Trail Magic

“Just hike until you get tired, then pull over,” advises a hiker with the trail name of Birdman. “Take your time and enjoy everything.”

He was speaking to Amber Adams Niven, who remembers Birdman as an example of Trail Magic. “He favored simplicity and spontaneity, which is something I was needing at that time in my hike. Here’s to Birdman and taking it easy on the Appalachian Trail.”

In Discovering the Appalachian Trail: A Guide to the Trail’s Greatest Hikes, Amber and Joshua Niven make every effort to ensure that hikers can “enjoy everything” as they steer them along America’s great Appalachian Trail. Here is all the information needed to make this trek, or any part of it: point-to-point distances, necessary supplies, shelters and camp grounds, and an abundance of tips ranging from which parts of the Trail allow dogs, to landmarks and weather.

But the gifts of Discovering the Appalachian Trail only begin there, for the Nivens include many other delights in this celebration of the AT. Joshua is the photographer of this husband-and-wife team, and the hundreds of pictures that brighten this book are ones he selected from a catalog of 20,000 photographs, all taken over 14 years of hiking the AT. Through her writing, Amber introduces us to dozens of other hikers, wildlife, plants, and spectacular scenery. Here too are bits of history, mini-biographies of those who pioneered the efforts to found the Trail, general reflections on the beauty and value of wilderness by the likes of John Muir and Henry David Thoreau, and reminiscences from others who have made this trail a part of their hearts.

Here, in short, the Nivens give all those novices wishing to make this trek a wealth of information, from the necessities they should pack to outdoor ethics that will prepare them and help them make the most of their odyssey. Veterans of the trail may take pleasure in reading the impressions gathered by Amber, Josh, and other hikers of places like North Carolina’s Big Firescald Knob, West Virginia’s historic Harpers Ferry, and Maine’s demanding Mahoosuc Notch.

But what of those people, including me, who have never walked the AT, who have never braved a summer storm on the trail or panted for breath after climbing a boulder-strewn path?

No problems, good readers. Amber, Josh, and company provide a vicarious experience of the trail for any and all who choose to open this guide.

Among the many people we meet in these pages, for example, is Mildred Norman, also known as “Peace Pilgrim.” In 1952, she became the first woman to hike the entire trail in one season. But Mildred didn’t stop there. Over the next 30 years, she walked as “Peace Pilgrim”—that name was emblazoned on her shirt—on different hikes around the United States. “She journeyed without food, money, or clothes except for what she was wearing, keeping faith that her needs would be met (they always were).” For these feats, Mildred earned a place of honor in the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame, as well as its New Jersey counterpart.

In addition, Joshua’s photos delight the eye. Some are shots of other hikers, woodlands and rivers, the beauties of nature. Some that appealed to me in particular were the pictures of ruins like St. John’s Episcopal Church in Harpers Ferry and the old inns still catering to tourists in towns like Duncannon, Pennsylvania, and Bluemont, Virginia.

These hikes can bring some rough patches, as Amber tells us in “Midway Blues,” when she was picking her way through Pennsylvania’s boulder fields after nearly three months of hiking. Her enthusiasm for that particular hike had vanished, and she points out a truth I’ve heard from other thru-hikers, two of whom failed to complete the journey. “Don’t be fooled,” Amber tells us. “The physical demands of long-distance hiking are rigid. Still, the mental aspect of hiking is far more challenging. Sure, physical pains play a part, but the combination of the rain, the cold, the monotonous routine of camp chores, and counting miles is hard on the hiker spirit. It takes a lot of energy to stay positive on the trail.”

Discovering the Appalachian Trail, then, should appeal to all readers. For the hiker, as I say, the guide is a gold mine of information. For the rest of us, it offers pleasure and entertainment.

And this guide performs one other good deed as well. It stands as a medallion of print and photos honoring one of the marvelous accomplishments of our country, the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, a trail open to all citizens and maintained by its users in all its natural beauty and wonder.

One final note that might be of interest to readers: Both Joshua and Amber grew up hiking in the Appalachian Mountains, and the AT played a part in bringing the two of them together, when they met for the first time in 2015 in Damascus, Virginia, at the annual Appalachian Trail Days festival. With their two children, they now live “in an old cabin with a view of Firescald Knob in Madison County.”