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Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail Hardcover – April 1, 2014
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Winner of the 2014 National Outdoor Book Awards for History/Biography
Emma 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. 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. 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. There she sang the first verse of “America, the Beautiful” and proclaimed, “I said I’ll do it, and I’ve done it.”
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. Gatewood became a hiking celebrity and appeared on TV and in the pages of Sports Illustrated. The public attention she brought to the little-known footpath was unprecedented. Her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult stretches led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail from extinction.
Author 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. Even those who know of Gatewood don’t know the full story—a story of triumph from pain, rebellion from brutality, hope from suffering.
- Print length288 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherChicago Review Press
- Publication dateApril 1, 2014
- Dimensions6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
- ISBN-101613747187
- ISBN-13978-1613747186
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Review
"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
"Go, Granny, Go! . . . This astonishing tale will send you looking for your hiking boots. A wonderful story, wonderfully told." -- Charles McNair, Books editor for Paste Magazine and author of Pickett's Charge
"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
"Before Cheryl Strayed, there was Grandma Gatewood. Ben Montgomery lets us walk with her--tattered sneakers, swollen ankles, and not an ounce of self-pity--and with each step experience our conflicted relationship with nature, the meanness and generosity of humanity, and the imperative to keep moving. This book makes me long for my backpacking days, and grateful for writers who keep history and spirit alive." --Jacqui Banaszynski, Knight Chair in Editing, Missouri School of Journalism
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Grandma Gatewood's Walk
The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail
By Ben MontgomeryChicago Review Press Incorporated
Copyright © 2014 Ben MontgomeryAll rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-61374-718-6
Contents
1 Pick Up Your Feet,2 Go Home, Grandma,
3 Rhododendron and Rattlesnakes,
4 Wild Dogs,
5 How'd You Get in Here?,
6 Our Fight,
7 Lady Tramp,
8 Attention,
9 Good Hard Life,
10 Storm,
11 Shelter,
12 I'll Get There,
13 Destruction,
14 So Much Behind,
15 All by Myself,
16 Return to Rainbow Lake,
17 Aloneness More Complete than Ever,
18 Again,
19 Pioneer Woman,
20 Blazing,
21 Monuments,
Epilogue,
Acknowledgments,
Bibliography,
Index,
CHAPTER 1
PICK UP YOUR FEET
MAY 2–9, 1955
She packed her things in late spring, when her flowers were in full bloom, and left Gallia County, Ohio, the only place she'd ever really called home.
She caught a ride to Charleston, West Virginia, then boarded a bus to the airport, then a plane to Atlanta, then a bus from there to a little picture-postcard spot called Jasper, Georgia, "the First Mountain Town." Now here she was in Dixieland, five hundred miles from her Ohio home, listening to the rattle and ping in the back of a taxicab, finally making her ascent up the mountain called Oglethorpe, her ears popping, the cabbie grumbling about how he wasn't going to make a penny driving her all this way. She sat quiet, still, watching through the window as miles of Georgia blurred past.
They hit a steep incline, a narrow gravel road, and made it within a quarter mile of the top of the mountain before the driver killed the engine.
She collected her supplies and handed him five dollars, then one extra for his trouble. That cheered him up. And then he was gone, taillights and dust, and Emma Gatewood stood alone, an old woman on a mountain.
Her clothes were stuffed inside a pasteboard box and she lugged it up the road to the summit, a few minutes away by foot. She changed in the woods, slipping on her dungarees and tennis shoes and discarding the simple dress and slippers she'd worn during her travels. She pulled from the box a drawstring sack she'd made back home from a yard of denim, her wrinkled fingers doing the stitching, and opened it wide. She filled the sack with other items from the box: Vienna Sausage, raisins, peanuts, bouillon cubes, powdered milk. She tucked inside a tin of Band-Aids, a bottle of iodine, some bobby pins, and a jar of Vicks salve. She packed the slippers and a gingham dress that she could shake out if she ever needed to look nice. She stuffed in a warm coat, a shower curtain to keep the rain off, some drinking water, a Swiss Army knife, a flashlight, candy mints, and her pen and a little Royal Vernon Line memo book that she had bought for twenty-five cents at Murphy's back home.
She threw the pasteboard box into a chicken house nearby, cinched the sack closed, and slung it over one shoulder.
She stood, finally, her canvas Keds tied tight, on May 3, 1955, atop the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, the longest continuous footpath in the world, facing the peaks on the blue-black horizon that stretched toward heaven and unfurled before her for days. Facing a mean landscape of angry rivers and hateful rock she stood, a woman, mother of eleven and grandmother of twenty-three. She had not been able to get the trail out of her mind. She had thought of it constantly back home in Ohio, where she tended her small garden and looked after her grandchildren, biding her time until she could get away.
When she finally could, it was 1955, and she was sixty-seven years old.
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. Five years before, a freezing Thanksgiving downpour killed more than three hundred in Appalachia, and most of them had houses. Their bones were buried on these hillsides.
She had prepared for her trek the only way she knew how. The year before, she worked at a nursing home and tucked away what she could of her twenty-five-dollar-a-week paycheck until she finally earned enough quarters to draw the minimum in social security: fifty-two dollars a month. She had started walking in January while living with her son Nelson in Dayton, Ohio. She began walking around the block, and extended it a little more each time until she was satisfied by the burn she felt in her legs. By April she was hiking ten miles a day.
Before her, now, grew an amazing sweep of elms, chestnuts, hemlocks, dogwoods, spruces, firs, mountain ashes, and sugar maples. She'd see crystal-clear streams and raging rivers and vistas that would steal her breath.
