To the Editor

Reading your article about Jennifer Pharr Davis — the hiker who went roughly 37.5 miles a day to be the fastest woman to complete a speed thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail — reminded me of something I learned on the trail years ago.

I too thru-hiked the AT when I was 20 years old, and I too found the feeling of moving quickly through the woods and communing with nature to be exciting, invigorating and addictive. I only hiked a 40-mile day once, in Maryland, but often hiked 25 or more miles a day, from dawn to dusk. You see, someone close to me had recently committed suicide, and I wanted to physically get the pain of it out of my system. I met some other “speed hikers” on the trail, and the young ones (in their 20s) all struck me as similarly disturbed. Most of them were running away from something (college, career, family, bad relationships), and using a mostly healthy and admirable hobby to do so.

Today when I meet people who want to hike the AT or other long-distance trails, I try to offer them the simple wisdom that my husband showed me when I met him thru-hiking the AT the year after me — slow down, take it easy, and enjoy yourself. I’m now a parent and have many responsibilities. I wish I could jump back on the trail, but I’ll have to wait for some years before that is feasible again.

Ms. Davis seems like a lovely person, and I commend her for her achievement, but I also hope that The Smoky Mountain News will sometime do a story on one of the section hikers who has taken the longest amount of time to hike the whole AT. I’m sure that their observations over their years of hiking would amount to an even more compelling and inspirational reason for us all to get hiking.

Mary Alice Lamb

Waynesville