There has been a lot of work on hiking and biking trails adjacent to the 10,600-acre Summit Bechtel Family National Scout Reserve in West Virginia this year. The Summit will be home to the national Scout jamboree starting in 2013 and the 2019 World Scout Jamboree. It also will become the Boy Scouts’ fourth high-adventure base — and, likely, its most-visited, given its proximity to densely populated metropolitan areas.
Before the jamborees or the adventures begin, though, an all-volunteer group called SummitCorps 2011 was put to work. In four weekly waves this past July, 1,404 SummitCorps volunteers came to West Virginia’s New River Gorge National River area. They paid their own way to get here. They camped in tents outside the National Guard’s Glen Jean Armory.
Their goal: help carve out nearly 13 new miles of multiuse biking and hiking trails from untamed land. National Park Service land, that is.
I am Jeff Clark, founder of Internet Brothers, producer of this blog, and passionate about hiking. My regular hiking companions have designated me the lead hiker, so I suppose that makes me the slowest Meanderthal. I live in Western NC near the Blue Ridge and Great Smoky Mountains. Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are just out my door, so the content will focus on these areas, but let me know what you would like to see on the site. 
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