My name is Michael Strand and I go by Mick. I am planning on taking on the Appalachian Trail solo July 2018 going Southbound. I am not new to the Trail. 40 years ago, right out of college, a friend and I experienced a section of the Trail for a month and a half. We loved it! Then real life began calling and I had to answer. Life for me included New York City businessman, rural life Inn and restaurant owner in Virginia, and currently high school teacher of Marketing and Entrepreneurship with summers spent in Maine as an athletic director at an elite boys’ camp, Camp Caribou. At 60, I’ve decided to retire after this school year. The next part of my journey will begin on the AT. I understand by starting in July heading south means spending time on the trail during the winter months with less human interactions, but I’m preparing for that. My support system includes my wife, 7 year old daughter, and puppy waiting for me at home in VA, and also my 2 older daughters, 22 and 29. They are all behind me and supporting me on my journey. “There is pleasure in the pathless woods, there is rapture in the lonely shore, there is society where none intrudes, by the deep sea, and music in its roar; I love not Man the less, but nature more.” -Lord Byron
