One of our nation's unsung heroes died recently at age 84 in Edmonds, Washington. His memorial service was conducted not at a church, but at a store: REI, the flagship outdoors store in Seattle, Washington.

Ira Spring made his life's work being on the road. Whatever his destination may have been each day, he was working. His real goal was to pay attention and fully participate in every step along the way. Spring was a hiker, which he called the cheap man's sport. Spring was responsible for finding, recording, and popularizing thousands of miles of hiking trails throughout the Pacific Northwest. Spring insisted that a trail had to have 4 things for him to consider it a classic trail: 1) water 2) virgin ancient forest 3)flowers-flora 4) fauna-animals.

Spring's hiking guides (64 of them), n…