The chapter opens with Cherokee creation mythology about a great vulture whose wings formed the valleys and mountains. On the night Emma was turned away, she walked until 10:30 pm and found shelter in a vacant shed. Her children did not know she was hiking, or that no woman had yet hiked the trail alone.

The narrative flashes back to 1954, when Emma first read about the trail in a discarded National Geographic at a doctor’s office. By then, Earl V. Shaffer and five other men had completed a thru-hike. In July 1954, at age 66, Emma took a Greyhound to Maine and climbed Mount Katahdin. The next day she started south but took the wrong trail and became lost for three days and eventually ran out of food. She built fires, whistled, and sang to comfort herself. After accidentally crushing her glasses, she heard a search plane but could not flag it down. She found her way back to Rainbow Lake on the third evening.

Four Baxter State Park rangers had been searching for her. They told her to go home. With broken glasses, no food, and little money, Emma agreed to quit. The rangers flew her to Millinocket and put her on a train to Bangor. At the Penobscot Hotel, Emma saw her bruised, disheveled reflection and, at 66, felt like a failure. She told no one about this attempt.

Back in May 1955, after eight days on the trail, the Jarrett family gave Emma a ride and corn pone. She hiked 20 miles, reaching Hightower Gap during a thunderstorm. On May 14, she crossed into North Carolina. That evening she heard cowbells but found no homes. Three men—Mr. Parker, Mr. Burch, and Mr. Enloe—invited her to their lean-to. She stayed two nights, cooking potato cakes. Forest and game wardens mistook her for Mr. Burch’s wife. She did not correct them because she didn’t want to explain what she was doing on the trail. After leaving the men, she climbed Standing Indian Mountain.

The narrative then flashes back to Emma’s life in Ohio. In Crown City, she met P.C. Gatewood, a 26-year-old schoolteacher from a prominent family. P.C. courted her on horseback, giving her rides home. He soon proposed. She finally agreed after he threatened to leave town. They married on May 5, 1907, when she was 18. Within three months, he struck her for the first time.

Emma continued through a difficult, poorly marked stretch past Wayah Bald. After crossing the Nantahala River, she ate sassafras leaves and wild strawberries when her food ran out. She restocked at a trailside store. During her ascent of Swim Bald, she slipped on a boulder, breaking her walking stick but escaping injury. She found a replacement and continued over multiple peaks and gaps. With no shelter available, she camped beside the trail. A flashback details Emma’s married life: P.C. Gatewood’s repeated abuse, the birth of their 11 children, her hard work on their farm, and his 1924 manslaughter conviction that led to financial ruin.

After climbing Shuckstack Mountain, Emma found only a dented trash-can lid with rainwater on the summit. She made her bed on a fire-tower porch. The next day, she met Lionel Edna, a trail maintainer painting white blazes. At Newfound Gap, Emma encountered playful nuns celebrating near a Rockefeller monument. Needing supplies, she took the bus to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, bought new shoes and a raincoat, then spent the night in a motel.

After leaving Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Emma admired fields of rhododendron and laurel. She lost the trail briefly, crossed a muddy field, and walked through a dark tunnel formed by tall rhododendron. On May 28, she reached Hot Springs, North Carolina, where locals were hospitable. On May 29, while climbing Turkey Bald Mountain, a rattlesnake struck her pant leg. She jumped aside and escaped unharmed.

Nearly a month into her journey, Emma’s children remained unaware of her whereabouts, though they were not worried. Emma zigzagged between North Carolina and Tennessee over steep terrain. She wrote about sore feet, scarce water, and campfires kept burning for protection against wild dogs.

The narrative explains the trail’s origins. Conceived by Benton MacKaye in 1921 as a wilderness backbone accessible to urban populations, the trail was completed by 1937 under Myron Avery’s leadership. The text notes the irony that MacKaye also imagined a new kind of automobile highway designed exclusively for motorists. By World War II’s end, President Roosevelt planned a national highway system. Eisenhower, taking office in 1953, pushed for a $50 billion federal highway program. Ohio began its turnpike in October 1953.

Car culture exploded. By June 1955, Americans owned 62 million vehicles. Television ownership had jumped from 9% of households in 1950 to over 50% by 1954. In March 1955, doctors reported that American children were growing lethargic from automobile dependence and that athletes required muscle strengthening rather than loosening.

The narrative traces walking’s philosophical history through ancient Greeks, Roman writers, and figures from Leonardo da Vinci to Johann Sebastian Bach. By 1949, cars killed nearly 30 pedestrians daily. Against this backdrop, the Appalachian Trail offered escape. By 1952, only a handful had repeated the feat.

Returning to Emma’s journey: On June 4, descending from Roan Mountain, she struggled to find lodging. One homeowner suspected her of being an FBI agent. She finally stayed with a family of seven sons and their elderly mother. The next morning, she hiked through a gorge to a beautiful waterfall. Near Watauga Dam, she asked a man for water. That night, wild dogs returned. On June 8, a storm brought rain, sleet, and bitter cold. She crossed into Virginia and reached Damascus, but a motel refused her because she was soaked. She found a cabin and celebrated by treating herself to a steak dinner.

Emma hiked through Jefferson National Forest and areas torn up by manganese mining. Near Groseclose, Virginia, she filled up on fruit from peach and apple trees. She was turned away from another motel but stayed with several hospitable families.

On June 20, Emma mentioned her journey to a man at a gas station. The next day, trail club members Preston Leech and Frank E. Callahan tracked her down, along with a photographer. They wanted to publicize her story. Emma initially refused, worried about her family’s surprise and potential danger. The men convinced her to stay at Callahan’s cabin. At ten o’clock on her 48th day, Emma agreed to be photographed and interviewed.

On June 22, the Roanoke Times ran a headline describing her as a widowed “great-grandmother” hiking 2,050 miles in tennis shoes (59). Emma realized it was time to inform her family and mailed postcards.

The narrative explains thru-hiking history. The trail was designed for sections, not end-to-end attempts. The first thru-hiker, Earl Shaffer, undertook his 1948 journey after returning from World War II depressed over losing a friend. Chester Dziengielewski and Martin Papendick became the first to hike the trail from north to south. Gene Espy followed in 1951. In 1952, 72-year-old George Miller became the fifth male thru-hiker. That same year, pacifist Mildred Norman hiked with Dick Lamb.

Thru-hikers received little attention because Americans were distracted by Cold War anxieties. On March 1, 1954, the US detonated an H-bomb at Bikini Atoll. Japanese fishermen 80 miles away on the Lucky Dragon suffered radiation burns; their radio operator died, becoming the first Japanese H-bomb victim. By 1955, fear of Communist infiltration gripped America. Senator Joseph McCarthy’s hunt for subversives peaked before his censure. The Supreme Court’s May 1954 ruling ending school segregation sparked resistance. Headlines also reported rising juvenile crime.

After the article appeared, Emma left Sunset Field at 5:30 am. The overgrown trail was hard to follow. She encountered a fence where trail marks ended. Confused, she climbed through barbed wire and followed a slag road. A dozen young men marched toward her. When she asked about the trail, an officer explained she had followed the old trail into Bedford Air Force Station, a Cold War radar facility. The men were shocked to find an elderly woman inside the secure perimeter. At the gate, a guard asked how she had gotten in. Emma explained about the barbed wire and joked about getting arrested. That night, sheltering on an empty farmhouse porch, Emma wrote in her notebook about bursting into laughter at the situation and the looks on the soldiers’ faces.