not previously registered. There’s cially when there has been no problem, that I’m aware of, finding willing drivers at the Every hiker has a personal way to do been a good amount designated meeting point.

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