Susan Letcher

Book Info: Genre: Memoir/Autobiography
Reading Level: Adult (language, adult situations)
Recommended for: Those interested in hiking and hiking culture, memoirs, great stories

My Thoughts: This book is frequently quite hilarious, especially the bits about the Extreme Hiking Maneuvers, the squirrels, and Mr. Shaw's driving, just to name a few. I was initially interested in it because of the hiking barefoot thing; I have always loved to go barefoot, and when I was a kid, by the end of summer I'd have feet like a hobbit from running around on scoria (a type of volcanic rock that is very sharp that we use to gravel the roads in eastern Montana). When I went to university in Fargo, ND, I was frequently found running around campus barefoot in the fall, until eventually the university put up signs forbidding people to come into the buildings barefoot, which annoyed me greatly. The thing about better feeling the world through your feet is really true.

This is quite a long book. My Kindle doesn't keep track of pages, but it estimated my reading time (and it's good at that) at about 11 hours. I'm not sure how it was I found this book, and I'm doubly happy I managed to snag a free copy, because it's now about $12, but I have to tell you, it's really worth the price, a really outstanding story, and now I want the sequel, Walking Home, to hear about their adventures returning from Georgia back to Maine.

There are a lot of important ideas running through this book, mostly about the importance of taking care of one another. I'm sure that not all hikers are as wonderful as they are portrayed in this book, but it does seem that the danger of the hike seems to bring out the best in people, encouraging people to work together for the greater good. The stories of all the generous people that help the hikers along the way were heartwarming. This was just an amazing book, and an amazing story, and I'm so happy I managed to grab a copy. I highly recommend this to all my friends who enjoy a really good story. I find my words are completely inadequate to express my joy in having read this amazing book, so I hope these poor attempts will encourage you to check this book out. Highly recommended.

Disclosure: I picked up this book on Amazon during a free promotion. I have never, to my knowledge, interacted with the authors, nor was a review requested. All opinions are my own.

Series Information: Barefoot Sisters
Book 1: Southbound
Book 2: Walking Home

Synopsis: At the ages of twenty-five and twenty-one, Lucy and Susan Letcher set out to accomplish what thousands of people attempt each year: thru-hike the entire 2,175 miles of the Appalachian Trail. The difference between them and the others? They decided to hike the trail barefoot. Quickly earning themselves the moniker of the Barefoot Sisters, the two begin their journey at Mount Katahdin and spend eight months making their way to Springer Mountain in Georgia. As they hike, they write about their adventures through the 100-mile Wilderness, the rocky terrain of Pennsylvania, and snowfall in the Great Smoky Mountains—a story filled with humor and determination. It's as close as one can get to hiking the Appalachian Trail without strapping on a pack.… (mehr)

This is the sequel to Southbound, The Barefoot Sisters' account of their southbound Appalachian Trail thru-hike. I didn't like this one quite as much as I liked the first book, but this one was still enjoyable.

A couple of things I really enjoyed about this book:

1) This thru-hike took place in 2001. I know about more 2001 thru-hikes than any other. My friend's mom and her husband thru-hiked the AT in 2001, and TREK - A Journey on the Appalachian Trail, a documentary I watched and quite enjoyed this past year, follows a group of friends on a 2001 thru-hike. Making the trip seem in a way even more familiar, I also discovered that Isis graduated high school the same year as I did, so I was able to draw parallels between what her 2001 was like and what mine was. While they were hiking through Virginia, I was starting an editing job at a major corporation one state away. While they were walking through the mountains, I was training for a marathon I never ran. It's possible that I might have been in Asheville, North Carolina, at the same time they were visiting there. And then of course there was the way they learned about the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th, which is a story that each of us alive at that time shares. Hearing their shock, fear, and confusion reawakened the shock, fear, and confusion that I felt that morning. In a lot of ways, this thru-hike felt closer to me than the southbound hike, which was both enjoyable and a bit uncomfortable since there still is a huge amount of doubt about whether I will ever actually thru-hike the AT. But then, I like a bit of discomfort. It keeps me from becoming complacent.

