In 2009, Danny Bernstein was looking for a new hiking challenge. Having just finished all 850 miles of trails in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, the Asheville-based hiker and outdoor writer set her sights on completing the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which stretches across the state of North Carolina from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean.
“Of course, we had hiked parts of the MST in the mountains, but where exactly was the western end of the trail?” said Bernstein, who completed it with her friend Sharon McCarthy. “It took us a while to find.”
In recent years, Bernstein has made it a personal mission to ensure that future hikers won’t have that problem. These efforts culminated in a ceremony atop Kuwohi last month. Bernstein was one of several speakers addressing the more than 100 people gathered there for the unveiling of a new stone marker signifying the western terminus of the cross-state trail…