One of my top books that I read last year was Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail by Ben Montgomery, a biography of the first woman to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail (at age 67), as well as the first woman to do so multiple times and the first person to hike it three times.
She also hiked the Oregon Trail, from Missouri to Oregon. However, despite the thousands of miles she accumulated on her Keds, her favorite stretch of trail was in her Ohio backyard: a six-mile stretch from Old Man’s Cave to Ash Cave in the Hocking Hills State.
In 1965, an annual winter hike of this stretch of trail led by Grandma Gatewood, herself, began and this year was the 51st annual hike. After reading about this celebration of this woman, relatively close to where I’m currently living, I knew I had to go.