Myron Avery

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12.27.188.160 04:46, 20 November 2006 (UTC)Myron H. Avery (1899-1952) was a protégé of Judge Arthur Perkins, collaborator and sometimes rival of Benton MacKaye, the first 2000 Miler of the Appalachian Trail, author (Katahdin Section of the Appalachian Trail, Guide to Paths in the Blue Ridge, In the Maine Woods, etc.) and "the man from Maine who built the Appalachian Trail." He was also a native of Lubec,Maine, and graduate of Bowdoin College and Harvard Law School. President of the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club from 1927 to 1941. Founder on the Maine Appalachian Trail Club in 1935 and the MATC's Supervisor of Trails until 1949. Chairman of the Appalachian Trail Conference from 1931 to his death in 1952. After his passing, a mountaintop on the Appalachian Trail in Maine was in 1953 renamed "Avery Peak" in his honor. A lean-to was built below the summit of Avery Peak and named for him in 1953, but is now no longer standing.

"To those who would see the Maine wilderness, tramp day by day through a succession of ever delightful forest, past lake and stream, and over mountains, we would say: Follow the Appalachian Trail across Maine. It cannot be followed on horse or awheel. Remote for detachment, narrow for chosen company, winding for leisure, lonely for contemplation, it beckons not merely north and south but upward to the body, mind and soul of man." - Myron Avery, In the Maine Woods, 1934