Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail

by Ben Montgomery

“Already it seemed like a vivid dream, through sunshine, shadow, and rain—Already I knew that many times I would want to be back again—On the cloud-high hills where the whole world lies below and far away—By the wind-worn cairn where admiring eyes first welcome newborn day—To walk once more where the white clouds sail, far from the city clutter—And drink a toast to the Long High Trail in clear, cold mountain water.”

Maybe she was trying to articulate that exploring the world was a good way to explore her own mind.

I would never have started this trip if I had known how tough it was, but I couldn’t and wouldn’t quit.

To walk the same way is to reiterate something deep; to move through the same space the same way is a means of becoming the same person, thinking the same thoughts.

Here was no man’s garden, but the unhandselled globe. It was not lawn, nor pasture, nor mead, nor woodland, nor lea, nor arable, nor waste-land. It was the fresh and natural surface of the planet Earth…. There was there felt the presence of a force not bound to be kind to man. It was a place for heathenism and superstitious rites,—to be inhabited by men nearer of kin to the rocks and to wild animals than we.

“What the Lord didn’t provide, I did.

Just walking the trail for pleasure For the love of out of doors, For the lovely works our Maker Displays on forest floors.

“The Reward of Nature” If you’ll go with me to the mountains And sleep on the leaf carpeted floors And enjoy the bigness of nature And the beauty of all out-of-doors, You’ll find your troubles all fading And feel the Creator was not man That made lovely mountains and forests Which only a Supreme Power can.

When we trust in the Power above And with the realm of nature hold fast, We will have a jewel of great price To brighten our lives till the last. For the love of nature is healing, If we will only give it a try And our reward will be forthcoming, If we go deeper than what meets the eye.

I’m not sure she was walking toward something so much as walking away.

The Grandma Gatewood Trail has come to be part of the cross-state, twelve-hundred-mile Buckeye Trail, part of the forty-six hundred-mile federal North Country Trail that runs from New York to North Dakota, and part of the American Discovery Trail that covers sixty-eight-hundred miles from Delaware to California.