Magazine - Backpacker: The Outdoors at Your Doorstep
Issue: June 2014, 2014 National Parks Guide, Volume 42, Issue 313, Number 5
Story: The Experience: More is Better. Long Distance Hiking by Casey Lyons (p.012)
It was barely a thought when I started doing this photography thing that I would one day be providing content for the same magazines that I once lounged around reading in my personal time. That really hit home when I was contacted by Backpacker Magazine to contribute a photograph of Grassy Ridge in the Roan Highlands for an article in their June 2014 Hike the National Parks issue. Written by Casey Lyons, a crazy talented young writer, the article, More is Better: Long Distance Hiking, is a beautiful piece on the experience of hiking. Here’s a quote from the piece that I believe led the editors to search out my photograph: [pull_quote_center]”You nap in a meadow atop a Tennessee bald because the wind whisks the grass in a way that makes you want to dream. You smile like a fool, and lick your peanut butter spoon after it falls in the pine duff without even thinking about it–sort of like a 5-year-old kid. You wake up at dawn and fall asleep at dusk, and you feel this is somehow right. You make memories and friends and sign the trail register with a new–and strange–name. You take your watch off and mail it home, and the idea that the same ragged, calendar-synced world is dragging on without you is like a fairy tale” (p.014).[/pull_quote_center]
Follow Casey and his writing on Twitter at: https://twitter.com/caseylyons.