Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery

'Before Cheryl Strayed, there was Grandma Gatewood.

'Montgomery's compelling tale secures Grandma Gatewood's place in the American pantheon as a cousin of John Henry and Johnny Appleseed.' -Andrea Pitzer, author of The Secret History of Vladimir Nabokov A wonderful story, wonderfully told.' - Charles McNair, Books editor for Paste Magazine and author of Pickett's Charge This astonishing tale will send you looking for your hiking boots. 'Grandma Gatewood's Walk is sure to fuel not only the dreams of would-be hikers, but debates on the limits of endurance, the power of determination, and the nature of myth.' -Earl Swift, author of The Big Roads 'Ben Montgomery adds his name to those famous Americans-from Henry David Thoreau to Rosa Parks to Fats Domino to Forrest Gump-who have celebrated the revolutionary power of walking.' -Roy Peter Clark, author of The Glamour of Grammar: A Guide to the Mystery and Magic of Practical English 'synopsis' may belong to another edition of this title. Even those who know of Gatewood don’t know the full story-a story of triumph from pain, rebellion from brutality, hope from suffering.

Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction.Īuthor Ben Montgomery was given unprecedented access to Gatewood’s own diaries, trail journals, and correspondence, and interviewed surviving family members and those she met along her hike, all to answer the question so many asked: Why did she do it? The story of Grandma Gatewood will inspire readers of all ages by illustrating the full power of human spirit and determination. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity and appeared on TV and in the pages of Sports Illustrated. Grandma Gatewood, as the reporters called her, became the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail alone, as well as the first person-man or woman-to walk it twice and three times. There she sang the first verse of “America, the Beautiful” and proclaimed, “I said I’ll do it, and I’ve done it.” And in September 1955, having survived a rattlesnake strike, two hurricanes, and a run-in with gangsters from Harlem, she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin. The next anybody heard from her, this genteel, farm-reared, 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail.

Winner of the 2014 National Outdoor Book Awards for History/BiographyĮmma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk and left her small Ohio hometown with a change of clothes and less than two hundred dollars.

Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery