ABOUT DR. RONALD STRICKLAND
Ron Strickland began to create the 1200-mile Pacific Northwest National
Scenic Trail in
1970. Seven years later he founded the non-profit Pacific Northwest Trail
Association (PNTA) to locate, develop, maintain, and protect the Trail.
He described its Continental Divide-to-Pacific
Ocean route in The Pacific Northwest Trail Guide (Seattle, WA: Sasquatch
Books, 2001.) His current project is the creation of the transcontinental
Sea-To-Sea Route. He is excited about C2C's (1) vast scale, (2) proximity
to record numbers of potential hikers, and (3) potential to transform America’s
National Trails System.
Dr. Strickland is fascinated with America's regions.
As early as 1964 he sought the first person, local perspective at Vermont's School
For International Training where he deployed teams of foreign students to survey
farmers about rural school consolidation. Years passed and he forgot about
those barnyard interviews as he worked to locate, develop, and protect the
Pacific Northwest Trail. During the 1970's he was totally focused on
raising funds, recruiting volunteers, cutting brush, digging dirt, and lobbying
landowners, officials, and politicians. However, out in the backcountry he
accidentally turned up many priceless narratives. And when it became clear
that people's vanishing lifestyles needed a chronicler, he collected some of those stories in River Pigs And
Cayuses (1984.) The creation of that first book inspired him to record
the process of change in other regions. So far he has published and illustrated
5 such volumes and begun others about the South, Midwest, and Far West.
Nicknamed Pathfinder, Ron Strickland is inordinately fond of
Rhode Island foods,
French culture, and German shepherds. He is a graduate of Georgetown
University's School Of Foreign Service. As a thru-hiker, he walked the 1200 miles of the Pacific Northwest Trail in 1983. In 2004, he
completed the Pacific Crest Trail with a 1500-mile hike from the Mojave Desert
to the Columbia River.
August 2001: he received the $10,000 Chevron Conservation Award for his work to create and preserve the
Pacific Northwest Trail.
October, 2002: at the American Land Trust Alliance Rally in Austin,
Texas, the Conservation Fund awarded him the $50,000 American Land Conservation Award.
February 15, 2007: Ron proposed marriage to Christine Hartmann at Walden Pond,
lying on the snowy ice.
March 19, 2007: Christine Hartmann tied the knot even though she'd been
winter hiking with him on the Appalachian Trail and knew what she was getting
into.
October 2-24, 2008: Christine Hartmann and Ron Strickland enjoyed a belated
wedding reception in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. Afterward they hiked in the Japanese Alps
to learn about Japanese trails and mountain huts for Ron's forthcoming (2009) book,
Autobiography Of A Trail.
November 17, 2008: The 19th National Trails Symposium
in Little Rock, Arkansas awarded Ron Strickland its
Lifetime Service Award.
