These Mainers really get to the point… Being from the Northwest we’re used to groomed trails and switchbacks, but here it seems they really like to go straight up the mountain. It might be a geological difference, based in the fact the Appalachian mountains are older and more resemble crumbling teeth rather than the razor points of the Cascades, but perhaps it’s ideological as well. People here tend to be rugged but kind, soft spoken with a certain self assured raw strength – and their trail building reflects a can do attitude that seems to rely on individual confidence to surmount any obstacle, no matter how steep or gnarled.