Before her stood mountains, more than three hundred of them topping five thousand feet, the ancient remnants of a range that hundreds of millions of years before pierced the clouds and rivaled the Himalayas in their majesty. The Unakas, the Smokies, Cheoahs, Nantahalas. The long, sloping Blue Ridge; the Kittatinny Mountains; the Hudson Highlands. The Taconic Ridge and the Berkshires, the Green Mountains, the White Mountains, the Mahoosuc Range. Saddleback, Bigelow, and finally — five million steps away — Katahdin.
And between here and there: a bouquet of ways to die.
Between here and there lurked wild boars, black bears, wolves, bobcats, coyotes, backwater outlaws, and lawless hillbillies. Poison oak, poison ivy, and poison sumac. Anthills and black flies and deer ticks and rabid skunks, squirrels, and raccoons. And snakes. Black snakes, water moccasins, and copperheads. And rattlers; the young man who hiked the trail four years before told the newspapers he'd killed at least fifteen.
There were a million heavenly things to see and a million spectacular ways to die.
Two people knew Emma Gatewood was here: the cabdriver and her cousin, Myrtle Trowbridge, with whom she had stayed the night before in Atlanta. She had told her children she was going on a walk. That was no lie. She just never finished her sentence, never offered her own offspring the astonishing, impossible particulars.
All eleven of them were grown, anyhow, and independent. They had their own children to raise and bills to pay and lawns to mow, the price of participation in the great, immobile American dream.
She was past all that. She'd send a postcard.
If she told them what she was attempting to do, she knew they'd ask Why? That's a question she'd face day and night in the coming months, as word of her hike spread like fire through the valleys, as newspaper reporters learned of her mission and intercepted her along the trail. It was a question she'd playfully brush off every time they asked. And how they'd ask. Groucho Marx would ask. Dave Garroway would ask. Sports Illustrated would ask. The Associated Press would ask. The United States Congress would ask.
Why? Because it was there, she'd say. Seemed like a good lark, she'd say.
She'd never betray the real reason. She'd never show those newspapermen and television cameras her broken teeth or busted ribs, or talk about the town that kept dark secrets, or the night she spent in a jail cell. She'd tell them she was a widow. Yes. She'd tell them she found solace in nature, away from the grit and ash of civilization. She'd tell them that her father always told her, "Pick up your feet," and that, through rain and snow, through the valley of the shadow of death, she was following his instruction.
* * *
She walked around the summit of Mount Oglethorpe, studying the horizon, the browns and blues and grays in the distance. She walked to the base of a giant, sky-reaching monument, an obelisk made from Cherokee marble.
She read the words etched on one side:
In Grateful recognition of the achievements of James Edward Oglethorpe who by courage, industry and endurance founded the commonwealth of Georgia in 1732
She turned her back on the phallic monument and lit off down the trail, a path that split through ferns and last year's leaves and walls of hardwoods sunk deep in the earth. She walked quite a while before she came upon the biggest chicken farm she had ever seen, row upon row of long, rectangular barns, alive with babble and bordered by houses where the laborers slept, immigrants and sons of the miners and blue-collar men and women who made their lives in these mountains.
She had walked herself to thirst, so she knocked on one of the doors. The man who answered thought she was a little loony, but he gave her a cool drink. He told her there was a store nearby, said it was just up the road. She set off, but didn't see one. Night fell, and for the first time, she was alone in the dark.
The trail cut back, but she missed the identifying blaze and kept walking down a gravel road; after two miles, she came upon a farmhouse. Two elderly folks, a Mr. and Mrs. Mealer, were kind enough to let her stay for the night. She would have been forced to sleep in the forest, prone to the unexpected, had she not lost track.
She set off early the next morning, as the sun threw a blue haze on the hills, after thanking the Mealers. She knew she had missed the switchback, so she hiked back the way she had come for about two miles and all along the roadside she saw beautiful sweetshrub blooming, smelling of allspice. She caught the trail again and lugged herself back up to the ridge, where she reached a level stretch and pressed down hard on her old bones, foot over foot, going fifteen miles before dark. The pain was no problem, not yet, for a woman reared on farm work.
She stumbled upon a little cardboard shack, disassembled it, and set up several of the pieces on one end to block the angry wind. The others she splayed on the ground for a bed. As soon as she lay down, her first night in the woods, the welcoming party came calling. A tiny field mouse, the size of a golf ball, began scratching around her. She tried to scare the creature away, but it was fearless. When she finally found sleep, the mouse climbed upon her chest. She opened her eyes and there he was, standing erect on her breast, just two strange beings, eye to eye, in the woods.
* * *
A hundred years before Emma Gatewood stomped through, before there was even a trail, pioneers pushed west over the new country's oldest mountains, through Cherokee land, the determined Irish andScottish and English families driving toward the sinking sun, and some of them falling behind. Some of them settling.
They made these mountains, formed more than a billion years before of metamorphic and igneous rock, their home. Appalachia, it was called, a term derived from a tribe of Muskhogean Indians called the Appalachee, the "people on the other side."
The swath was beautiful and rugged, and those who stayed lived by ax and plow and gun. On the rich land they grew beets and tomatoes, pumpkins and squash, field peas and carrots. But mostly they grew corn. By the 1940s, due to the lack of education and rotation, the land was drained of its nutrients and crops began to fail.
But the people remained, buckled in by the mountains.
