Northern Exposure: Hiking the North Country Trail (NY Times)

From The New York Times:

By STEPHEN REGENOLD
Published: April 24, 2009

Andrew Skurka, a legend of long-distance backpacking, spent six months in 2004 walking west from New York thousands of miles to the trail’s terminus in North Dakota.

At 4,600 miles in length, the North Country National Scenic Trail bisects a large part of the continent, slicing through seven states — from glacier-scoured landscapes in Adirondack Park to prairies on the Great Plains — and snaking a distance twice as long as the Appalachian Trail.

“If you want to see a huge cross-section of the U.S.A., the North Country is it,” said Mr. Skurka, a 27-year-old who has hiked the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails, as well as a transcontinental trek he completed in 2005 that included the entire North Country Trail.
http://travel.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/travel/escapes/24northern.html?ref=escapes