Yesterday, March 3rd, Mike Hanson begins hiking the Appalachian Trail. The 2,174-mile hiking trail is one of the longest in the world. It takes the average hiker 6 months to complete the trail and more than 11,000 people have made it the whole way.

Maybe four or five of them are blind and Mike Hanson will be joining their ranks in about 7 months, God willing. The first blind person to hike the entire 2,174 miles was Bill Irwin, who did it in 1990 at age 50 with his guide dog in 8 months. Irwin is also the author of Blind Courage.

Hanson will be relying on his walking stick and the voice commands from his GPS phone to guide him. His journey will be filmed by Gary Steffens, of Fresh Image Video Productions in Mound but no one will interfere with the navigation. He expects to cover 15 miles a day.

Good Luck to Mr. Hanson. Hope all goes well for him.

At 11,239 feet above sea level, Mount Hood is the highest mountain in Oregon and a magnet for adventure seekers. Like many places like it, it’s also where many accidents have happened.

We mourn for Luke Gullberg who was found dead Saturday due to hypothermia. Two other hikers are still missing and search has been suspended due to heavy snow that cover most of the clues and the fact that the chances of finding them are very slim according to rescue experts. But for fear of avalanches, it doesn’t seem like the search will continue anytime soon.

Anthony Vietti, 24, and Katie Nolan, 29, are young, healthy, experienced and well equipped but they’ll have to make it on their own for now. Good Luck to them.