The Appalachian Trail (AT) continues to be a crowd-pleaser, attracting more than three million visitors each year. Stretching from Maine to Georgia, the scenic trail is considered the longest hiking-only trail in the world (2,192 miles, or 3,527 kilometers to be exact). Since its conception in 1921, the footpath has not only become a bucket-list topper but also home to important ecosystems.
2021 marks the 100-year anniversary of the Appalachian Trail’s launch. To celebrate, Discover caught up with Philip D'Anieri, author of The Appalachian Trail: A Biography. According to D’Anieri, a current lecturer on the built environment at the University of Michigan, the Appalachian Trail acts as a portal into another world. His books provides glimpses into this world by profiling intriguing characters hiking the trail, like "Grandma" Gatewood, a mother of eleven who completed the entire trek at the age of 67. D’Anieri shared with us not only the trail's rich history, but also her thoughts on our symbiotic relationship with nature and how the trail (and, ultimately, nature itself) shapes us, and vice versa.
