I Hiked the 2189 mile Appalachian Trail (In 2013) from end to end in 6 months!

Note: This article is written from my aunt’s perspective.

I did in 2013 as a first-time backpacker and a solo woman thru-hiker — at age 50.

Sounds easy, right? I can’t tell you how many people bring up “A Walk in the Woods.” No it wasn’t.

It is a difficult trail. The year I hiked 3 people died. One woman’s body wasn’t found for a few years.

The year I hiked was also one of the rainiest and coldest seasons on the trail. I heard that it was a freak year and hadn’t been as bad for 29 years. But who knows. I haven’t done the research to prove it.

How did I do it?

I was told by my driver, who picked me up at the airport and dropped me off at the trailhead at Springer Mountain, that the hiker who completed the trail (and the only one he knew of in 15 years) told me that when he asked him how he did it, the hiker had said, “I decided that I would only quit on the very best hiking day of my life.”
I adopted this. In 6 months, after getting a staph infection in my foot, losing all of my toe-nails, suffering knee inflammation on a daily basis, getting a hairline fracture in my foot, knocking 2 of my ribs out of place in a fall (and continuing to hike the rest of trail), splitting my calf open, almost falling to my death in 3 accidents because of the rain, hiking with sleet, lightning, hail and high winds, and having to take on a black bear by myself in the woods, I had a total of 2-days that were the most beautiful, amazing, breathtaking and full-body best hiking days of my life. Both times I said to myself, “Midway,” – my trail name – “Today, at this moment is the very best hiking day of your life. If you choose, you are allowed to quit. Do you want to quit?” Of course, the answer was “hell no.”
I had a compass that also doubled as a container to keep matches from getting wet. I didn’t actually need the compass, and at some point, I stopped cooking food but kept the matches. Every morning when I sat up in my tent I held it up, looked at the needle, and looked for North and said to myself, “Where are you going today Midway?” Ritually I would answer, “I’m going to Maine.” “And how are you going to get there, Midway?” I would say out loud, “One step at a time!” I literally hiked some days one step at a time. I would say in my head, “One step. One step. One step,” as I dragged each foot forward.
Lastly, in TN I saw pictures pinned to the wall of hikers who had completed their trail and were posing with their victory poses. I spent most days hiking alone imaging being on Katahdin and my victory pose. Actually the day I summited Mt. Katahdin (and one of the only vistas I actually saw on top of a mountain due to the continuing horrible weather), I was so overwhelmed, I forgot to pose, and luckily a woman who I gave my camera to catch one of the best pictures of my entire life.

I want to say that the official site for A.T hikers is most likely not correct in the statistics for successful thru-hikes, and that not everyone listed is a thru-hiker. The odds are against everyone the same. Not everyone who has a victory pose on Katahdin did the hike (other than to the top of the mountain for the pose and get to W.Virginia and register their hike.) I think the numbers are skewed because of conversations I have had with the few thru-hikers that I have met over the years.

For instance, The year I completed my thru-hike I became close with over 100 people or more. When I had my staph infection, I was laid up in a hostel for 10 days while it healed, and so I met many hikers. In fact, I would hear people tell me when they met me that “Midway knows everyone and everyone knows Midway.” Because of this, in New Hampshire, I found 15 of my hiking friends all in one place on a gap after hiking that day. I asked for a group pic. It was later looking at the pic that I realized that more than half of the hikers in the picture did not hike the whole trail but were claiming that were. I knew this for a fact. Many were yellow-blazing the trail, some were section hiking and some had just driven the trail by hitch hiking along it claiming to be thru-hikers as a part of the social network.

There is a lot of respect and rock-star type celebrity from locals while you hike, and I think some people just get hooked on the attention, but only hike good days or easy hikes.

Maybe it’s the pressure of getting onto social media and the instant gratification of just saying you’re going to do the hike and response it gets—WoW!

When the roster came out, I read many of my friends names registered as thru-hikers from that pic. I admit it was disappointing. I really liked a lot of them, but there became a solid line for the ones I wanted to stay in touch with. Character still matters. At that time, I guessed the fail rate to be 95%-meaning 5 hikers succeeded out of 100. The claim was 90%.

I hear now that the success rate is 25%. I doubt it, but who knows? It’s an honor system.

Some “thru-hikers” that I have met, and I can tell when they aren’t, still claim a title that they didn’t earn. But that is their thing.

And I don’t mean that you walked in one way to a shelter and didn’t walk out and start on the exact place you went off-trail, like an extreme purist, I mean people who do a significant amount of hitch-hiking, boat riding, airplane flights to next locations, and stay on the trail through the season.

I say this because “Has anyone hike the entire Appalachian Trail” is a good question. It really should sound like it might be impossible to most people. And in one season (5 – 6 months), it is pretty outrageous to think it can be done.

I met some real bad-asses who quit 500, 400, 300 miles to the end. New Hampshire and Maine are breaking points for a lot of people. The trail is mental. You have to possess the ability to stay on the trail. It is so tempting to get off it—in my case almost every single day.

But, you have to “hike your own hike” and respect others for theirs. Still, it’s important to note that there is a lot of “cheating” on the trail and if you’re doing it, others know it—you’re fooling nobody.

There is no dishonor in trying. The odds don’t define you, they inform you that most likely you’ll stop hiking somewhere before point A and B.

And hiking any long distance is pretty impressive. Some of the best selling hiking novels are written by people who only trekked part of long-distance trail.

Those of us who are the real-deal, thru-hikers who hiked the entire trail in one season, are owed a lot of respect, therefore. We earned it. We stuck it out, we went through the same pain, the same fear, and had to overcome the immense challenges and we chose to stay on the path to the end.

That makes us a different sort of person, like anyone who does anything against all odds. The internal reward is remarkable.

And although I got on the trail as a total newb, I am proud to say that I am in the elite crowd known as “Thru-hikers.” It is a badge of pride I will always wear and honor.

I wish for everyone to take a chance at something as epic. It’s so worth it.

——-

October 5, 2013. I completely lost my shit the second I saw the sign on my approach. I had been imagining standing on it for 6 months.

My Lowa boots at 1100 miles. I had already lost all of my toenails at this point.

Me on April 4, 2013. I was a total newb. I am sure my driver didn’t think I was going to be sending him the letter that I did 6 months later – That I was a thru-hiker and had completed the trail.