Today, the Appalachian Trail is probably the most famous hike in America. Odds are, if you know a hiker, you’ve heard them wax poetically about their experiences on – or plans someday to attempt – the AT. But the Trail did not achieve its iconic status overnight.
Though “finished” in 1937, (meaning it was possible to hike from Georgia’s Springer Mountain and Maine’s Mount Katahdin), it continued to evolve and didn’t take its current permanent route until about 1970. Few hikers and fewer Americans heard of it in the earliest years. Earl Shaffer’s first thru-hike (with some light cheating) in 1948 began to increase the Trail’s profile, but perhaps the most significant press coverage occurred in 1955, when a 67-year-old grandmother decided to “take a walk”.
Emma Gatewood
Emma Gatewood did not have the easiest life. Born in 1887 in Ohio, she was one of fifteen children born to disabled Civil War veteran Hugh Caldwell, who unfortunately struggled with alcoholism, and his wife, Evelyn. The children, squeezed into the family’s small log cabin, were required to work, early and hard, on the farm. Emma did not receive a high school education, though it is said she enjoyed writing poetry throughout her life. She always enjoyed the outdoors, which would prove her refuge and solace in the long years ahead.
In 1907, at the age of 19, Emma married Perry Clayton Gatewood, a man almost a decade her senior. P. C. was apparently something of a local catch, being college-educated and a landowner, but unfortunately, wedded bliss would not long last. Emma was soon working on his tobacco farm and, unfortunately, enduring his physical abuse. P. C.’s violence was not limited to Emma (he would be convicted of manslaughter in 1924, but given a suspended sentence since he had a farm and family to care for), but she was often a target of his rage. The abuse continued through three decades and eleven children, until P. C. called the cops on her after she fought back in 1939. In February 1941, she won not only a divorce, but alimony and custody of her three remaining minor children.
The next decade of her life was spent making a living and raising her children, but by 1951, she was an empty nester. Around this time, she found a discarded copy of the August 1949 edition of National Geographic, which contained the article “Skyline Trail from Maine to Georgia” about the Appalachian Trail, which author Andrew H. Brown called “one of the seven wonders of the outdoorsman’s world.”
The Trail captured Emma’s imagination immediately. She prepared simply and practically, sewing herself a knapsack and filling it with a blanket, a plastic shower liner, basic mess and first aid kits, a coat, and a gingham dress so she could enter towns without looking like a vagrant. She didn’t have proper hiking shoes. Instead, she wore (and wore out) Keds sneakers for all her hikes.
In 1953, Emma felt ready to attempt the Trail for the first time. She traveled to Mount Katahdin, but soon got lost and broke her glasses. She was rescued by some local rangers, who told her to go home. Demoralised, she did. But in 1955, she told her children she was going “on a walk in the woods”, and made her way down to Georgia, starting this time at Springer Mountain.
Today, Emma’s style of backpacking would be called Ultralightweight, meaning she carried less than 10 pounds of equipment and supplies. She didn’t have a map, or much, if any, food with her. Instead, she foraged, and asked locals for meals and directions. Due to her frequent interactions with those living on and near the Trail, her story began to spread.
A typical white AT blaze along the trail in Pennsylvania
Over the course of her 146-day hike, news percolated through the eastern U.S. of a grandmother hiking from South to North, by herself, relying on the kindness of strangers for a hot meal or a new pair of Keds (she wore out seven pairs). By the last stretch of her adventure, the press had begun to follow her. Dubbing her “Grandma Gatewood”, they asked her about her life and where she was from, and what she was trying to accomplish. Gatewood could be demure in her answers – she presented herself as a widow, to avoid the scandal of divorce – and when she was asked “why”, she simply said “because it was there” or “because I wanted to”.
One newspaper story even made its way back to Ohio, informing Gatewood’s family of her ongoing feat for the first time. Shortly after, she reached Maine, and the final summit of the Trail. On September 25, 1955, she hiked up Katahdin. When she reached the summit, she became one of only a handful of people to solo thru-hike the AT in a single season, and the first woman to do so. She took in the view, sang the first verse of “America the Beautiful”, and went home.
Well, went home for a bit. Emma didn’t hang up her Keds sneakers for long; she thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail again in 1957, and in 1959 she walked the entire 2,000 miles of the Oregon Trail. Unfortunately, by 1959, most of the historic path of western pioneers had been transformed into asphalt highways, and Grandma Gatewood spent her days walking alongside roads and being mistaken for a transient. Still, she stuck at it, and in three months walked from Independence, Missouri, to Portland, Oregon, where she was received with official acclaim.
Now in her 70’s, time was slowing but not stopping Grandma Gatewood. She hiked the AT one more time in 1964, but this time in stages. Afterwards, her hikes began to linger closer to home. She helped clear and mark a 30-mile trail in Gallia County for the new Buckeye Trail and starting in 1967, she organized a six-mile hike every January through nearby Hocking Hills State Park in Ohio. Her last documented hike was this January event in 1973, where she led 2,500 people through the familiar nature paths. She died in June of that year, of a heart attack.
Appalachian Trail signage passing the AT museum
Grandma Gatewood’s legacy has long outlived her. She was one of the first hikers exhibited when the Appalachian Trail Museum opened its doors in 2010 and was inducted into its Hall of Fame in 2012. Her favorite six-mile trail in Hocking Hills is now the Grandma Gatewood Memorial Trail. And hiking gear company Six Moon Designs has the “Gatewood Cape”, a combination raincoat and rain shelter, inspired by her ultralight backpacking.
But her largest impact was on those who hike the AT itself. Before her, only one woman had hiked the entire trail, and that was with a male companion and in stages. But Gatewood proved the Trail was for everyone, not just fit 20-something men. Her story inspired many, men and women, young and old, to explore the AT for themselves. Today, women account for about ⅓ of thru-hikers, and while by no means the majority, around 50 people over 70 have completed the Trail in a single season. In all, more than 20,000 people have come from more than 40 countries.
Grandma Gatewood is not solely responsible for the Appalachian Trail’s success. It is a beautiful Trail, winding through some of the most spectacular landscapes imaginable. It was designed with care and maintained well through the decades. But it is very possible, if not very likely, that it would not have its international fame if the media hadn’t picked up the quirky story of an Ohio grandmother determinedly making her way north along its path, just because it was there.
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