Those early settlers were buried on barren hillsides. The threadbare lives of their sons and daughters were set in grooves, a day's drive from 60 percent of the US population but cut off by topography from outside ideas. They wore handmade clothing and ate corn pone, hickory chickens, and fried pies. The pigs they slaughtered in the fall showed up on plates all winter as sausage and bacon and salted ham. They went to work in the mines and mills, risking death each day to light the homes and clothe the children of those better off while their own sons and daughters did schoolwork by candlelight and wore patches upon patches.
Mining towns, mill towns, and small industrial centers bloomed between the mountains, and the dirt roads and railroads soon stitched the little communities together. They were proud people, most of them, the durable offspring of survivors. They lived suspended between heaven and earth, and they knew the call of every bird, the name of every tree, and where the wild herbs grew in the forest. They also knew the songs in the church hymnals without looking, and the difference between predestination and free will, and the recipe for corn likker.
They resisted government intervention, and when taxes grew unjust, they struck out with rakes, rebellion, and secrecy. When President Rutherford B. Hayes tried to implement a whiskey tax in the late 1870s, a great fit of violence exploded in Appalachia between the moonshiners and the federal revenuers that lasted well through Prohibition in the 1920s. The lax post-Civil War law and order gave the local clans plenty of leeway to shed blood over a misunderstanding or a misfired bullet. Grudges held tight, like cold tree sap.
When the asphalt was laid through the bottomland, winding rivers of road, it opened the automobile-owning world to newpictures of poverty and hard luck. The rest of America came to bear witness to coal miners and moonshiners, and a region in flux. Poor farming techniques and a loss of mining jobs to machines prompted an exodus from Appalachia in the 1950s. Those who stayed behind were simply rugged enough, or conniving enough, to survive.
This was Emma Gatewood's course, a footpath through a misunderstood region stitched together on love and danger, hospitality and venom. The route was someone else's interpretation of the best way to cross a lovely and rugged landscape, and she had accepted the invitation to stalk her predecessors — this civilian army of planners and environmentalists and blazers — and, in a way, to become one of them, a pilgrim herself. She came from the foothills, and while she didn't know exactly what to expect, she wasn't a complete stranger here.
* * *
Her legs were sore when she set off a few minutes after 9:00 AM on May 5, trying to exit Georgia. She hiked the highlands until she could go no farther. Her feet had swollen. She found a lean-to near a freshwater spring where she washed out her soiled clothes. She filled her sack full of leaves and plopped it on a picnic table for a makeshift bed.
The next morning, she started before the sun peeked over the hills. The trail, through the heart of Cherokee country, was lined by azaleas, and when the sunbeams touched down they became flashes of supernatural pinks and purples in the gray-brown forest. Once in a while, she'd stop mid-step to watch a white-tailed buck bound gracefully across her path and disappear into the woods. Once in a while, she'd spot a copperhead coiled in the leaves and she'd catch her breath and provide the creature a wide berth.
That night she drank buttermilk and ate cornbread, the charity of a man in town, and spent the night at the Doublehead Gap Church, in the house of the Lord. That's how it was some places. They'd open their iceboxes and church doors and make you feel at home. Some places, but not all.
She was off again the next day, past a military base where soldiers had built dugouts and stretched barbed wire all over the mountains, a surreal juxtaposition of nature and the brutality of man. She pressed on through Woody Gap, approaching the state line. She was joined there by an old, tired-looking mutt, and she didn't mind the company.
She climbed a mountain, cresting after 7:00 PM, the sun falling. She'd have to find a place to stay soon. She followed the bank of a creek down into the valley, where several small houses stood. They were ugly little things, but there was a chance one would yield a bed, or at least a few bales of hay. Anything was better than shaking field mice out of her hair in the morning.
In the yard of one of the puny homes, she noticed a woman chopping wood. It looked as if the woman's hair had not been combed in weeks, and her apron was so dirty it could have stood on its own. Her face was covered with grime and she was chewing tobacco, spitting occasionally in the dirt.
The woman stopped as Emma approached.
Have you room for a guest tonight? Emma asked.
We've never turned anyone away, the woman said.
Emma followed her onto the porch, where an old man sat in the shade. He wasn't nearly as dirty as the woman, and he looked intelligent — and suspicious. This was the tricky, treacherous part of the trail, scouting for a bed among strangers. She had not prepared for this part of the experience, for she never knew these negotiations would be necessary. There, on the strangers' porch, she wasn't afraid so much as embarrassed. She told the man her name.
You have credentials? the man asked.
She fetched her social security card from her sack and handed it over. He studied the card as the mutt that followed her down the hollow sniffed out a comfortable spot on the porch. Emma fished out some pictures of her family, her children and grandchildren, and presented those, too, for further proof that she was who she said she was. But the man was suspicious.
Is Washington paying you to make this trip? the man asked.
No, Emma said.
She told him she was doing it for herself, and she had every intention of hiking all 2,050 miles of it, to the end. She just needed a place to spend the night.
(Continues...)Excerpted from Grandma Gatewood's Walk by Ben Montgomery. Copyright © 2014 Ben Montgomery. Excerpted by permission of Chicago Review Press Incorporated.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Chicago Review Press; Later Printing edition (April 1, 2014)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 288 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1613747187
- ISBN-13 : 978-1613747186
- Item Weight : 1.2 pounds
- Dimensions : 6 x 1.1 x 9 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #353,345 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #935 in Hiking & Camping Excursion Guides (Books)
- #1,537 in Traveler & Explorer Biographies
- #4,049 in Women's Biographies
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
![Ben Montgomery](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/S/amzn-author-media-prod/6e197vnbm2c3dpl05t90lvq2a5._SY600_.jpg)
Ben Montgomery is author of the New York Times-bestselling 'Grandma Gatewood's Walk,' winner of a 2014 Outdoor Book Award, 'The Leper Spy,' 'The Man Who Walked Backward,' and 'A Shot in the Moonlight," coming January 2021. He spent most of his 20 year newspaper career as an enterprise reporter for the Tampa Bay Times. He founded the narrative journalism website Gangrey.com and helped launch the Auburn Chautauqua, a Southern writers collective.
