The Appalachian Trail by Philip D’Anieri

Author:Philip D’Anieri
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780358169567
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (hmhbooks.com)
Published: 2021-06-08T00:00:00+00:00

In the summer of 1953 Shaffer traveled to Shirley Center and visited at length with Benton MacKaye. MacKaye gave Shaffer a copy of his “An Appalachian Trail” article, signed “To Earl Shaffer of the A.T., one who did it from one who wrote it.” The thru-hike had not altered the material circumstances of Shaffer’s life, but it had enabled him to take on the AT as a central and treasured part of his place in the world.

Many others at that time were interested in taking an end-to-end hike on the trail. They were old and young, well educated and not, some on a break from a conventional career path, others not fully at home in the American mainstream. The term “thru-hike” did not exist yet, and for the most part these people did not know of one another. Each had decided, for their own set of reasons, that a months-long hike sounded like a good idea.

Three young men completed thru-hikes in 1951. The following year, a man and a woman together did what is now known as a “flip-flop,” hiking part of the full trail in one direction, then traveling to the other end and hiking the remainder in the opposite direction. (The woman would later take on the name Peace Pilgrim, and make walking long distances in the name of peace her life’s work.) That same year, 1952, a seventy-two-year-old retired professor thru-hiked the trail as well.

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