The Potomac Appalachian Trail Club (PATC) is a volunteer trails organization with a membership of over 7,000 headquartered in the Washington, DC area. The main purpose of PATC is the upkeep and improvement of nearly 1,000 miles of hiking trails, 30 shelters, and 28 cabins in Virginia, Maryland, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and the District of Columbia. The Massanutten Trail lies within their territory (and it's covered in its entirety by Map G, for sale on the PATC web site, along with their Guide to Massanutten Mountain Hiking Trails).

The U.S. Forest Service combined a series of newly constructed trails with old existing sections to form the 71 mile loop known as the Massanutten Trail in late 2001. The Forest Service's Wil Kohlbrenner has hiked the entire trail and published an excellent supplement describing the route in detail. He also covers such essentials as water sources, camping areas, and hunting season (runners beware!)

Trail Runner Magazine is a bi-monthly publication that debuted in Winter 2000 and which does a nice job of covering the Trail Running scene. It is owned by the same publishing group behind Rock and Ice magazine and offers great photography, information on regional trails, and a look at everything from to get into Trail Running to coverage of the country's top ultra events.

Marathon and Beyond is a perfect-bound bi-monthly that covers, you guessed it, running long distances — marathons and beyond. It focuses on practical information on training and racing, first-person accounts of all sorts of extraordinary running experiences, and provides unusual insight into the minds of those who push the boundaries of endurance. Barry Lewis, our Massanutten correspondent, is a regular contributor.