In 2010, he was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in local reporting and won the Dart Award and Casey Medal for a series called "For Their Own Good," about abuse at Florida's oldest reform school.
Montgomery grew up in Oklahoma and studied journalism at Arkansas Tech University, where he played defensive back for the football team, the Wonder Boys. He worked for the Courier in Russellville, Ark., the Standard-Times in San Angelo, Texas, the Times Herald-Record in New York's Hudson River Valley and the Tampa Tribune before joining the Times in 2006. He lives in Tampa.
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Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonCustomers say
Customers find the book inspiring and interesting. They describe it as a great read that keeps them interested throughout. Readers praise the author's writing quality as skillful and detailed. The story shows strength, determination, and perseverance as the woman survives hardships with dignity. Many appreciate the incorporation of Appalachian Trail hiking history into the narrative.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Customers find the book inspiring and interesting. They appreciate the author's way of weaving historical events into the storyline. Readers praise the well-written narrative and mention that it recounts the remarkable true life story of Emma Gatewood, a mother of 11 children who decided to walk the Appalachian Trail from her home in North Carolina.
"This book tells the story of a mother of 11 children who decided to walk the Appalachian trail from Georgia to Maine at the age of 62...." Read more
"Read it straight through like Emma! Well researched, written and well-loved! I love who Emma is; she is now my friend!" Read more
"...I also enjoyed Grandma Gatewood. It's inspirational how as an older lady - she decided to hike the Appalachian trail. I would recommend this book." Read more
"...It is this type of narrative brilliance that allows Ben Montgomery to tether Emma Gatewood’s personal life to the trail narrative...." Read more
Customers find the book engaging and enjoyable to read. They appreciate the author's research and consider it a worthwhile investment of time.
"...Well researched, written and well-loved! I love who Emma is; she is now my friend!" Read more
"...I liked how honest the portrayal was as it made for a much better read. I also enjoyed Grandma Gatewood...." Read more
"So good. A wonderful story about the impact of one woman and a whole lot of nature. I can't wait to go for a hike." Read more
"May be a good book, but it is unreadable due to the pages falling out...." Read more
Customers find the story engaging and inspiring. It provides a clear view of an incredible, strong-willed, and plucky woman. Readers appreciate the author's insights into her personal life and creativity.
"...There are many ups and downs and it also reflects on her personal life." Read more
"...I liked how honest the portrayal was as it made for a much better read. I also enjoyed Grandma Gatewood...." Read more
"...I was amazed at her creativity and her ability to approach total strangers to ask for a place to stay...." Read more
"What an amazing woman who survived at battered marriage and so many hardships. Glad for her accomplishments at her age. One tough cookie" Read more
Customers find the book well-written and readable. They appreciate the author's skillful storytelling and vivid descriptions of the places they visit. The book is a quick read, so slow down to savor the details and insights into physical and emotional abuse at home.
"Read it straight through like Emma! Well researched, written and well-loved! I love who Emma is; she is now my friend!" Read more
"In Ben Montgomery’s eye-opening profile, Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail, readers..." Read more
"...really fast. You may cry when you read this book, it is so well written and such a genuine situation. While reading present articles..." Read more
"Well written. History intwined into this true story of Emma Gatewood. Her persona comes alive through Ben Montgomery’s writing...." Read more
Customers find the story inspiring. They appreciate the author's strength, determination, and perseverance. They say she withstands suffering with dignity, and goes hiking in her 60s. The book shows her humble persistence and willingness to be vulnerable. Customers also mention her integrity throughout her life and true grit.
"...the trail and yet she overcame each obstacle with determination and fortitude, sometimes relying solely on her own strength, sometimes with the help..." Read more
"What an amazing woman who survived at battered marriage and so many hardships. Glad for her accomplishments at her age. One tough cookie" Read more
"...Including the narratives of how she endured and survived domestic violence may inspire others to leave their situations...." Read more
"This woman was intentionally strong because she didn't see any choice. And then walked an amazing journey beginn8ng at age 67...." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's focus on the Appalachian Trail. They find it a great read that mixes biography, trail lore, and social reporting. The author is described as an amazing hiker who walked thousands of miles on many different trails.
"...of Grandma Gatewood should be on every woman's must read list, every hikers list, every wanderers list, every survivor of an abusers list, pretty..." Read more
"...Emma Gatewood, who, at the age of sixty-seven, walked the entire length of the Appalachian Trail, from Georgia to Maine in 1955...." Read more
"This story has interesting to learn about the Appalachian Trail but has little to understand Grandma Gatewood--her motivations, feelings, and..." Read more
"Inspiring to say the least. How did she do it? Enjoyed learning about the Appalachian Trail especially seeing the maps. Awesome book." Read more
Customers enjoy the book's nature value. They appreciate the author's reverence for and respect for nature. The book encourages readers to get out and enjoy nature, no matter their age. It is an inspirational read for anyone who loves the outdoors or is worried about getting older.
