A Walk in the Woods

Bryson provides a lengthy discussion on the earth’s geological history and how mountain ranges wear away over millions of years. Because the Appalachians are older than most other mountain chains on the planet, they’ve had far more time to wither away and now are nowhere near the size and scale that they once were. He explains that this takes place because streams carry away roughly 1,000 cubic feet of mountains in sand granules every year. Bryson adds, “Right now the Appalachians are shrinking on average by 0.03 millimeters per year” (275). In Northern Pennsylvania, Bryson approaches Kittatinny Mountain and a unique geological feature known as the Delaware Water Gap, which formed a viewable cross-section of mountain where the Delaware River cut a passage through softer rock. He hikes for five miles up Kittatinny, leaving Pennsylvania and crossing into New Jersey, toward another geological feature known as Sunfish Pond, a mountaintop pond formed by glacial movement during the last Ice Age.

Bryson happily returns to New England, hoping to tackle as many of the AT’s 700 miles in the region as he can before meeting up with Katz again in August to hike the