Emma Gatewood was the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail solo.
It was 1955 and she was sixty-seven years old.
Her story is beyond amazing. I promise you’ll love it.
According to her great-great nephew:
She stood five foot two and weighed 150 pounds and the only survival training she had were lessons learned earning calluses on her farm. She had a mouth full of false teeth and bunions the size of prize marbles. She had no map, no sleeping bag, no tent. She was blind without her glasses, and she was utterly unprepared if she faced the wrath of a snowstorm, not all that rare on the trail.
She decided to take this “walk” after having raised eleven children and having escaped an abusive husband. The woods had always been her refuge, and when she found out that no woman had ever made the hike solo, she decided to change that.
As she took her first steps on the trail in Georgia, in tennis shoes, with a homemade seventeen-pound drawstring bag slung over her shoulder, she looked ahead to the five million steps to Mount Katahdan in Maine, and began an epic adventure.
Grandma Gatewood was a boss.
And, inspired by this lady, I have three questions for you in this episode that just might help you through a few challenges of your own these days.
Listen in to this almost-unbelievable story, and be inspired to invite joy along for your own “walk.”
NOTES:
Huston, Peter. “Continuing Lessons from the Trail.”
Montgomery, Ben. Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail. Chicago Review Press, April 1, 2016.
Sagert, Kelly Boyer and Bette Lou Higgins. Grandma Gatewood: Ohio’s Legendary Hiker, Independently published January 1, 2012.
Seelye, Katharine Q. “Grandma (Emma) Gatewood: First Woman to Conquer the Appalachian Trail Alone.” New York Times, June 27, 2018.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/27/obituaries/grandma-emma-gatewood-overlooked.html
“Trail Magic: The Grandma Gatewood Story.” Eden Valley Enterprises.
https://edenvalleyenterprises.org/progdesc/gatewood/tmfilminf/tmdvd.htm
Wikipedia—The Free Encyclopedia. “Grandma Gatewood.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandma_Gatewood
