Haunted Reading

Today is Halloween, and what better way to celebrate if you're not out trick or treating yourself than to curl up underneath the covers and read about America's scariest trails, haunted hikes, or paranormal activity in the deep woods to scare the bejeebers out of you next time you venture into the wilderness.

Here are a few links to check out to get you into the mood of the holiday:

* Just in time for the scariest season of the year, Backpacker Magazine has put together a collection of "America's Scariest Trails."

* Earlier this month Blue Ridge Outdoors Magazine published a list of the five most spookiest hikes in the southeast - each leading to a cemetery.

* Over at the Hiking Boots blog they put together an interesting collection of videos purportedly showing various paranormal activities in the wild.

* If that's not enough for you, check out Juanitta Baldwin's Smoky Mountain Ghostlore, a collection of ghost and paranormal tales from the Smokies that just can't be explained. Or, how about Andrea Lankford's Haunted Hikes, a collection of "Spine-Tingling Tales and Trails from North America's National Parks" from a former national park ranger.



Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com

Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks

Ranger Confidential: Living, Working, and Dying in the National Parks is a new book written by Andrea Lankford in which she relates the real stories behind the beautiful scenery of our national parks.

Lankford is a former national park ranger and the author of three other books, and has been published in several national publications such as USA Today, Arizona Highways, and Backpacker Magazine.

For twelve years, Andrea lived in the biggest, most impressive national parks in the world, working a job she loved. She chaperoned baby sea turtles on their journey to sea. She pursued bad guys on her galloping patrol horse. She jumped into rescue helicopters bound for the heart of the Grand Canyon and has even won arguments with bears.

In this graphic and yet surprisingly funny account of her and others’ extraordinary careers, Lankford unveils a world in which park rangers struggle to maintain their idealism in the face of death, disillusionment, and the loss of a comrade killed while holding that thin green line between protecting the park from the people, the people from the park, and the people from each other. Ranger Confidential is the story behind the scenery of the nation’s crown jewels — Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Denali and the Great Smoky Mountains. In these iconic landscapes, where nature and humanity constantly collide, scenery can be as cruel as it is redemptive.

Please click here for more information on the book.


Jeff
HikingintheSmokys.com Detailed information on trails in the Smoky Mountains; includes trail descriptions, key features, pictures, video, maps, elevation profiles, news, hiking gear store, and more.