Barbara Allen is back home in Knoxville, but her biological clock is still on the Appalachian Trail. She wakes up at 5 a.m., and by 7 p.m., she's ready for bed. She'd like to finish her online trail journal, but she can't sit still that long."I feel a need to keep moving," Allen said recently. "I have this constant urge to get up and walk."
On March 5 Allen set out from Springer Mountain, Ga., to hike all 2,180 miles of the Appalachian Trail, the world's longest continuous footpath. Six months and approximately 5 million footsteps later, she reached the trail's northern terminus atop Mount Katahdin, in central Maine. The date was Sept. 6. The weather was gorgeous, and Allen didn't cry.
"I thought I'd be emotional, but I wasn't, which is very unusual for me," she said. "I was just so relieved to have made it."
Allen is 71 years old. In all likelihood, that makes her the oldest person from Knoxville to thru-hike the A.T.
A retired public health worker, Allen didn't take up backpacking until she was 40 years old. One of her inspirations was News Sentinel columnist Carson Brewer, who wrote extensively about Great Smoky Mountains National Park. After taking a noncredit course in backpacking from the University of Tennessee, she embarked on numerous hiking trips, both home and abroad.
Allen had just returned from backpacking in Chile and Argentina a year ago when she realized the time was right to tackle the A.T.
"My conclusion was it was time to get out there and do something rather than sit around and be bored," Allen said. "So I closed my house, picked up my backpack, and started down the trail."
Initially, Allen's pack weighed 30 pounds. To lighten her load, she got rid of her cook stove and began eating peanut butter, cheese, and foods that could be re-hydrated in cold water. In Damascus, Va., she switched from leather Gore-Tex hiking boots to lightweight trail shoes. Her knees held up the whole time, and she never had a single blister.
"Ounces add up to pounds," Allen said. "I used to carry 45 to 50 pounds for a weeklong backpacking trip. Now, I carry half that."
Allen especially enjoyed the flow of humanity along the A.T. For six months she was immersed in a culture in which every thru-hiker had a trail name. She remembers Yosemite, Skunk Ape, Rhino, and especially Machete Mitch, who carried only a machete and a video camera in his determination to live off the land.
"He didn't last long," Allen said.
Allen's trail name was Mamaw B ( "I was everyone's grandma along the trail," she said.). Her closest hiking companion was a 54-year-old woman from Tampa, Fla., whose trail name was Rainbow, and often they were accompanied by a 23-year-old woman from California named Nutter Butter.
Why would a young lady choose two older women as hiking companions? Allen said it was partly because she and Rainbow kept a strong pace, but more importantly, they had fun.
"There were times when we couldn't hike because of all the laughing," she said. "We had the most ridiculous conversations. We solved the world's problems."
Rainbow and Allen (aka Mamaw B) started hiking together at Chestnut Knob, in Virginia. Two hundred miles from the finish, Rainbow began to feel pain in her groin that she attributed to some minor falls she'd had earlier. After hiking another 160 miles into Maine, she fell again. This time, she couldn't continue. Just 42 heartbreaking miles from the finish, Rainbow had to quit. When she arrived home, X-rays revealed two pelvic fractures.
The Appalachian Trail Conference estimates that this year 2,500 thru-hikers started from Springer Mountain hiking the A.T. northbound, while 330 thru-hikers set out southbound from Mount Katahdin. A record 1,016 northbounders (including Allen) signed in at Harpers Ferry, W. Va., the trail's unofficial halfway point. Last year the completion rate for thru-hikers was nearly 30 percent. Also, Allen's time of six months was about average since most people take anywhere from five to seven months to finish the A.T.
She saw seven black bears along the way, most of them in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park. The northern New England section of the A.T. was especially hard because it came at the end and had the worst rocks. Allen said the toughest section for her was the Mahoosuc Notch, a mile-long, boulder-choked gap through the Mahoosuc Range of western Maine.
By the end of the hike she had lost 35 pounds. Her blood pressure dropped from 169/83 to 126/70, and her heart rate went from 70 to 50 beats-per-minute. To her delight, she discovered she could climb 4,000 feet without having to rest.
Unlike many of the younger thru-hikes, Allen never got in a hurry. The most she hiked in one day was 25 miles, but 20 miles was the norm. She stayed on schedule, but was never in such a rush that she wouldn't stop to enjoy a trailside pond in Maine, or a scenic overlook in North Carolina.
The trail towns brought Allen some of her best memories. She left the A.T. every three to five days to resupply, and in towns like Waynseboro, Va., and Hanover, N.H., she encountered a veritable band of trail angels ready to spread their trail magic.
Like the lady in the beauty salon in Duncannon, Pa., who gave thru-hikers $5 haircuts.
"Before the hike I was getting a little cynical about society, but I found a lot of good people out there," Allen said.
