Appalachian Trail — Trail Builders Versus the Automobile
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Transcript
The Appalachian Trail and Skyline Drive embody two competing ideas about access to mountains. Trail advocate Benton MacKaye imagined a long-distance walking route removed from modern urban pressures. Myron Avery and other trail leaders were more willing to coexist with automobile infrastructure. When Skyline Drive occupied parts of the original ridge route, long sections of the trail had to be relocated. The dispute helped fracture relationships inside the early trail movement. Today road and footpath both define Shenandoah. Their coexistence can look inevitable, but it came from a real argument about whether mass automobile tourism and a wilderness-style walking experience could share the same mountains.