"...and organization of the chapter “Rhododendron and Rattlesnakes” juxtapose elegant, delicate beauty with life-threatening danger:..." Read more
"So good. A wonderful story about the impact of one woman and a whole lot of nature. I can't wait to go for a hike." Read more
"...and, like so many others, I gather strength, insight and serenity from nature...." Read more
"Ben Montgomery has woven two tales together in masterful style as he relates the bittersweet saga of Grandma Gatewood...." Read more
Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it fast-paced and packed with adventure, while others feel the final chapters drag on and the narrative jumps around in time, making it difficult to keep up with the story.
"...Very well written, moves along as fast as she hikes! Great book and greater woman." Read more
"...which doesn't apply to the story, made the book somewhat dull and slow moving." Read more
"Very different reading and fairly slow. Great perspective for hikers to read." Read more
"...It also seemed to jump around a bit, and it would sometimes take me a page or two to figure out we were not on the trail anymore, or it was someone..." Read more
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![Walking Through it All](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/G/01/x-locale/common/transparent-pixel._V192234675_.gif)
Walking Through it All
Top reviews from the United States
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- Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2024This book tells the story of a mother of 11 children who decided to walk the Appalachian trail from Georgia to Maine at the age of 62. It is very interesting. There are many ups and downs and it also reflects on her personal life.
- Reviewed in the United States on January 11, 2025Read it straight through like Emma!
Well researched, written and well-loved! I love who Emma is; she is now my friend!
- Reviewed in the United States on January 29, 2025This was a book selected for my book club that was recommended by an independent bookstore and it was a great read. I liked how honest the portrayal was as it made for a much better read. I also enjoyed Grandma Gatewood. It's inspirational how as an older lady - she decided to hike the Appalachian trail. I would recommend this book.
- Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2018In Ben Montgomery’s eye-opening profile, Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail, readers encounter the real life folk heroin Emma Gatewood. On the trail, her story is legend; and it takes on such proportions for a plethora of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with hiking. She gave birth to eleven children and somehow managed to find the time and energy to help her husband run a farm—several, in fact. She found time to read the classics. She wrote poetry and kept a detailed journal. She hiked. She spent lots of time in the woods. She knew all the local flora and fauna, what was edible, what was medicine, and what to avoid. She endured the tragedy of a violently abusive marriage to one P.C. Gatewood, a “relationship” in which he consistently physically assaulted and raped her; on at least one occasion he broke one of her ribs. She was a fighter, a survivor, and a trailblazer in every sense of those words. And yes, she was the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail: not once, not twice, but three times—also a first. Emma Gatewood, perhaps because of that adversity, those tragedies and hardships, would turn her story into one of a triumph of the human spirit by doing nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other: more than five million times over the course of nearly five months.

On 3 May, 1955, Emma Gatewood, sixty seven year old mother of eleven, stood on Mt. Oglethorpe in Georgia, which was at that time the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, and prepared to take her first steps toward Mt. Katahdin in Baxter State Park in the state of Maine more than 2,000 miles away. She would do this in a single push; she would thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. The average hiker who completes this feat takes from five to seven months. Over this time, hikers brave the elements, cuts, scrapes, bruises, wild animals, danger to life and limb through falling or injury, hunger, disease, and any number of other dangers. Thus, thru-hikers are also generally well prepared, even if they carry as little as possible to cut back on weight over very long hikes. From a tent, rain gear, bug spray and sunscreen, food, water filters and cooking materials, extra-socks and clothing to perhaps even a second pair of shoes or boots, most hikers will carry everything they need in an ultra-light, well designed pack that, on average, weighs somewhere between thirty and fifty pounds. (The recommendation is that a pack shouldn’t weigh more than 20% of a hiker’s body weight.) On that day in 1955, Emma Gatewood had with her a shower curtain for a shelter, a tasteful dress in case she needed to look nice, some mints, and other various and sundry items in a pack she had sewn out of denim. She carried this pack, weighing twelve pounds, slung over her shoulder. It’s at this point in Ben Montgomery’s profile that readers come to understand that they have never done anything this hardcore in their life.

At 268 pages, Montgomery’s volume is by no means slim; it is, however, a page turner. A lot also has to do with the narrative structure Montgomery deploys. Rather than working from birth to death and detailing the events of a life chronologically, Montgomery breaks the text up into parallel thematic elements. Over the course of the essay he pairs the trail narrative with that of Gatewood’s personal life, or the background of social and political history. Some reviewers have criticized this narrative structure, suggesting that some of the historical, social and political commentary distracts from Gatewood’s story. However, such criticism fails to fully grasp Montgomery’s purpose. By organizing the text in this manner, Montgomery achieves the feat of helping (careful) readers to understand just how rebellious, how revolutionary, Emma Gatewood’s walk really was. In this light, hiking becomes not an activity of leisure in which one seeks health and wellness —though in some sense it is that—it instead becomes an act of defiance. Additionally, it shows that Emma’s life, very nearly from beginning to end, was simultaneously full of both beauty and danger.
