Great Eastern Trail Information

The Great Eastern Trail (GET) provides a premier hiking experience on a series of existing trails that are being linked to each other into a long-distance footpath in the Appalachian Mountains stretching from Alabama to the Finger Lakes Trail in New York. Benton MacKaye's original vision for an Appalachian Trail in the 1920's showed a network of "braided" trails running the length of the Appalachian Mountains. In 2000 Lloyd MacAskill of PATC published an article in the Appalachian Trailway News calling attention to the existing trails to the west of the AT and saying "Don't look now, but parts are already in place." The work on this trail is being perfomed by volunteer effort. The organizational scheme will involve existing volunteer trail clubs, augmented where necessary by new volunteer groups. Volunteers will work closely with governmental entities, but the emphasis will be on volunteerism. Our model will be the original Appalachian Trail, which was initially constructed almost entirely by volunteer effort. Click Volunteer Opportunities to your left to see how YOU can help!