P.J. Wetzel

P.J. Wetzel was born in Wisconsin but grew up in the east, on White Clay Creek, now a National Wild and Scenic River. This is where his love of nature blossomed - special emphasis on the wild caprices of the weather. He chose Penn State for an undergraduate schooling in Atmospheric Physics/Earth Science then Colorado State for graduate studies. The Colorado Rockies became his home. He purchased land with a 100-mile view and built a home on it with his bare hands while living in a $75 tar paper shack.

But the east was beckoning. On graduating he moved to Maryland where he spent 25 years working for NASA developing computer models that would help decipher the complex interplay of the earth with its weather and climate. There he built a second home with his bare hands and raised a family.

P.J. Wetzel has been writing fiction and poetry since he was a child. His poetry and first novel have both won awards. Today he spends most of his time in the Blue Ridge of Virginia in the serious pursuit of hiking (He hiked the entire Appalachian Trail twice in 2012) and the equally serious pursuit of writing and blogging.

You can catch his blogs about hiking, writing and nature at www.pjwetzel.com and https://hikinghermit.com/ .