Two big things happened in our Appalachian Trail life today - and I wasn't even on the A.T.

For almost nine years, we've maintained a section from Rice Gap to Devils Fork Gap on the North Carolina and Tennessee border. It's almost five miles and much too long to maintain.

Five miles of walking is not much but when you have to clip, clean, lop and weedwhack, it's something else. The reason we had two pieces is that there's no place to access the trail in the middle.

After much discussion, Lenny and I decided to give up one sections of the two we maintain. We will now go from Devils Fork Gap for about 2.5 miles - and have to turn around after we finish our maintenance for the day.

The five miles is a challenge in at least two ways. We had to take two cars and place one at each end. It's a long shuttle. And Lenny spends days weedwhacking blackberry cane in late springs. He'll still have to get out there with a weedwhacker but he'll have less to whack.

But we didn't just drop the A.T. piece. We have Bob H., a CMC club member the opportunity to adopt the other piece. And today, Lenny went out with Bob and showed him his new piece.

Congratulations, Bob! You're now the proud owner of your very own piece of the A.T. It's an honor to be a maintainer.

While they were out, they met an A.T. thru-hiker who is walking the A.T. in both directions each day. He's dayhiking the A.T. without having any support. Check out his website. PJ goes one way and then turns around and back to his car. He's also doing stretches every which way.

Some of the sections are going to be a challenge to dayhike. How is he going to do the Smokies?