Why does this “wilderness hiking route” begin and end in large cities (Phoenix and Albuquerque)?
In a word, accessibility. Most long distance trails start and end in remote areas, such as the Canadian or Mexican border, or atop a far-flung peak like Mt Katahdin. Why? Because the people that invented and built these trails had to end them somewhere, and dreamy idealism won out over old fashioned practicality. Not that Katahdin isn’t a wonderful place to end a 2000 mile hike. But the Grand Enchantment Trail isn’t really about its endpoints. Instead, it’s what happens between those endpoints that matters most. And the termini, in this case, have been selected to get that grand adventure into high gear (or, when the time arrives, to end it) as quickly and as easily as possible. How accessible is the GET, exactly? Again, at its end points, very much so. In fact, a hiking party could theoretically board a flight from the east coast of the US, and 6 hours later find themselves in the wilderness, along the GET, already beyond sight and sound of the city. Both Phoenix and Albuquerque have
