My name is Lisa Rachel DuBois.  I'm 29 years old and live in
Raleigh, NC with my three dogs Scrapper, Tullie, and Micah.  I'm
originally from Westwood, New Jersey and also lived in Atlanta, Georgia
for seven years.

     My first backpacking trip took place just a little over two years ago.
Prior to that I had only been camping once before as a small child.  I've
taken to backpacking with a vengeance though, and it has become a place
of refuge for me now.  Most of my three and four day trips have been in
North Carolina and Virginia, but I've also spent a week in the Hundred
Mile Wilderness of Maine.  This last summer I took a 17 day vacation to
Alaska that included backpacking on the Resurrection Pass Trail in the
Kenai Peninsula as well as a trip in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park.

     I am a member of the Piedmont Appalachian Trail Hikers
maintenance club.  Our trail section begins just north of the Mount Rogers
National Recreation Area in Virginia and extends for roughly 50 miles.
1996 was only my second year of trail maintenance, but my newly learned
appreciation for the details and hard work that go into trail maintenance is
just one more aspect that adds to my backpacking experience.  I'm really
looking forward to hitting Virginia in my thru-hike and traveling over
sections of trail that I've personally worked on.

     My dog, Micah, is a mixed breed dog and weighs approximately
60-65 pounds.  He's a very tall, leggy dog with a short coat in the typical
black and tan coloring pattern.  His one distinguishing feature (other than
his abnormally pointy head) is that he has very striking light blue eyes.  I'm
assuming he might have some lab in him, but your guess is as good as mine
as to where the eye color came from.  (There's nothing else about him that
is anything like a Siberian.)  He'll be a little over a year and a half old when
we start the trail and will be carrying his own pack.  So far he has
absolutely loved all of our backpacking trips and is ready to play when we
reach camp in the evenings, so I'm hoping he'll do well.

     My trip next year is going to rely heavily on the help and support of
a few key people to whom I really owe a great deal and I'd like to say a
brief thank you to them here for their efforts and time.  At the top of my
list, of course, is my Mom.  She's volunteered to man my `control center'
and will be in charge of my mail drops, my support on the northern half of
the trail, and will be fielding any emergencies that might come up.  I'm also
indebted to Andy Markham for creating this web page and volunteering to
keep it updated with my journal entries and revised schedule.