Walking with Spring

In 1948, the Appalachian Trail had been a continuous, 2,000-mile footpath for 11 years, and no one had been known to have walked its length in a continuous journey--until Earl Shaffer, a quiet Pennsylvanian, came home from war and became the first known of what are now more than 6,000 A.T. "thru-hikers." A hiking legend, he walked from Georgia to Maine as spring arrived to each area. This often lyrical account is an unique insight into the Trail of another era. In 1998 at age 79, he hiked again as a 50th-anniversary celebration, to far greater publicity.