Both the title and organization of the chapter “Rhododendron and Rattlesnakes” juxtapose elegant, delicate beauty with life-threatening danger:
South of town, in a cabin on Sugar Creek, Emma Gatewood learned she was pregnant with her first child not long before her new husband struck her for the first time. He smacked her with an open hand, and the sharp sting of his palm on her cheek stunned her, frightened her. (33-34)
In our imaginations we are with Emma Gatewood on “Sugar Creek”, a meandering stream, perhaps hard by some lazy acreage as she caresses her swelling belly, as she thinks about the future, as she hopes, as she dreams the dreams of a life yet lived. Then we feel the “sting” of a hand on her face as we too are “stunned” by a “strike” seemingly out of the blue. Surely, Montgomery’s word choice is no accident; he’s painting P.C. Gatewood as a viper. Rhododenra thrive in harsh environments, sometimes under severe conditions such as those often found on the AT, or in this case, at home. Furthermore, the use of the singular in "rhododendron" suggests the singularity of Gatewood's person, while rattlesnakes suggests the plurality of her trials. It is this type of narrative brilliance that allows Ben Montgomery to tether Emma Gatewood’s personal life to the trail narrative. In so doing, he shows how factual events in a life become a metaphor: “She was surrounded by unfamiliar territory, alone in a foreign place, full of curiosity and also dread and fear of the unknown” (33). Despite the fact that Montgomery, here, is talking about a specific experience of Gatewood’s journey on the trail, it applies to her personal life as well. And that’s the point.
In addition to the supplying details from Emma Gatewood’s personal life, Montgomery provides his readers with a sense of the social and political setting in the 1950s, further highlighting the uniqueness, perhaps even the rebelliousness of her decision and actions. It was an incredibly conservative era in American history when a woman’s place was in the home. It was the era of the “Sunday drive”. It was a time when people were supposed to be moving to the suburbs and enjoying the peace and comfort of the good life from behind a white picket fence. It was also a politically charged and revolutionary era. McCarthyism was rampant, the cold war was in full swing, the U.S. had just tested an H-bomb on Bikini atoll, desegregation was at the center of social and political issues, and we must keep in mind that the mid-1950s was the nascence of the counter-cultural movement that would later explode and culminate in Woodstock. This is the same decade (the 50s) that Kerouac published The Dharma Bums and On the Road. This is the same decade in which climbers such as Royal Robbins, Steve Roper and Yvon Chouinard would seek an alternative to the conservatism being espoused by society in general. As young men they eschewed the norm and headed to Yosemite, living as “dirtbags”. They would climb and define a new, alternative ethic for how to live one’s life. It is during all this that Emma Gatewood chose to walk. Given the backdrop of conservative America, her act was one of revolution.

As to why “Grandma Gatewood” did all this? That remains a mystery. She achieved national celebrity during her hike. Reporters tracked her down, followed and documented her journey on the trail; Sports Illustrated wrote a profile of the grandmother from Ohio. All along, whatever they sought to know or whatever questions they asked, there was one that they all had in common: “Why are you doing this?” Gatewood gave a number of responses over the years, but never seemed to provide a full, satisfactory answer. As Montgomery has it,
Emma was coy when people asked why, at her age, she had decided to strike out on the long trail. As America’s attention turned more toward Emma in her final days on the A.T., as newspaper reporters ramped up their dispatches to update the public on her condition and whereabouts, she offered an assortment of reason about why she was hiking. The kids were finally out of the house. She heard that no woman had yet thru-hiked in one direction. She liked nature. She thought it would be a lark.
I want to see what’s on the other side of the hill, then what’s beyond that. (160)
Outside of some brief speculation, entertaining any number of possibilities as to why Emma Gatewood would do this, Montgomery concludes that the best answer to this question came from Emma herself, and not from those attempting to interpret the various answers she provided over the years. Montgomery believes that the simple reason, in Emma’s own words was, “Because I wanted to” (259). Outside of the epilogue and acknowledgements, here the book ends. It is most fitting that Montgomery ends it with Emma’s words, and not his.
In my experience a good many members of the outdoors community find their outlet in out of doors activities such as climbing, hiking, kayaking, camping, fishing, etc. It is also my experience, or at least my perception, that the percentage of people in this community who are victims of trauma, battle mental illness, or experience moderate to severe anxiety or stress exceeds that of the national average. (I may have to write an essay on this.) Emma Gatewood seems to be no exception. Given her experience it may be easy for audiences to think that she was running from something, or perhaps running toward something. Perhaps that’s true. And while Montgomery is satisfied with Emma Gatewood’s “Because I wanted to”, he also admits that her numerous answers seem “as though she wanted people to seek out their own conclusions” (160). I like to think that she was walking through it. No one can run that long or that far. Whatever we run from will eventually catch us. We can, however, out-endure it. Whatever “it” is. When we walk, we walk with our problems, not away from them; we acknowledge their existence. In acknowledging their existence we provide ourselves the opportunity for a solution. Walking provides the focus and perspective necessary to discover the solution. The road may be long, with many a-winding turn, but only by setting out and putting one foot in front of the other, again, and again, and again, will we get there.
