The Trail Companion

Fall 1999

Along the Trail

Member notes

by Geoffrey Skinner

David Crosby, longtime Trail Center volunteer and Crew Leader Trainee, recently left the Bay Area for Quincy, Calif. He is now running "Geek Computers" in Quincy and hopes to have time to hike along the Pacific Crest Trail, which runs about 30 miles from his house.

David is not the only TC regular to go adventuring. Trail builder Reed Palmer will be heading to South America with the Peace Corps early next year. Reed, who put in many hours at Castle Rock and who was preparing to enter the Crew Leader Training Program, also decided to leave the Bay Area, at least for now. Over the next few months, he will be in training to teach science or engineering, although he doesn't yet know exactly where he's headed. Good luck, Reed!

Crew Leader Rich Allsop is back on the trail again after a successful heart valve replacement this summer. Although I was barely aware that Rich had slowed down when Scott Heeschen and I backpacked with him in early June at Henry Coe State Park, he was waiting for results from tests that showed his heart valve was only working at a fraction of normal capacity. The surgery went very well and Rich was hiking the local streets within a short time. He reported that even before he regained his endurance, he felt much stronger. He was up to several miles a day before long and made a cameo appearance at Castle Rock for the Sept. 11th trail build. We were happy to see him wearing his red shirt on Oct. 2nd for Community Impact Day 1999. Although Rich still feels a few twinges and isn't up to a lot of heavy dirt pounding, he hopes to return to Henry Coe this fall for celebration backpack trip.

Along the Trail focuses on our members' and volunteers' activities both inside and outside the Trail Center (is there really a life beyond the TC??). If you have interesting tales to tell, have created a website that may be of interest to our membership, or basic gossip that you'd like to share, we'd like to hear about it.