On Feb. 23, 2006, at Springer Mountain, Ga., Blair Lamb, AS ’07, put one foot in front of the other and took a step onto the Appalachian Trail.
Then, she took 5 million more.

In August, Lamb reached Katahdin, Maine, to complete her hike of the trail that runs 2,175 miles through 14 states. Thanks to an early start from the path’s southern tip, a relatively fast pace, painstaking preparation and a little luck, she became just the 33rd hiker in 2006 to report covering the entire length of the trail.

“There were times when I got discouraged and tired, but I knew in my heart from the very beginning that—short of some kind of emergency like a broken limb—I wasn’t going to give up,” Lamb says. “The whole experience was awesome, intense and really, really positive. I wouldn’t have missed it for anything.”

A criminal justice major with her eye on law school in a couple of years, Lamb hiked the trail with her 24-year-old brother, Trevor. Both had plenty of outdoor experience and, she says, had spent the past four years planning to hike the trail when the time was right for both of them. In her first two years at UD, Lamb took extra credits during summer sessions specifically in order to take a one-semester leave of absence last spring, return to campus for her senior year and graduate in May with her original class.

As their departure time approached, she and her brother prepared thoroughly, she says. She worked out with weights and on a treadmill to get in good physical shape, and she pored over books and online guides to hiking the trail.

Lamb prepared a tentative week-by-week itinerary for the five to six months of the hike and made a detailed list of points along the way in which the trail passes near towns, where hikers can easily take a detour to buy supplies, stock up on food, phone home and, perhaps, even enjoy the luxury of a restaurant meal or a hot shower. She and her brother also packed six boxes of food and left them with their parents in Princeton, N.J., to mail to post offices along the route that will accept parcels marked, “General Delivery. Hold for hiker.”

Despite the meticulous planning, Lamb says, “We blew our itinerary almost immediately” by starting off at a faster pace than they had anticipated. Still, she says, they knew it was better to be ahead of schedule than behind. They adjusted their expectations accordingly and tried not to be overly concerned with each day’s mileage.

“And, we had some ‘zero days,’ when we got off the trail and didn’t make any forward progress,” she says. “You really need a break sometimes, and we had times when we stayed in a town and gorged ourselves on four or five sit-down meals in one day. We carried about five days’ worth of supplies with us on the trail before we’d restock, and I found that I really got obsessed with food after awhile.”

Aside from food, water bottles, sleeping bags, a tarp and a first-aid kit, she says, “We traveled very light,” with only minimal spare clothing and no tent. She “demolished” two pairs of shoes, the second one held together with duct tape by the time she reached Katahdin.

Like other hikers, they often camped in the lean-tos and other rustic shelters that dot the trail. They also made use of a network of hostels in nearby towns and more makeshift accommodations offered by those who live nearby.

Still, Lamb says, there were plenty of wet and cold or hot and buggy days and nights when neither hiking nor sleeping was comfortable. Her personal low point came one day in Hanover, N.H., when she recalls bursting into tears while on the phone with her mother.

“My mom asked if I wanted to come home, and that’s when I realized that no matter how exhausted I felt, there was no way I was going to quit,” she says.

As luck would have it, she says, the very next day brought her best single experience of the five months: “We were in the White Mountains, about a mile above sea level, and it was so beautiful. The views were breathtaking, and I had such a completely peaceful feeling of being part of nature.”

Lamb says her parents, although worried about her and her brother’s safety, were encouraging and supportive of their plans.

“They appreciate the value of learning outside the classroom,” she says. “The closer we got to the end of the trail, the more I realized what we were accomplishing. It makes you strong to know that you can get through difficulties and do what you set out to do.”

Although many hikers cover the Appalachian Trail in shorter sections over a period of years, Lamb says she feels lucky to have found time to make the trek without interruption. “And, I’m lucky to have such a cool brother,” she says. “I never could have done it without him.”

In fact, the two took only one real break. About two-thirds of the way toward their goal, they left the trail in Pennsylvania, rented a van and drove to Damascus, Va., to spend a few days relaxing and socializing at a festival called “Trail Days.”

Yes, it was a hiking festival.

–Ann Manser AS ’73

Curious about the Appalachian Trail? Here are some facts:

• A unit of the National Park Service, it was completed as a continuous, marked trail in 1937.
  
  
• At 2,175 miles, it is the nation’s longest footpath and the first designated national scenic trail.
  
  
• It runs through parts of 14 states, including a 550-mile stretch (one-fourth of the entire trail) through Virginia, 200 miles along the North Carolina-Tennessee border and a mere four-mile segment in West Virginia.
  
  
• The trail crosses six national parks and eight national forests, and it is crossed by hundreds of roads.
  
  
• One of the most isolated parts is a 100-mile section in eastern Maine far from towns or paved roads; by contrast, another portion runs through the college town of Hanover, N.H.
  
  
• Elevations along the trail range from 124 feet to 6,625 feet.
  
  
• About 9,000 hikers have traveled the length of the trail. From 1936-69, only 61 completions were recorded. The numbers soared to 743 in the 1970s, 1,408 in the 1980s and 3,269 in the 1990s. Slightly more than 3,500 completions have been reported since 2000.
  
  
• The trail is maintained by individual trail clubs and partnerships, working with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, [www.appalachiantrail.org].

Source: Appalachian Trail Conservancy