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In April 2014 we published Ben Montgomery’s Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail. Two years later, we’re thrilled to bring out the paperback edition of the New York Times bestseller and National Outdoor Book Award winner.

In 1955, 67-year-old Emma Gatewood became the first woman to hike the entirety of the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. She wore Keds, had less than $200, and carried little more than a change of clothes. Nine years later, she was the first person to ever hike the complete trail three times. The media rallied around Gatewood—AP headlines included “Hiking Granny Reaches Maine” and “Ohio Grandma Nearing End of Hike.” Sports Illustrated wrote about Gatewood and she appeared on Groucho Marx’s You Bet Your Life. In Grandma Gatewood’s Walk, Montgomery reveals the trailblazer’s true life story and accomplishments.

Now an enterprise reporter for the Tampa Bay Times, Montgomery grew up hearing stories about Gatewood’s adventures from his mother, a relative of Emma’s. Here he shares some of his readers’ reactions and what he learned about hiking and the AT community while researching and writing the book.

You’ve met with dozens of book clubs since the hardcover published in April 2014, and a range of readers have really taken to Emma’s story. Tell us about their reactions to the book.

Meeting new people who have connected with Emma’s story is the best part of this whole experience for me. Folks are generally inspired by her life, and it tickles me that many of them are moved enough to strike out on foot. One elderly reader e-mailed to say that it had been years since she’d taken a walk but the book inspired her to get off the couch.

Sports Illustrated, 1955

Are you a hiker? How did writing the book change your feelings about walking or spending time in nature?

Before I started working on the book the longest hike I’d ever taken was about 14 miles. But during the research I decided to give up my car for a week—no easy task in car-centric Tampa, which ranks as the second most dangerous city in the country for cyclists and pedestrians. Alas, I put in about 100 miles on foot that week, including an epic 50-mile walk from my house to St. Petersburg and back. I now spend more time on foot than in my car, and my life is better for it. All the best thinkers, writers, and musicians were big walkers, from Thoreau to Bach to da Vinci to Dickens. I think we lose our connection to our place if we spend all our time riding around in our little bubbles.

Did Grandma Gatewood’s Walk take shape the way you anticipated?

Looking back, I knew so little about her and her experiences when I started reporting for the book. I had no idea she walked through two hurricanes, or that she ran into gangsters from Harlem. Unearthing all those fantastic little stories was a real joy.

Tell us about your research for the book. Whom were you able to interview? Did you have any on-the-trail experiences?

I was able to interview four of Emma Gatewood’s surviving children, many of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and several people who had met Emma on one of her walks. I tracked down two men who helped her cross a raging gorge; they were in their 20s then and are now in their 80s, but they remembered the experience of helping Grandma across. She was unforgettable. Her youngest, Lucy, helped preserve her mother’s legacy by keeping a wealth of personal ephemera like letters and scrapbooks.

Ben Montgomery atop Mount Katahdin, 2012

As far as trail experiences, I climbed Mt. Katahdin, the northern terminus of the AT, with my wife and a trail guide who has become a dear friend. We summited the same time about 30 people were finishing thru-hikes and I was brought to tears watching them one by one touch the sign on Baxter Peak after walking 2,100 miles. It was a very cool experience.

Emma completed her first thru-hike in 1955. How has the Appalachian Trail changed since that time?

To start, 99 percent of the trail is different now from what it was like in ’55. The trail is constantly being rerouted to prevent erosion and offer hikers a better experience. What’s more, Emma’s early criticism of the condition of the trail promoted better maintenance and, as I argue in the book, the unprecedented attention she brought to the trail introduced the AT to people across America, many of whom would go on to thru-hike.

What was your big takeaway from writing about Emma and the AT community?

The AT community is like one long linear family. For the most part, folks are more than happy to put you up for the night or help you get along. Having hiked only about 5 percent of the trail myself, I’m delighted by the way the AT crowd has embraced the book and helped celebrate Grandma Gatewood’s incredible accomplishments.

What has resonated with you from the whole Grandma Gatewood experience?

I swear that heaven is a book club. I’ve been invited into so many living rooms and I’ve been fed so much good food and red wine. I feel like in the past two years I’ve inherited about 700 new grandmothers. One of the coolest things is that a group of ladies in the Tampa Bay area started a Grandma Gatewood commemorative hike. We just celebrated the second annual hike last month at a park in Pinellas County and had a wonderful time watching the birds and communing with nature.

One Grandma Gatewood anecdote that didn’t make the book was actually about an experience Emma had in Florida and it’s one of my favorite stories. She was visiting her nephew in the Florida Panhandle and they all went to eat at a seafood place. They loaded their plates with peel-and-eat shrimp and sat now and went to work. Her nephew and his wife were discarding the shells and tails in a little bowl on the table. When her nephew looked up, Emma had cleaned her plate—not a shell or tail in sight.

“Aunt Emma,” the man said, “we normally discard the shells and tails. We don’t eat them.”

Emma responded: “Why, we paid for ’em, didn’t we?”

I think that says a lot about who she was.

Grandma Gatewood’s Walk is officially available in paperback on April 1, 2016. 

[Buy it now: $18 ]  [Request a review copy]  [Read an excerpt on Longreads]  [NiemanStoryboard] 

“This biography of the first woman to hike the entire Appalachian Trail (at 67 years old) in one season will be a kick in the pants to get your own long-held dreams going.”  —National Geographic, Intelligent Travel blog

“If Ben Montgomery were decades younger and had tagged along beside Emma Rowena Gatewood in 1955 when she hiked the Appalachian Trail, he could not have written a more thorough, first-person account of her historic adventure. That’s how good his new book is.” — The Long Distance Hiker, newsletter of the Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association

Ben Montgomery photo credit: John Pendygraft
Mount Katahdin photo: courtesy of Ben Montgomery