Tuesday evening at 7 p.m., Slickrock Expeditions owner and chief guide Burt Korengay will share tales from 25 years on the trail — both canoe and hiking — at the Great Outdoor Provision Co. in Cameron Village (Thursday at 7, he'll be at the GOPC in Charlotte). In advance of his visit, GOGF is celebrating Three Days of Burt. Today: How does a guy get the idea to make a living by taking other people out into the woods.
In the winter of 1971, a 20-year-old Burt Kornegay started doing in January what most college students don't do until June: He began think about a summer job. His landlady listened patiently to Burt discuss possible options. "Burt," he remembers her telling him, "you love being outdoors, camping, canoeing, hiking. Why don't you get other people to pay you to take them out in the woods?"
In 1971, that was a pretty far-fetched idea. "There were not many outfitters operating at the time," Kornegay recalls. "I'm not even sure Outward Bound was here yet."
For most 20-year-olds the idea might have seemed outlandish. But Kornegay had grown up in the outdoors (his dad was a ranger for the U.S. Forest Service) and he had just spent a year "hoboing" around Africa. So that summer, Kornegay followed his landlady's advice and guided teens on two-week expeditions in the Adirondack mountains of New York. "My company was Adirondacks Wilderness Adventures."
Shortly, Kornegay went into the Marines. When he emerged two years later he went back to school at the University of Oregon, finished and moved back to his native North Carolina, where he began working on a Masters of English at UNC-Chapel Hill, which begat his work toward a PhD. "My plan was to teach college English nine months of the year, then lead trips in the summer."
He got a little ahead of himself when wife Becky landed a job as a librarian at Western Carolina University. The couple moved to Cullowhee, with Kornegay figuring he could finish his degree long distance while leading trips on the side.
"I quickly discovered I would have to move back to Chapel Hill for my dissertation," says Kornegay, who was planning to write about John Milton's "Paradise Lost." (Remember, this was pre-internet, when research was concentrated in libraries.) He abandoned his degree and began guiding full time in 1985.
Tomorrow: The guiding life.
