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 Harlem gangsters, she stood
atop Maine's Mt. Katahdin. Driven by a painful marriage to an oppressive
husband, Gatewood 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 on the pages of Sports Illustrated. The public attention she
brought to the footpath, and her vocal criticism of the lousy, difficult
stretches, led to bolstered maintenance, and very likely saved the trail
from extinction. 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.
