Monday, June 15, 2009
Pacific Northwest Trail tattoo
A footpath running from Washington state to Montana will soon become part of the National Trails System, devised by President Lyndon Johnson forty years ago to allow Americans to hike from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The new Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail was approved by President Barack Obama in March, marking the first additions to the trail system in 26 years. The trail will eventually run from Glacier National Park in Montana to the Pacific Ocean at Cape Alava in Washington, and include some of the most remote and mountainous trails in the nation. Once the northwest trail is completed, the national trail system will be only 900 miles short of connecting the Atlantic coast and the Pacific coast.
Meanwhile, the National Park Service is studying whether to add the Long Walk to the national trail system, which would commemorate the forced march of Navajo and Mescalero Apache Indians by U.S. soldiers in the 1860s in eastern New Mexico that killed thousands. If designated, the Long Walk would become the second historic trail to commemorate the forced removal of American Indians from their homeland, after the recognition of the Trail of Tears involving the Cherokee and other Indians from the Southeast to present-day Oklahoma in the 1830s.
-Noel Brinkerhoff
Obama Creates Pacific Northwest Trail (By Nicholas K. Geranios, Associated Press)
The Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail and the Sea-to-Sea Route (RonStrickland.com)
Trail to Commemorate 'Long Walk' Divides Tribes (by Felicia Fonseca, Associated Press)
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