Dave Wetmore and the Pisgah 400 Challenge

by Danny Bernstein

The CMC Challenge Committee is changing leadership roles.

The committee says thank you and goodbye to Dave Wetmore, one of its most cherished members. Dave has been in CMC since 1990, as a hike leader, CMC council member and Chair of the Challenge Committee.

 Dave also created the Pisgah 400 (P400) challenge - to hike all the trails in the Pisgah Ranger District of Pisgah National Forest.

"When I chaired the CMC Challenge committee, the South Beyond 6000 (SB6K) was the only hiking challenge that our club had," recalls Dave in a 2011 interview.

According to Chris Koebelin, the new chair of the Challenge committee, the P400 is a worthy challenge with good viewpoints and waterfalls.

CMC Receives BRP Enduring Service Award for 2017

At the recent Blue Ridge Parkway Volunteer Appreciation Luncheon, the CMC was awarded the Enduring Service Award for 2017 by J D Lee, the Acting Superintendent. Many of the 150 club members who have volunteered to build and maintain the trails on Parkway land were present to witness the presentation.

Ron Navik

CMC Councilor for Trail Maintenance

 

Letter from National Park Service

    Technology - CMC WEB UPDATE

    Nice to Know! The club sends out email notifications which can include membership renewal notices, Club eNews, or supplemental notifications if you're a Hike Leader or are involved in Trail Maintenance. Occasionally email servers (AOL, Gmail, etc.) block certain incoming emails they interpret as spam.  

    If you want to verify receipt of your email, just go to the member portal and click on email notification on the top line.  This allows you to visually verify that your email is routing to your inbox.  If you do not see a confirming email in your inbox, check your member profile to verify the club has your correct email listed.  If the email is correct, check you spam folder and if still not found, contact your email provider.

    Tim Carrigan, CMC's web application developer, has been hard at work this Fall fixing problems and adding features to improve your web experience within the member portal.

To read more, click here.

Cemeteries of the Smokies by Gail Palmer

Reviewed by Danny Bernstein

Ever since I got really involved in hiking and supporting Great Smoky Mountains National Park and its park partners, I've heard of "the cemetery book." When I joined the board of the Great Smoky Mountains Association (GSMA) (www.smokiesinformation.org), Steve Kemp, editor and publisher for GSMA, now retired, said that the book was "coming along."

Now Cemeteries of the Smokies is here! Flipping through its 704 pages - yes, 704 pages - I can understand why it took Dr. Gail Palmer two decades to finish it.

As CMC hikers, we've all encountered cemeteries in the Smokies - the Woody cemetery in Deep Creek, the cemetery outside the Little Cataloochee Baptist church, the ones on the Cades Cove drive. But Palmer found 152 cemeteries. For each site, she provides in-depth histories alongside a complete listing of burials and dates, kinship links and epitaphs. No other known resource so thoroughly collects this depth of information in one place, displayed with color photographs, detailed lists, charts and an index of local family names.

 

To read more click here.