I was lucky, I suppose, and learned about the beauty of nature at a young age. I was 3 years old when my family moved from Kentucky to East Tennessee, and since my father was a botany teacher and a naturalist, I was taken to some awesome places as a child. Roan Mountain and Unaka Mountain immediately come to mind, but there were other places–some places that I don’t remember where they were even.
Obviously things have changed alot since I was 4 years old, and some of those places we used to drive to in the ol’ VW bus are now inaccessible to vehicles, or require a 4-wheel drive, like much of Rich Mountain. 
Unaka Mountain was my playground, and Sunday picnics at the Unaka overlook were quite common for us. I have many memories of picking blueberries where the Appalachian Trail used to descend into Limestone Cove. That is the first time I recall being ‘on the trail’.
I would eat a few berries and play with my trucks in the dirt. That is when I stumbled across the trail leaving the meadow with the berry bushes and entering into the canopy of trees. It felt good in the shade, and I followed the trail for a little while, amazed that it kept going farther than I could see. Even then, I was intrigued.
After picking berries (I mostly just ate them), my family and I would travel down the mountain where we could play in the creek–probably my favorite thing to do back then. We would also sometimes travel to Roan Mountain and pick blueberries on Jane Bald, as well. I didn’t know it at the time, but the Appalachian Trail went right over that place (many years later I met a fellow, another botanist, who had helped to plant the small grove of fir trees there, and still wondered why they never spread). I remember those moments with much fondness.
It was several years later, while attending ETSU, that one of my guitar pickin’ buddies was planning a hike in the Sampson Mountain/Clark’s Creek Wilderness Area to locate some waterfalls and asked me if I wanted to go. I said ‘sure’. However, I forgot all about that, and went out to the bars that night, and didn’t get home until early in the morning. Then, about 7:30 that morning, I was surprised when RAT and another guy knocked on my door and woke me up. It was Saturday, and I was tired, but got up and went hiking anyway, having earned several ‘demerits’ for not showing up when I was supposed to.
Walking to the ‘lower’ Sill Branch Falls was easy enough, since we could drive within a a half mile of that place. Then, with map in hand, we went on a faint trace of a trail that eventually led us to the ‘upper’ Sill Branch Falls. I ate lunch sitting on a log on top of the falls, and caught my second wind. It was as if I had just woke up there on top of the falls…the fresh air and scenery was intoxicating and inspiring. And so that is how the Rat Patrol Hiking Club came to be.
That was 1987, and I have been hooked on hiking and camping ever since.
–Boulderman