Ian Marshall Quotations

I thought it was a nice parable and lesson about fortitude - sticking with it even when you had a bad day. If you can make it through the ritual, there's a reward. And the name stuck.

The appeal of the Trail to me, as someone who's interested in American literature, is that it's almost a time-travel machine - to walk on a mountain that is not too different today than the way it might have been 200 years ago. And just to read what a writer has written about that piece of terrain, and to try to experience the same thing, that feels magical to me - to feel that, Here I am, in the same place that Henry Thoreau was.

When I was hiking, I would bring the literary works that were about that place in my pack - and I would be reading, for instance, if I was up in the White Mountains, I would have a collection of Hawthorne short stories. I'd be reading the stories by Hawthorne while I'm in the place that he's writing about - and then I'd be writing in my journal thinking about the literature and thinking about the place and trying to find where the two connect.

Aside from the physical sensation of hiking the Trail, it became a real intellectual adventure, too - because I was always reading and writing while I was up there. I had lots to think about during the day while I was putting in the miles. I'd be thinking, Oh, Robert Frost was here, and let me think about this Frost poem and this place. It made for some really interesting mind work while I was walking.

It was a great way to focus my mind.