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

by Ben Montgomery

Even though the A.T. has become better maintained and more crowded over the years, finishing a thru-hike remains a remarkable achievement. More than eleven thousand people have hiked all two-thousand-plus miles, many in sections. But among thru-hikers, on average, three out of four who start never finish, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy. The number of two-thousand-milers, as they’re called, has been on the rise in recent years, growing from 562 in 2005 to 704 in 2011. Those numbers would have seemed preposterous to the trail’s planners and early organizers. In the 1930s, just five people reported hiking the entire trail, all of them in sections. (The trail was completed in 1937.) Only three finished in the 1940s—Earl Shaffer was the lone thru-hiker—a period during which the trail was again incomplete or unconnected in places. In the 1950s, when Emma came along, just fourteen reported two-thousand-mile hikes.