Terry Ernst | ||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Linden, Virginia -- May 1, 1981 photo by William Ewart | photo by Scott Davis |
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| Doug, John, Terry (photo by Reese Lukei, Jr.) |
| Terry's HikaNation Scans |
| HikaNation search engine results for Terry |
| The Hikers | 60 of Scott's Shots | Hikers by Rex | HikaNation |
| Why this lesser-known trail in northern Arkansas should be your next thru-hike - July 21, 2021.  Ozark Highlander Trail: Backpacker online article and in PDF format |
Now you can hike from Lake Fort Smith State Park almost to St. Louis on the Trans-Ozark Trail - January 10, 2022.  Trans-Ozark Trail: Arkansas online article and in PDF format |
In this episode of Backpacker Radio presented by The Trek we are joined by Tim Ernst, renowned wilderness photographer and the founder and former president of the Ozark Highlands Trail. Around the 20-minute mark, Tim discusses HikaNation's influence in the trail's development and his involvement with HikaNation. The interview is dedicated to the Ozark Highlands Trail, serving as an in-depth trail profile of this 300-mile(ish) backpacking trail through the state of Arkansas. We learn all about what makes this trail special, the best time of the year to hike, who it's for, some of the trail's highlights, wildlife, resupply strategy and more. | |
| The Ozark Highlands Trail Association (OHTA) Overview of the Ozark Highlands Trail |
USDA Forest Service -- Ozark Highlands Trail |
HikaNation Memories
| Thoughts on HikaNation - Terry Ernst - August 2018 |
I was one of the least experienced hikers in the beginning when I joined HikaNation. Before leaving on my first day Joe Shute and a few of the other more experienced hikers asked to see my pack while I headed to the showers (actually it was only one shower - it had a cardboard sign taped to the door that said "Boys" on one side and "Girls" on the other). When I returned everything in my pack was in one of two piles on the floor. They said to send everything in the large pile home because I wouldn't need it and to put everything in the smaller pile back in my pack! As it turns out they were right! I asked if I had forgotten anything and they said to pack more Snickers and more socks next time! I hiked with John Stout for all of our time on the AT. John was a slow and deliberate hiker and I was a rookie with a couple knee surgeries. John was 65 or 66 at the time and I was just slow. I had a VE-24 which is a larger tent so to lighten his load John left his tent in Monty's trailer and stayed in the VE-24 at night with me. John would take off walking at the crack of dawn and I would catch up to him sometime throughout the day. The press always wanted to interview John (who was the oldest hiker) and Gomer (whose daughter Jaime was the youngest). One time the reporters caught up to us in a little country grocery store and wanted to interview John. The reporter asked the inevitable question "Mr. Stout - what do you attribute your longevity and stamina to?" John looked around the store, winked at me, and then took a bite out of the biggest onion in the place and said "I always try to eat a raw onion, every day." After the reporters left I told John I had been hiking with him every day for more than two months and had never seen him eat a raw onion once - John said "I know, but it was the best idea I could come up with on short notice and now we have this raw onion we can cook with dinner!" John would almost always pack a big smoked sausage ring and a full loaf of bread at every resupply; this he would consume over the course of several days. He usually tied the bread bag on the outside of his pack and it would swing with every step. He would cut a piece off the sausage and make sandwiches for the first few days until the constant swinging of the bread bag turned the loaf of bread into crumbs. At that point he would eat the sausage with a handful of breadcrumbs. This is where he coined his famous saying - "I don't think my stomach cares whether my mouth enjoyed the meal or not!" At the end of one particularly long day we stopped to celebrate something or other, it may have been the first day of Spring. One of the hikers told me to bring a package of instant pudding (I like pistachio) and a spoon up to where a few of the hikers had gathered. I'm not sure exactly what I expected but I know I wasn't expecting 5 or 6 hikers to each dump a package of (mostly different flavors) instant pudding into a communal pot along with an envelope of powdered milk and some water. We passed that pudding "mix" around the group and although I have to admit it looked a little strange, it couldn't have tasted any better to me if it had been a five star restaurant! This was a typical example of HikaNation "sharing." There was quite a bit of snow on the ground as we hiked out of Hollins College and I was "Tail End Charlie" that day. By the time I got to the shelter it was getting dark and the shelter was already full. The shelter was a few feet off the ground on one end so instead of pitching my tent that was where I decided to spend the night - underneath the shelter. Everything went well until dawn when I discovered John and Helen Stout were the first to awake in the shelter and they had been sleeping just a few inches above my nose. In an elevated voice Helen told John to be quiet since no one else was awake yet. John, also in an elevated voice, proceeded to have a normal morning conversation with his wife. Everyone got up shortly thereafter no doubt because of all the racket! It seems neither John nor Helen had remembered to put on their hearing aids yet that morning! John was 65 or 66 at that time and Helen was the Poet Laureate of Washington State. After HikaNation John entered several marathon type running/ walking/ hiking events. I remember one time he told me he had won an award as the fastest person in his category to climb to the top of the Empire State Building. I congratulated him for the accomplishment and he then admitted with a sly grin that he was the only entry in the "70 and older category! " Once in Shenandoah National Park I stopped well after dark and made camp away from the trail. We had been warned to hang our food up as there were black bears in the area. Sometime in the middle of the night I heard a sound like "something" kicking a tin can down the hill. Naturally I assumed a bear had found a can somewhere. The sound kept getting closer and closer as I desperately tried to devise an escape plan. Eventually the noise was only 10 feet away in the dark. Suddenly, I sat up, turned my flashlight on, and screamed at the top of my lungs . . . What I saw illuminated in the beam of my flashlight was a young deer who looked more afraid to see me than I was to see it! Wash day was always interesting. It was common practice to change into rain suits and wash everything else. One rainy night at a laundromat one of the girls couldn't find a place to change into her rain suit so she asked me to hold up a parka in a corner so she could change behind it (no peeking). As she was changing she looked outside and asked "why are those cars stopping outside?" Neither of us had noticed the two windows in the corner she was standing in front of! In the distance hiking game you soon learn there are no right ways, or wrong ways, just different ways. If you're here, whatever you did obviously works. Some people will never understand why and we can't tell them. If they are willing, and have an open mind, we can show them, but tell them we cannot. A long answer to a short question - someone asked why do you hike. Long distance hiking at this level is an esoteric endeavor if there ever was one. It's much more a mental game than a physical one. The hikers sense that only their fellow adventurers, no matter where they are from, truly understand the extreme feelings and emotions they experience during such a journey. As I strive to reach and understand this thing that I but barely sense, I become imbued with something very beautiful, and it is this exciting sensation which drives me on. These rivers , and mountains, and valleys are some of God's best handiwork and I can't think of a better way to see them - can you? I just want you to know that whatever happens next, I wouldn't have missed this for the world. Perhaps Robert Frost said it best: "Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference." The HikaNation experience lives on as gift to all of us who were there. |
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Taildragger Pilots United Facebook group
Posted by EJ Chuidian - August 11, 2022
Planes fly between the towers and pedestrians cross
as part of the celebration of the opening
of the Golden Gate Bridge in May of 1937.
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