Cumberland Valley Appalachian Trail Club

Don Badorf repairing bridge near Sherwood Drive

I was hiking on top of Blue Mountain this fall, and heard the sound of gunfire in the distance.  It may surprise some hikers that this sound filled me with nostalgia.  Though I have not hunted for almost forty years, I come from a family of avid hunters.  My Dad (still doing well at 101!!!) bagged more than thirty deer and innumerable squirrels, rabbits, etc. in his hunting career.  I was first exposed to the wonders of the outdoors during hunting trips with Dad.  The only thing I didn't like about those trips was killing animals.  However, he passed on to me in spades his deep love and respect for the outdoor world.  It is not an exaggeration to say that without those hunting trips I would never have gotten involved in the trail community, much less thru-hiked the Appalachian and John Muir Trails.

I share all this with you to make a point.  It is my humble opinion that the hiking & trails community on one hand, and the sportsman community on the other, have much more in common than our differences.  We both share a deep love of the outdoors and a wish to preserve wild areas from development and other inappropriate uses.  We often don't work well together because of other political differences.  Trail people tend to be more progressive on other issues, and hunters tend to be more conservative.

I think the concerns that hikers have about hunting are wildly overblown.  Statistically, it is much more dangerous to drive on the highway to a trailhead than it is to hike in a State Game Land during hunting season, assuming the hiker takes reasonable precautions like wearing blaze orange.  This reminds me of folks who won't hike because they are afraid of getting mauled by bears or bitten by snakes.  When asked about this, I tell them the real dangers are water-borne diseases like giardia and tick-borne diseases like lyme disease, not bears or snakes.  How many hikers are afraid to hike in November and December, but instead follow the hoards of football fans up 322 to State College?  Again, statistically, the former is much safer than the latter if one takes reasonable precautions.  I believe we should spend more time educating hikers about the real dangers of hiking and how to avoid them, rather than picking fights with groups with whom we share many common interests.

Second, by coming out strongly against hunting, we risk playing into all the stereotypes that sportsmen have about trail people - that we are left wing tree huggers who oppose all hunting and want to take their guns away.  Many of us are moderate tree huggers who have no problem with the responsible use of guns.  We are going to need the sportsman community to stand with us on issues like funding for state parks, imposing extraction taxes on oil and gas drilling like Marcellus shale, funding land acquisitions like the South Mountain initiative, etc., etc.  Why are they going to support us if we take knee-jerk positions against hunting?

I hope you watched the recent Ken Burns series on the national parks that aired on public TV.  If so, you learned about the close bond that developed between John Muir and Pres. Theodore Roosevelt.  Teddy was an avid hunter who had animal heads all over his study.  But he was also an early environmentalist.  It is fair to say that without TR, the bison would probably have gone extinct and Yellowstone and Yosemite would never have been preserved.  John Muir saw all this in Pres. Roosevelt., and focused on the beliefs they held in common rather than their differences.  We are all better off for that decision.

I’d like to tell you about another unsung leader of CVATC, Don Badorf.  Don has been active in the Club almost since its founding.  For many years he served as the Treasurer, but in those days the job encompassed much more than today.  In addition to the traditional duties of Treasurer, Don went to the Post Office box to get our mail, and also kept track of our membership roster.  A few years ago, Don asked to be relieved of his duties as Treasurer.  When we had a complete grasp of everything Don was doing for us, we decided we had to split it into three separate jobs.  Now, one Club member acts as Treasurer, another gets the mail from the Post Office, and still another maintains the membership roster.

Don continues to be one of our best trail maintainers.  In addition to maintaining his section between Route 11 and I-81, Don regularly comes out for our monthly Club maintenance events.  He also regularly deals with problems throughout the 17 mile area maintained by our Club.  More than once I have heard another maintainer say with a chuckle that he or she was just about to cut some weeds or remove some limbs from their section, only to find that Don had gotten there first and fixed the problem.

I hope Don's example inspires you to become more involved with our Club.  If it does, please contact me and I will work with you to find an opportunity that fits your interests and abilities.

-Jim Foster