Essay about The Appalachian Trail

In the middle of the 19th century, the Oregon Trail was the main pathway for American emigrants who were searching for new lands. While most Oregon bound traveled a route that passed by landmarks, Missouri, Kansas, Wyoming, Nebraska, Idaho, and Oregon there was never one set of wagon ruts leading west. The route was considered too demanding for the women and children or covered wagons to navigate.In 1836 that's when it all changed by Marcus and Narcissa Whitman. BothWhitman, took a small party of wagons from St.Louis to the Walls Valley.In 1843 Marcus Whitman, helped lead the first major wagon train for around 1,000 settlers along the Oregon Trail. In about ten years, 50,000 settlers traveled by the Oregon Trail each year.

The Appalachian Mountains go through a total of 13 states according to the federal government. Running from Southern New York to Northern Mississippi, one of those 13 states is Kentucky which is my home. The region is a 205,000 square mile area that extends well over 1000 miles. 42 percent of the population is rural compared to 20 percent of the rural area in the rest of the national population.

Appalachia is often portrayed as an arrested frontier, a geographically isolated subculture, and reservoir of culturally homogenous. Appalachians are pictured as proud, fiercely independent, and god-fearing southerners. But in all reality they are portrayed as fighting and feuding, barefooted and backward, ignorant degenerates, downtrodden by centuries of isolation, inbreeding, and poverty. So how was Appalachia discovered? Well Appalachia was prompted in the mid 1870s by local color writers such as Mary Murfee and John Fox Jr. who explored in fiction and travel sketches such mountain themes as conflicting Civil War loyalties, moon shining, and feuding. (Billings)

Naturally historic, beautiful and entertaining, the Appalachian Mountains have long represented a place where life could be lived simply. It is a different lifestyle with its own charm. It is a place where time seems to slow down, and where no population has perfected the skills quite like the friendly people of these storied mountains.

Approximately 20,000 people died while traveling on the Oregon Trail. Which took place in the mid 1840s, when Americans started seeking economic success by moving westward. The justification for the expansion was due to weakness in the Mexican government and economy. Since Americans regarded Mexicans as inferior, despite the statement, made by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence, that “All men are created equal”, many of the citizens thought that the Mexican citizens did not deserve to keep their lands. America was not justified in its western expansion due to the lack of morality behind putting one person’s comfort above the safety of another.

This topic the Oregon Trail deals with all these people were looking for a better life or some freedom to practice their religion for themselves along with their families. Saw that they needed to move somewhere else and many of them decided to move west and take the Oregon trail or move to the state of California. Even though they knew it wasn't easy there was many trails that they had to go threw. They decided to take on that idea to leave for the Oregon trail.

In James Lane Allen’s Through Cumberland Gap on Horseback, the mention is made to the beauty of the land and that the climate was just the same but that traveling to the mountain region was not only difficult as they had to take a train then a wagon ride, followed by a trek on horseback, but a lengthy process. Among the experiences recorded Allen describes the meeting of several locals and this is where his responsibility for Appalachian

The Appalachian Mountains run through North Carolina and was formed about 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. Another North Carolina feature is the Great Smoky Mountains,The Great Smoky Mountains are a mountain range, along the Tennessee to North Carolina and borders the southeastern United States. There are many more land forms such as The Piedmont. The Piedmont, is a plateau area located in the southeastern part of the United States, and runs through North Carolina . It sits between the Atlantic Coastal Plain and the main Appalachian Mountains.North Carolina has a warm climate and it averages 5 inches of snow a year. Although, this also is different across the state. Along the coast, most areas get less than 2 inches of snow each

This area is also known as the Appalachian Mountains.

They were very perilous and dangerous to travel through; the mountains were very steep and had lots of cliffs. Even if they got to the other side of the mountains, there wouldn’t be that many other people and there could be possible hostile Indians. Most people just stayed with the colonies. In How the States got Their Shapes “episode 3” director Konschnik says “The Appalachians were a serious obstacle and the first real boarder of our States” (Konschnik). The Indians also used the mountains to flee from colonists. When colonists first settled they would steal the land from the Indians and then kill them. The Indians would also attack the colonists. It would seem the colonists just couldn’t get along with the Indians and so the Indians just fled beyond the mountains. In Clark’s research of the Planting of New Virginia he

The area surrounding the Dragon was one of the last areas of North Carolina to be settled due to its inhospitable terrain. The southern Appalachian Mountains are made up of two separate ranges; the eastern range is the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the western range is known as the Great Smoky Mountains. For thirty-six miles along the TN/NC border the GSM are more than 5k feet in altitude with 16 peaks stretching to more than 6k feet. All of this altitude translates to treacherous travel, especially for the pioneers in their day, but also for us as motor-sport enthusiasts today.

Before settlers began to move to Oregon it had already been inhabited. Native Americans lives in Oregon this was their homeland. With the Study of Oregon, anthropologists had come to the conclusion that as many as 180,000 natives had lived in Oregon long before Europeans began to arrive. Therefore as the Oregon Trail became more popular and more people pushed west it brought an uprising of conflicts between pioneers and Native Americans. This interest in the west began with in 1803.

People who use the trails spend money on food, beverages, lodging, bike and skate rentals, and other items. Studies have shown that trail users have generated up to $1.25 million per year for towns through which a trail passes. Furthermore, in most areas, realtors say that sales of homes near a rail trail have increased significantly. The chart below shows the results of a survey conducted in an Indiana community. As you can see, most residents in the community reacted positively to the rail-trail and believed that the rail-trail helped increase the value of their

The kmz map that I selected and find interesting entails the Appalachian Trail. This 2,190 miles journey travels through 14 states and attracts over 3 million visors each year. The beautiful mountainous adventure coincides with this week’s study of rock formation and a visual experience of land formation. I selected this region of the United States because I wanted to learn more about the trail and my future home state. My husband and I are planning on moving to Kentucky or Tennessee in 3 years and I’ve set a goal of walking part of the Appalachian Trail. I have a bad back and do not think I could manage the entire journey. I have lived in Virginia (while in the Navy) and have traveled all around Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia immensely.

After obtaining a degree in Human Dimensions of Natural Resources, I plan on working as a trail builder for the United States Forest Service (USFS) or a state parks department. Once I have gained sufficient experience in the field, I plan on moving on from my job as a trail builder to start my own trail design firm. Throughout childhood and adolescence, I was lucky enough to spend much of my free time using trail systems that were close to my neighborhood. These experiences shaped my environmental ethic and formed a bond between my natural surroundings and myself. At times of turmoil I always knew that I could set out on a trail and find peace in the solitude of the trail.