Dale Adams, on the Trail in 1974 and 1975.

Dale hiked the Appalachian Trail from Bear Mountain Bridge to Katahdin in 1974, so his hike north from Springer in 1975 finished at Bear Mountain Bridge. He wrote a series of articles for his local newspaper, Sayre, Pa., Evening Times. The articles appeared in the paper when the paper was able to print them, so he really didn’t finish the hike in December, when his last installment was published, but in September of 1975.

Dale Adams at an unknown location along the trail.

A picture of Stan Rokus, one of the 1975 hikers, that I took around 1990. You’ll see a blaze, but this isn’t the AT; it’s the Loyalsock Trail in Pennsylvania. I’ve had an enlarged and framed version of this hanging on my wall for years. He was the most interesting person I met on the trail, and our friendship lasted until he died in his early 90s. On any trip home, whether from Penn State or Baltimore/D.C., he was on the way, and I always stopped to visit him in his little tar-paper shack

---