5.0 out of 5 starsIn Ben Montgomery’s eye-opening profile, Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail, readers encounter the real life folk heroin Emma Gatewood. On the trail, her story is legend; and it takes on such proportions for a plethora of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with hiking. She gave birth to eleven children and somehow managed to find the time and energy to help her husband run a farm—several, in fact. She found time to read the classics. She wrote poetry and kept a detailed journal. She hiked. She spent lots of time in the woods. She knew all the local flora and fauna, what was edible, what was medicine, and what to avoid. She endured the tragedy of a violently abusive marriage to one P.C. Gatewood, a “relationship” in which he consistently physically assaulted and raped her; on at least one occasion he broke one of her ribs. She was a fighter, a survivor, and a trailblazer in every sense of those words. And yes, she was the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail: not once, not twice, but three times—also a first. Emma Gatewood, perhaps because of that adversity, those tragedies and hardships, would turn her story into one of a triumph of the human spirit by doing nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other: more than five million times over the course of nearly five months.Walking Through it All
Reviewed in the United States on September 1, 2018

On 3 May, 1955, Emma Gatewood, sixty seven year old mother of eleven, stood on Mt. Oglethorpe in Georgia, which was at that time the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail, and prepared to take her first steps toward Mt. Katahdin in Baxter State Park in the state of Maine more than 2,000 miles away. She would do this in a single push; she would thru-hike the Appalachian Trail. The average hiker who completes this feat takes from five to seven months. Over this time, hikers brave the elements, cuts, scrapes, bruises, wild animals, danger to life and limb through falling or injury, hunger, disease, and any number of other dangers. Thus, thru-hikers are also generally well prepared, even if they carry as little as possible to cut back on weight over very long hikes. From a tent, rain gear, bug spray and sunscreen, food, water filters and cooking materials, extra-socks and clothing to perhaps even a second pair of shoes or boots, most hikers will carry everything they need in an ultra-light, well designed pack that, on average, weighs somewhere between thirty and fifty pounds. (The recommendation is that a pack shouldn’t weigh more than 20% of a hiker’s body weight.) On that day in 1955, Emma Gatewood had with her a shower curtain for a shelter, a tasteful dress in case she needed to look nice, some mints, and other various and sundry items in a pack she had sewn out of denim. She carried this pack, weighing twelve pounds, slung over her shoulder. It’s at this point in Ben Montgomery’s profile that readers come to understand that they have never done anything this hardcore in their life.

At 268 pages, Montgomery’s volume is by no means slim; it is, however, a page turner. A lot also has to do with the narrative structure Montgomery deploys. Rather than working from birth to death and detailing the events of a life chronologically, Montgomery breaks the text up into parallel thematic elements. Over the course of the essay he pairs the trail narrative with that of Gatewood’s personal life, or the background of social and political history. Some reviewers have criticized this narrative structure, suggesting that some of the historical, social and political commentary distracts from Gatewood’s story. However, such criticism fails to fully grasp Montgomery’s purpose. By organizing the text in this manner, Montgomery achieves the feat of helping (careful) readers to understand just how rebellious, how revolutionary, Emma Gatewood’s walk really was. In this light, hiking becomes not an activity of leisure in which one seeks health and wellness —though in some sense it is that—it instead becomes an act of defiance. Additionally, it shows that Emma’s life, very nearly from beginning to end, was simultaneously full of both beauty and danger.
Both the title and organization of the chapter “Rhododendron and Rattlesnakes” juxtapose elegant, delicate beauty with life-threatening danger:
South of town, in a cabin on Sugar Creek, Emma Gatewood learned she was pregnant with her first child not long before her new husband struck her for the first time. He smacked her with an open hand, and the sharp sting of his palm on her cheek stunned her, frightened her. (33-34)
In our imaginations we are with Emma Gatewood on “Sugar Creek”, a meandering stream, perhaps hard by some lazy acreage as she caresses her swelling belly, as she thinks about the future, as she hopes, as she dreams the dreams of a life yet lived. Then we feel the “sting” of a hand on her face as we too are “stunned” by a “strike” seemingly out of the blue. Surely, Montgomery’s word choice is no accident; he’s painting P.C. Gatewood as a viper. Rhododenra thrive in harsh environments, sometimes under severe conditions such as those often found on the AT, or in this case, at home. Furthermore, the use of the singular in "rhododendron" suggests the singularity of Gatewood's person, while rattlesnakes suggests the plurality of her trials. It is this type of narrative brilliance that allows Ben Montgomery to tether Emma Gatewood’s personal life to the trail narrative. In so doing, he shows how factual events in a life become a metaphor: “She was surrounded by unfamiliar territory, alone in a foreign place, full of curiosity and also dread and fear of the unknown” (33). Despite the fact that Montgomery, here, is talking about a specific experience of Gatewood’s journey on the trail, it applies to her personal life as well. And that’s the point.
In addition to the supplying details from Emma Gatewood’s personal life, Montgomery provides his readers with a sense of the social and political setting in the 1950s, further highlighting the uniqueness, perhaps even the rebelliousness of her decision and actions. It was an incredibly conservative era in American history when a woman’s place was in the home. It was the era of the “Sunday drive”. It was a time when people were supposed to be moving to the suburbs and enjoying the peace and comfort of the good life from behind a white picket fence. It was also a politically charged and revolutionary era. McCarthyism was rampant, the cold war was in full swing, the U.S. had just tested an H-bomb on Bikini atoll, desegregation was at the center of social and political issues, and we must keep in mind that the mid-1950s was the nascence of the counter-cultural movement that would later explode and culminate in Woodstock. This is the same decade (the 50s) that Kerouac published The Dharma Bums and On the Road. This is the same decade in which climbers such as Royal Robbins, Steve Roper and Yvon Chouinard would seek an alternative to the conservatism being espoused by society in general. As young men they eschewed the norm and headed to Yosemite, living as “dirtbags”. They would climb and define a new, alternative ethic for how to live one’s life. It is during all this that Emma Gatewood chose to walk. Given the backdrop of conservative America, her act was one of revolution.

As to why “Grandma Gatewood” did all this? That remains a mystery. She achieved national celebrity during her hike. Reporters tracked her down, followed and documented her journey on the trail; Sports Illustrated wrote a profile of the grandmother from Ohio. All along, whatever they sought to know or whatever questions they asked, there was one that they all had in common: “Why are you doing this?” Gatewood gave a number of responses over the years, but never seemed to provide a full, satisfactory answer. As Montgomery has it,
Emma was coy when people asked why, at her age, she had decided to strike out on the long trail. As America’s attention turned more toward Emma in her final days on the A.T., as newspaper reporters ramped up their dispatches to update the public on her condition and whereabouts, she offered an assortment of reason about why she was hiking. The kids were finally out of the house. She heard that no woman had yet thru-hiked in one direction. She liked nature. She thought it would be a lark.
