Trail Connections welcomes Alex Leavitt to our tramily. Alex is our new Social Media Marketing Coordinator and started working with us in mid-January. He is a senior at Merrimack College finishing up a dual degree in marketing and sports management. His marketing talents, interest in outdoor activities and overall enthusiasm make him a perfect fit for the work he will be doing to expand our social media presence.

Already, Alex has developed our Instagram page and will continue to engage visitors through that site. He has also worked on increasing the visitors to our Facebook page, and is exploring other ways in which we can increase Trail Connections’ social media presence. We look forward to Alex’s contributions to our work. If you want to reach him, send him a message through either Instagram or Facebook or else his email: [email protected].

I once had a conversation with another hiker who told me that he had thru-hiked the AT. When I asked him when, he replied back that his hike spanned two consecutive calendar years. Putting on my best AT lingo geekdom, I politely told him that that meant he had section-hiked the trail. That a thru-hike technically had to completed within one year. He replied that, no, he had thru-hiked the trail. He had started at Katahdin in September and proceeded south finishing up at Springer in April. Point. Match. I stood corrected.

That conversation reminded me that the AT doesn’t disappear during the winter. If you want to experience the trail in a different season when you’ll probably have the shelter to yourself, then hiking during winter months is something you should consider. That said, hiking during the winter has its own challenges and you should be prepared for them if you choose to do so.

The winter edition of AMC Outdoors has a good article about how you should prepare for your first winter hike. Here are the main points:

Stay cool. Layering your clothing enables you to take off and put clothing back on so that you are never soaking your clothing with sweat. What you want to avoid is getting your clothes wet and then having them freeze when you stop.

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