Page 160 - Dark Matter:Women Witnessing Issue #3 - December 2015

wetland, this three thousand-acre haven for ducks, wading birds, deer and smaller animals is

one of many lands left behind by time on the Eastern Shore. Lands that will be submerged

under rising sea levels.

I can see no practical way to embark on a walk like this. Using Google Earth, I gauge the

perimeter of the watershed to be a rugged line through valleys and mountains, cities, suburbs

and farm fields, measuring approximately seventeen hundred miles. By comparison, the famed

Pilgrimage Route (Camino) of Santiago de Compostela winds its way across Northern Spain for

five hundred miles. People embark on this walk with motivations varying from spiritual to

sporting. It’s usually done in thirty to forty days, for an average of twelve to seventeen miles per

day—roughly half the daily distance of most of the Water Walks. This is the granularity with

which such adventures must be considered. People have been walking this route since the

Middle Ages, staying in quaint Albergues and Refugios, gorging on local food and basking in the

scenery of ancient landscapes and villages. Probably not how a Bay Watershed Walk would go.

The Appalachian Trail also comes to mind. It runs from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount

Katahdin in Maine, and measures about twenty-two hundred miles. Every year, “thru-hikers”

attempt to walk it in a single season, usually from south to north to follow the weather as it

warms. This takes at least six months, not to mention the training and preparation beforehand.

Some avid long-distance hikers go for the “Triple Crown” of hiking, completing the Continental

Divide Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail, which measure thirty-one hundred and two thousand six

hundred and sixty three miles respectively. Seeing those numbers makes me think this might be

possible.

Until I remember that none of my walk would be on public trails, maintained by parks

departments, nonprofit environmental groups and scout troops. I had hoped that the

! ! )!