Pathfinder: Blazing a New Wilderness Trail in Modern America

"In the early 1970s, Ron Strickland—a young, novice hiker with an audacious idea—launched a campaign to link Glacier National Park's alpine meadows and the Pacific Ocean with a new, 1,200-mile footpath across three national parks and seven national forests. He—along with countless other volunteers—lobbied landowners, raised money, and dug dirt until, in 2009, Congress added the Pacific Northwest Trail to the National Trails System.

In Pathfinder, Strickland describes the process of untangli...