Jim Hallsey, who first put the route for the NC Mountains-to-Sea Trail on paper, completed the 1,000-mile trek by hiking, biking and canoeing across the state on Monday, Sept. 2, of this year.

Fittingly, he has finished just as supporters of the MST celebrate the 35th anniversary of the trail’s genesis in a Sept. 9, 1977, speech by then N.C. Secretary of Natural Resources and Community Development Howard Lee to a National Trails Symposium at Lake Junaluska in Haywood County.

In 1977, Doug Clark, then a reporter for The Mountaineer, said that in his speech Lee “surprised perhaps even hardcore outdoorsmen with the outline of an ambitious state project” of a “state trail from the mountains to the coast, a trail leading 450 miles through communities as well as natural areas.”

Lee said the ...