Welcome to Old Dan Walking, a site dedicated mainly to the hiking journals and ramblings of your average lover of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and beyond.
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Dan DeSetto
About Old Dan Walking
What you'll find on my site basically boils down to a diary of my walking activities in the Great Smoky Mountains and nearby areas, with a few other topics thrown in occasionally. This site is strictly a not-for-profit hobby of mine, so if you're looking for information you can quote in your next doctoral thesis I suggest you find another site. I do my best to correctly identify the creeks, mountain ridges, historical features, wildflowers, birds, insects, mushrooms, etc, that I encounter on my walks but am sometimes incorrect. I and others find mistakes all the time, so I'll do my best for you but can't guarantee perfection. I have a real job that has nothing to do with mountains so I can't spend as much time on my hobby as some other journalers can. It seems in life you can have time or money, but rarely both.
As for the hiking (technically walking) journals you'll find here, they are long and contain as much detailed information about the entire day on the trail as my rapidly aging brain can remember. I started this site as a way to share my walking experiences with my parents in Florida, so the journals are written more as a diary than as clinical descriptions more fitting of a hiking field guide. If it's blazing hot and muggy, you'll hear me whine about it. If it's rainy and miserable, I'll moan about that too. But more often than not I hope you'll feel the love I have for the special places I'm privileged enough to visit come through in my sometimes tedious stories. I hope you enjoy...
Warm regards,
Dan DeSetto (Old Dan)
