Topic: I Was a Black, Female Thru-Hiker.

[Ken (OP)]

I enjoy reading news of the day from many sources and about many subjects... this story caught my attention today.

Exit Interview: I Was a Black, Female Thru-Hiker on the Appalachian Trail
Atlas Obscura | Sarah Laskow

The first person to hike the full length of the Appalachian Trail, a white man named Earl V. Shaffer, wanted to “walk the Army out of his system.” That was in 1948. Since the 1970s, when 775 hikers completed the trail, the number of “thru-hikers” has doubled each decade so that in the 2000s, close to 6,000 hikers covered all 2,190 miles.

Most of those people still look like Shaffer—they’re white men. Only about a quarter of thru-hikers are women, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, and though there’s little information about the racial breakdown of thru-hikers, it’s safe to say that the vast majority of them are white.

In 2016, Rahawa Haile, a writer now based in Oakland, California, became one of the very few black women to attempt to hike the entire trail. (She was able to find exactly one other attempting the feat in 2016.) In March, she began in Georgia, the more popular end of the trail to start on, and by the middle of October had hiked its entire length. She carried along with her, too, a series of books by black authors, which she left in trail shelters along the way.

Haile spoke to Atlas Obscura about the challenges and joys of hiking all those miles and the particular experience of being one of the few people of color spending months on the trail.

When did you first start thinking about thru-hiking?
The first time I climbed a mountain was when my good friend John Coyne took me to Bear Mountain, outside of New York City. He said, “I know you like being outside, I know you love mountains, and they hold a fascination with you. Would you like to hike with me and my family?” I climbed Bear Mountain, and it was a life-changing experience. There was still snow and ice on the ground that March, and I slipped and fell on my butt many times. It’s an intro climb. There are stairs carved into the mountain. It’s not like I was climbing Mount Washington. We were standing on the mountain, and John said, “This is the Appalachian Trail. These are the white blazes.” I thought, these marks go from Georgia to Maine, and that’s incredible. And I thought, maybe I could hike this trail one day.

I had a dull real estate-adjacent day job that didn’t pay me well. I was depressed and trying to write on the side. I realized I was the most unencumbered I would be in my entire life. I didn’t have kids or a mortgage. No car payments. I was in decent health. I thought, you either hike the AT at this age—I was 31 when I started my thru-hike—or you wait until you’re 60. You’re not going to get another opportunity. I would meet older people who’d say I wish I had your back, I wish I had your knees. I thought, I still have my back, I still have my knees. 

I told a friend from Portland in October of 2014 that this was something I was going to work towards over the next year and a half. That’s when it started. I spent all my free time researching the trail, the gear I’d need. I stopped writing. I started saving up. I barely went out. I barely bought clothes for myself. It wasn’t until a few months ago when I was looking at photos of readings I gave from 2014 and 2015 that I realized all of them have me wearing the same four shirts.

There’s a great deal of privilege that goes into thru-hiking. The idea of broke hikers in the wild, where you don’t have to pay for a place to live and your only expense is food—that’s bullshit. You have to buy your gear. You have to travel. You have to take six months out of your life. You have to find a way to feel safe. That’s one of the reasons the trail looks like it does.

I knew that going into this hike it wouldn’t just be a hike: There’s no movement in America for black women that’s just about movement, especially throughout the South.

At the end of January of 2016, I quit my job. My boyfriend and I had split up. I packed all my belongings. I moved my things into my friend’s basement, handed my cat to another friend, and flew to Oakland, where friends were letting me crash for a month. There’s a ton of hiking in the Bay Area, and it was a good chance to prepare. People think that the thru-hike was the biggest thing I did in 2016, but my relationship ended, I moved out of my apartment on January 31, I quit my job February 1. And then I flew across the country on February 2. Those were three very big days.

When did your attraction to mountains start?
I’ve always been outdoorsy. In Florida, where I’m from, that means the swamp, the Keys, the Everglades, the beaches. I try to explain to people that this was a very important factor toward what gave me the confidence to hike the trail—I never felt that nature was a place where I didn’t belong. I know that, historically and through systemic racism, the outdoors was the purview of wealthy, white men. But, growing up, endless exposure to nature was a huge thing to me.

... the story goes on from there, I hope that you have the time to read the entire article, it is inspiring. 

[Ken (OP)]

Rahawa Haile post on Twitter

Rahawa Haile
@RahawaHaile
·
5h
I’m a day late to #BlackHikersWeek  but hi hello I know it’s been a minute since I’ve backpacked. I’ve spent the past two years working on a book about the outdoors and what freedom of movement and its absence look like in so-called America. I miss the woods more than I can say.