I want to see what’s on the other side of the hill, then what’s beyond that. (160)
Outside of some brief speculation, entertaining any number of possibilities as to why Emma Gatewood would do this, Montgomery concludes that the best answer to this question came from Emma herself, and not from those attempting to interpret the various answers she provided over the years. Montgomery believes that the simple reason, in Emma’s own words was, “Because I wanted to” (259). Outside of the epilogue and acknowledgements, here the book ends. It is most fitting that Montgomery ends it with Emma’s words, and not his.
In my experience a good many members of the outdoors community find their outlet in out of doors activities such as climbing, hiking, kayaking, camping, fishing, etc. It is also my experience, or at least my perception, that the percentage of people in this community who are victims of trauma, battle mental illness, or experience moderate to severe anxiety or stress exceeds that of the national average. (I may have to write an essay on this.) Emma Gatewood seems to be no exception. Given her experience it may be easy for audiences to think that she was running from something, or perhaps running toward something. Perhaps that’s true. And while Montgomery is satisfied with Emma Gatewood’s “Because I wanted to”, he also admits that her numerous answers seem “as though she wanted people to seek out their own conclusions” (160). I like to think that she was walking through it. No one can run that long or that far. Whatever we run from will eventually catch us. We can, however, out-endure it. Whatever “it” is. When we walk, we walk with our problems, not away from them; we acknowledge their existence. In acknowledging their existence we provide ourselves the opportunity for a solution. Walking provides the focus and perspective necessary to discover the solution. The road may be long, with many a-winding turn, but only by setting out and putting one foot in front of the other, again, and again, and again, will we get there.
Images in this review
- Reviewed in the United States on February 4, 2025So good. A wonderful story about the impact of one woman and a whole lot of nature. I can't wait to go for a hike.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 11, 2025Had a copy and lost it so I bought another copy. Great if you like adventure, history, and the outdoors.
- Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2025May be a good book, but it is unreadable due to the pages falling out. Unfortunately, I did not get it returned by the final return date, so we are stuck with it. :(
3.0 out of 5 starsMay be a good book, but it is unreadable due to the pages falling out. Unfortunately, I did not get it returned by the final return date, so we are stuck with it. :(pages falling out
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2025
Images in this review
- Reviewed in the United States on November 7, 2019This was an inspiring book about Emma Gatewood, the first woman to through-hike the Appalachian Trail. You can get a sense of what kind of person she was and the strength she possessed to not only hike the trail, but to live the life she did. Some who read the book have complained that there wasn't enough about the hike or trail itself. I have read another book about hiking the Appalachian Trail - "Ten Million Steps" by M. J. Eberhart. And, there wasn't a lot in his book about the actual trail either. But, then, what can you actually say about the trail itself to make an entire book interesting? And, when you think about it, isn't hiking the trail a different story for each person based on their own reasons for hiking it and enduring the necessary hardships to finish it. To me, it seemed that M. J. Eberhart's book was not only about the challenges he met and overcame on the trail but about his relationships with other like-minded people on the trail, his wish to find the good in people, and his relationship to his religion. Emma Gatewood was asked repeatedly why she was hiking the trail and gave various, similar answers along the lines of "it was there, so I did it." But, it seems to me, or maybe it was just the way the author presented it, that her story on and off the trail was about believing in herself, overcoming adversity, and not being controlled by her circumstances. She was not very prepared to hike the trail and yet she overcame each obstacle with determination and fortitude, sometimes relying solely on her own strength, sometimes with the help of others. I was amazed at her creativity and her ability to approach total strangers to ask for a place to stay. About the author's writing: I was disappointed that he brought himself and his wife into the book near the end. It was a little jarring and seemed gratuitous. But, overall, I liked the book and thought he did a good job. I got the impression that Emma Gatewood's speech was sparse, concise and factual and I doubt her diary had lengthy passages upon which he could base the story. I thought he did a good job of bringing in her past history and the history of times she lived in to make the book more relevant and interesting.
Top reviews from other countries
- Sherri DavisReviewed in Canada on August 2, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Inspiring Read, especially for “Mature” Walkers and Hikers
If you are a walker or a hiker, and particularly if you are a woman of a certain age, you will love this book. It is the story of Ohio woman Emma Gatewood hiking the 2000 plus mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine in 1955 at the age of 67. She became the first woman ever to do so. It is well researched and well written. She was stunningly ill prepared (no tent, proper knapsack or even a sleeping bag) and inexperienced but fired by grit, guts and incredible inner strength. Quite a story. And she did it twice more after her first successful sojourn.
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Teresa TerminiReviewed in Italy on November 18, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars Very inspiring
Storia che stimola e fa riflettere, lettura consigliata
- Angela C YoungReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 6, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Feisty, inspirational, adventurous & brilliant
One of the best reads in a while. Could not put the book down. Truly inspirational and such an amazing lady. Highly recommend ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- Cliente AmazonReviewed in Spain on May 28, 2017
3.0 out of 5 stars Old lady goes for a walk
I have a major cavil with this book entertaining though it was: I would really have liked to heard the story more from the protagonist and not in the novelized version.
- Amazon CustomerReviewed in Canada on August 12, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Great adventure
reading on my kindle and enjoying her adventurous spirit.