Now Everybody’s “Hiking The Appalachian Trail”
“Hiking the Appalachian Trail” has experienced a rebirth in popularity thanks to raging unemployment and the free publicity it received from S.C. Gov. Mark Sanford, who used it as an excuse to sneak off to Argentina earlier this summer to be with his lover, Maria Belen Chapur.
And while Sanford’s current home of Columbia, S.C. has already been designated as the “face of the recession,” it looks like the 2,200-mile trail – which runs from Georgia to Maine – has become something of a “walking recession.”
According to the Wall Street Journal, the growing number of out-of-work hippies hiking (and mooching) along the trail is “either a symbol of a jobless recovery or of a still-deepening recession.”
From the Journal:
… there has been a surplus of hikers this year on the Appalachian Trail, which was unexpectedly in the news in June when South Carolina’s Gov. Mark Sanford used the excuse of hiking the trail while pursuing an extramarital affair in Argentina. Typically, about 1,000 hikers leave Georgia each spring in hopes of completing the trail in one all-out trek. This year, trail monitors say, close to 1,400 hikers were in the first wave, with hundreds more following behind through early summer …
“… I saw more people who are out of work this year,” (an innkeeper along the Trail says). “You get six months’ government unemployment, and it’s cheaper to live off the land.”
Some people complain of aggressive panhandling, robberies and homeless hikers blending in with genuine backpackers to take advantage of free food or work-for-stay opportunities.
Free food? Work-for-stay opportunities?
Sounds like Sanford to us …
To read the Journal article in its entirety, click here …
Comments
By Oh My GOFF on September 21st, 2009 at 9:46 am
I have seen more people out on the Cayce Riverwalk… must be trickle down ECO-nomics
By Strom's Daughter on September 21st, 2009 at 11:34 am
I hear Andre hikes the Appalachian Trail the other way.
By SC Integrity on September 21st, 2009 at 11:37 am
Just wonder if any part of Sanfraud regrets not having chosen a SC state attraction to lie about. Nice that neighboring states are seeing a tourism hike hype compliments of very own luv guv.
Why couldn’t he and Maria fornicated in SC, that’s all we ask for next time.
By Rylyn on September 21st, 2009 at 12:45 pm
Strom’s Daughter….I think that is Interstate Rest Stops
By SPED on September 21st, 2009 at 1:33 pm
I did a month on the AT and it changed my life. I wanted to believe Sanford at first.
You run into some scary folks on the trail. They have shelters in the SE part about every 10 miles, and we saw a few just living in a shelter…
By Interloper on September 21st, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Why be so gloomy? If people who aren’t going to find jobs anyway want to do something healthy like hiking the Appalachian Trail, more power to them.
The more interesting question is: Are more adultery loving men ‘finding their soul mates’ with the Luv Guv’s encouragement?
By Strom's Daughter on September 21st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Kenny Chesney:
“I’d like to dedicate my newest song to Andre Bauer, the Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. It’s called, ‘Somebody is Hikin’ the Appalachian Trail Behind You.’”
By NoObama on September 21st, 2009 at 9:47 pm
I once hiked the App. Trail. I think I ran into Cooter Brown in his hideaway. That man can be crotchety with that rifle!