West Point ’60 classmates John Sherden and Lyman “Chan” Duryea decided to do a 75-mile section hike of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia to celebrate their 75th birthdays. Starting at Long Mountain near Lexington, VA, on Saturday, June 29th, they were able to finish the 75 miles on the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park on Friday, July 5th.
There was a short, one-night layover in Waynesboro, VA, on July 3rd for a birthday party with some friends and relatives. This hike was initiated by John Sherden ten months after his triple bypass surgery. John, who thru-hiked the entire 2,174 mile Appalachian Trail in 2000, also wanted to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the opening of the Appalachian Trail in 1937.
There was daily rain accompanied by lots of fun and discussions about the hard and easy classes during their years at West Point. These two ’60 grads both remembered not being comfortable in math and engineering, but knew enough to quickly agree that difficult classes outweighed the easy ones.