The Benton MacKaye Trail may soon become America's 12th National Scenic Trail. In 2021, a grassroots effort launched to get the BMT named a National Scenic Trail. In June, that effort gained ...

Staff photo by Matt Hamilton / In 2022, Richard Harris and Brenda Harris of Tellico Plains, Tenn., walk to an exit point of the Benton-MacKaye Trail in Polk County, Tenn. On Oct. 21, 2025, the U.S.

NPCA submitted the following position to members of the Senate Committee on Agriculture ahead of a hearing scheduled for October 21, 2025. NPCA supports this legislation to study the Benton MacKaye ...

U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann introduced the bipartisan Benton MacKaye National Scenic Trail Feasibility Study Act, which would authorize a study to designate a 287-mile trail linking Georgia, Tennessee ...

NPCA submitted the following position to members of the House Committee on Natural Resoruces ahead of a markup scheduled for March 5, 2026. H.R. 2768 - Benton MacKaye National Scenic Trail Feasibility ...

Benton MacKaye proposed the trail in the days after the tragic death of his wife — "an important walker in her own right." Benton MacKaye was a big dreamer. “Sometimes — in fact, most of the time — ...

CARLISLE, Pa. — Benton MacKaye was not trying to predict the future in words that echo the present-day. "Living has been considerably complicated of late ... by war, by questions of personal liberty, ...

The little trail we are hiking in the North Georgia woods belongs to us and the bears. The hardwoods overhead are as diverse as any in the Eastern United States. The ferns, Galax, poison ivy and other ...

Nature has been a saving grace for a lot of people recently. Hiking and going off the grid for a bit are activities perfectly suited for the era of social distancing. However, with more people looking ...

If the Benton MacKaye Trail is a ribbon of dirt blazed through the wildest stretches of southern Appalachia, then the turn-off trail to Owen Vista is little more than a thread. George Owen, a retired ...

It has been 100 years since an out-of-work forester named Benton MacKaye came up with the idea for an Appalachian Trail connecting Maine to Georgia. Today we know the trail for the hiking ...