For most of my career I have worked in outdoor programming, primarily with young people. In 1991 I also had the opportunity to participate in the Sierra Club’s National Outing Training Program in Zion National Park and also to co-lead my first trip with them to Canyonlands National Park in Utah.  I am still going strong with ideas than ever. Because of these experiences I have had the opportunity to hike and paddle throughout many parts of our nation’s backcountry. These experiences have given me an understanding and appreciation of good maps and consequently in 2002, I opened the Outdoor Paths Map Store located at the base of the Black Mountain Range in beautiful Western North Carolina

As the store grew in popularity I took on partners and decided to venture into the map publishing business. The customers constantly asking, “What are the names of those peaks”, prompted me to publish my first map a “3-D Panoramic view of the Black Mountain Range” naming all of the peaks. The success of this map was a deciding factor in then publishing a series of Detailed Guidemaps to the Blue Ridge Parkway, one of America’s most scenic byways. In September 2009 I published my fifth map, “Waterfalls of North Carolina.” Western North Carolina is often referred to as the “Land of Waterfalls” and we show over 300 on our map! The publishing aspect became a consuming project and my partners decided to plan a Grand Adventure thus prompting a decision to close the store.

Outdoor Paths Publishing has grown to be a successful wholesale

publisher and distributor of recreational maps focusing on the Southern

Appalachian Mountain Range. I am now busy dreaming up my next map

project and still leading trips.

 

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Why The Turtle As Our Logo?

 

Symbolically, the Turtle has been representative of the earth and is our guide to respecting its many resources while also teaching us perseverance and patience.

One of the great creation stories in Native American literature tells of the time when there was only water and no place for the people and animals to live. Turtle, the water mother, made a great sacrifice and let the first people pack mud on her back that grew and became known as Turtle Island, the land we now live on. Thus, many Native Americans call the North American Continent Turtle Island.

 

During our travels on the various “outdoor paths” of the world, we should heed the message of the Turtle and slow down so that we may enjoy and appreciate all that is around us.

 

Map Products:

Our newest map: 

 

"Waterfalls of

Northeast Georgia

and

Upstate South Carolina"