2) A few times they touched upon the privilege that allows people to take six months off to take a long walk. The clearest example I found was on page 125 when jackrabbit talks about what she considers the rather obnoxious attitude of a business owner nearby the trail who seemed to assume that hikers would steal from his business just because they were hkers. Another hiker, Fiddler, recognizes the demographics of the majority of thru-hikers and suggests that maybe this is a good experience for hikers. "Look at us," he says. "How many white, middle-class Americans knows what discrimination feels like? Maybe if we realize what it's like to be followed by stares and whispers, we'll be less likely to do it to somebody else." This is something I've been having some trouble with when thinking about planning a thru-hike: while I'm trying to be aware of privilege and ways that I can let go of my unearned privilege, here I am planning an activity that depends very much on the privilege that allows me to save up the money for a long-distance hike and feel reasonably confident that I will be greeted along the trail with the same goodwill that the Letcher sisters describe. The idea that I might learn something valuable along the way is a comfort, I suppose, but not much of one, but I do appreciate that they at least touched upon the issue of privilege.

It was nice that the sisters got their easy (compared to their southbound hike), fun thru-hike, but it felt like there was a little something---perhaps tension?---missing from this one. This easier hike up the better-traveled northbound route seemed less significant in a way. There was little doubt the sisters would make it to Katahdin, there was less detail about their travels and it was more difficult for me to follow where they were on the trail, and there were more spring-break-like side trips. It just seemed more like a party this time around and less like a pilgrimage. I don't know that there's necessarily anything wrong with this, it just wasn't as satisfying to me as their account of their first trip was.… (mehr)

My seven-year-old daughter decided recently that she wants to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, and she wants to hike it from Maine to Georgia. Her reasoning is that then you get the toughest part of the trail out of the way at the beginning. She and I have talked about the extra challenges of the southbound route (not the least of which is beginning the trek with the Hundred-Mile Wilderness and running the risk of hitting winter in the Smokies if you don't hike fast enough), but she's undeterred. She says we can practice and get stronger and learn more and then we can attempt a family thru-hike when she's 17 and her brother is 13.

Incidentally, I like the southbound route because it's not as well-traveled. Not only am I not keen on the idea of crowded trail shelters, I've read that less of the party atmosphere follows hikers traveling southward than it does those traveling northward. I'd kind of rather avoid the party atmosphere if at all possible, especially hiking with my kids (even though they'll likely be teenagers by the time we hit the trail).

The Barefoot Sisters: Southbound is the first narrative I've found describing a southbound thru-hike. It's helped me to see more clearly the challenges of thru-hiking in general as well as the challenges unique to the southward thru-hike. One thing I know for sure: I have no interest in hiking in the wintertime. I know that regardless of which direction we go, we're going to hit chilly weather. It will still be chilly at night in Maine and then chilly again in the Smokies if we go south, and it will be chilly in the Whites if we go north. Chilly I think I can handle, especially if I'm out in it all the time and become accustomed to it. But blizzards and ice storms? I spent most of my youth living along the California coast. Winter and I are tentative friends at best as it is. I think winter camping would be pushing that relationship beyond the breaking point. Although I suppose that even that's subject to change. We're planning to snowshoe this winter (provided we get enough snow, unlike last year). If we love it, heck, maybe we'll schedule in some winter on our thru-hike.

It was interesting reading about Isis and jackrabbit's perspective, too, because had I gone with the original timing I'd planned for my thru-hike, I would have done it the year after I graduated from college, two years before they did their thru-hike. So they're nearly my contemporaries. As a result, the book had a bit of a "this is what it might have been like had I..." quality for me. I would, however, have been woefully underprepared, and I most likely would not have finished. Even though the sisters' descriptions of the physical toll on their youthful bodies has left me a little nervous about how well my body will do with nearly three decades more wear on it, I think on the balance, my chances of completing a thru-hike will be better at nearly fifty than it would have been when I was 21.

Although not as funny as Bryson's A Walk in the Woods, this book is much more detailed in its depiction of trail life, and it includes the Letcher sisters' original poems, songs, and even an excerpt of their trail romance novel. Southbound exults in the wonder, beauty, and transformative power of the trail while it simultaneously pulls no punches in describing the daily discomforts and dangers of the trail. The result is a vivid and compelling story that leaves me craving the trail even more. I'm so glad they also wrote a book about their hike back home. I'll be picking that one up next time I have the chance and letting both books fuel my fantasies (and nightmares) about thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail.… (mehr)