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Grandma Gatewood Story
by Bob Downing, Akron Beacon Journal
In Steps of a Busy Grandma:
Ohio Trail Honors Pioneering Hiker
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
By Bob Downing, Akron Beacon Journal
LOGAN, Ohio - Hocking Hills is Grandma Gatewood Country.
Ohio's No. 1 must-see state park, Hocking Hills lies southeast of Columbus in Hocking County. One of the park's most famous trails is dedicated to Ohio's No. 1 long-distance hiker.
That would be the late Emma Rowena Gatewood, who lived most of her life on a farm in Gallia County in southern Ohio.
She often walked two to five miles to visit friends on neighboring farms.
Gatewood, who died in 1973 at 86, gained national attention when she hiked the entire Appalachian Trail solo in 1955, at the age of 68, in tennis shoes.
Gatewood, the mother of 11, grandmother of 23, great-grandmother of 30 and great-great-grandmother of one when she died, became the first woman to go solo on the 2,168-mile trail that stretches from Georgia to Maine.
She was also the first woman to continuously "thru-hike" (completing the entire route in one outing), says the Appalachian Trail Conference, the nonprofit trail group. That was something only five men had done at the time.
She was the third woman to hike the complete trail.
She had decided to make her first attempt after reading a National Geographic article about the famous trail that noted that no woman had ever hiked its distance. Gatewood knew immediately this was her destiny, said daughter Lucy Seeds, who is 81 and lives in Florida.
Gatewood was featured in local papers along the trail. She appeared on the "Today Show," "Art Linkletter Show," "Dave Garroway Show" and othes.
It took Gatewood 146 days as she hiked through bad weather from Maine to Georgia. She lost 30 pounds and her feet grew from size 8C to 8D.
Hiking the Appalachian Trail was not easy, Gatewood said at the time.
"I thought it would be a nice lark," she told one reporter. "It wasn't."
She told another reporter: "For some fool reason, they always lead you right up over the biggest rock to the top of the biggest mountain they can find."
Gatewood told the media at the end of her hike that she had "had enough" and headed back to the Ohio farm.
Ironically, that was her second attempt at the Appalachian Trail. In 1954, she got lost, broke her glasses, spent a miserable night under a boat by a lake and then turned around and came home. She never told the family where she had been.
She hiked the Appalachian Trail again in 1957, going from south to north to get better weather.
She said she was doing it a second time because she wanted "to see some of the things I missed the first time."
If you go...For Hocking Hills information, write to the park at 20160 State Route 664, Logan, OH 43138, 740-385-6841 (park office) or 740-385-6165 (camp office). The Web site is http://www.ohiodnr.com. For tourist information, contact the Hocking Hills Tourism Association at 13178 State Route 664 S., Logan, OH 43138, 740-385-9706 or 800-HOCKING. The Web site is http://www.1800hocking.com.
She completed that hike in 142 days, wore out six pairs of Keds tennis shoes and averaged 14 1/2 miles a day.
In 1964, she hiked the Appalachian Trail again. That hike was completed in sections, not as a thru-hike. At the end, she climbed Mount Katahdin in Maine four times.
She is credited with being the first person to hike the entire trail three times.
Gatewood traveled light. She took an Army blanket, a raincoat, a plastic shower curtain for shelter, a cup, a first-aid kit and one change of clothes, all of which she carried over a shoulder in a homemade bag.
Her diet consisted of dried beef, cheese and nuts, with wild food she found along the way. She rarely cooked along the trail and carried less than 20 pounds in her bag.
She carried no map, no compass, no guidebook, no tent, no sleeping bag and no backpack.
In 1959, Gatewood hiked 2,000 miles along the Oregon Trail from Independence, Mo., to Portland, Ore.
She missed the start of a celebratory wagon train by a week. She started walking and then caught up and passed the wagon train. She averaged 22 miles a day on foot.
In 1958, she hiked in New York's Adirondack Mountains and climbed six of the highest peaks, Seeds said.
In 1960, she hiked Vermont's Long Trail (once), and Pennsylvania's Baker Trail (twice) and the Horseshoe Trail (once).
She hiked the Chesapeake & Ohio Trail twice.
In 1964, at the age of 77, Gatewood blazed a 40-mile loop off the Buckeye Trail from Meigs County through Gallia County to Lawrence County.
She was a charter member of the Buckeye Trail Association and often hiked from her home in Gallia County to the group's meetings in Columbus.
But one of Gatewood's favorite hikes was in Hocking Hills: a 6-mile hike from Ash Cave to Cedar Falls to Old Man's Cave that will be featured in the park's upcoming winter hike.
That stretch of trail is officially known as Grandma Gatewood Trail.
For a number of years, Gatewood led the park's Winter Hike, an event that has grown in size and popularity. She was also active in trail building in the park and elsewhere in southern Ohio.
The Grandma Gatewood Trail is part of the cross-Ohio Buckeye Trail, as well as part of the 4,600-mile federal North Country Trail that runs from New York to North Dakota, and the American Discovery Trail that runs 6,800 miles from California to Delaware.
A round trip on the Grandma Gatewood Trail can be a long one-day hike unless you have two vehicles.
But it offers hikers a chance to see two of Hocking Hills' biggest attractions: Old Man's Cave and Ash Cave.
Old Man's Cave off state Route 664, about 11 miles south of U.S. 33, is the park's most-visited site. It is a very easy hike of 10 minutes from the park's visitor center.
The cave itself is 200 feet long, with the look and feel of a rocky amphitheater. It is 50 feet high and the overhang is 75 feet deep, made of Blackhand sandstone that is 250 million years old.
It gets its name from hermit Richard Rowe, who lived in the cave in pioneer days.
The cave sits in a half-mile-long hemlock-lined gorge with three waterfalls and picturesque pools.
Ash Cave, off state Route 56 at the southern end of the park, is easily accessible and very impressive.
It is Ohio's largest recessed cave. Erosion to the 700-foot horseshoe-shaped rock face created a 100-foot-deep recess and a slender 90-foot-high waterfall.
Ash piles discovered in the cave indicate that Indians used the site.
The area is handicapped-accessible via a paved trail.
Cedar Falls - halfway between the two caves - is considered one of the prettiest waterfalls in Ohio.
It lies on Queer Creek and the water tumbles 50 feet into a pool. In winter, Cedar Falls turns into a giant icicle.
Nonhikers can get to Cedar Falls off state Route 374.
Ohio purchased its first land for the park, 146 acres at Old Man's Cave, in 1924. Today the park covers 2,348 acres but it is surrounded by the 9,238-acre Hocking State Forest. It features 24 miles of hiking trails.
The park also includes three other natural areas with cliffs and rocky outcroppings: Cantwell Cliffs and Rock House, both off state Route 374, and Conkle's Hollow State Nature Preserve off Big Pine Road off state Route 374.
Read more: http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10054/1034600-37.stm#ixzz0gSwJrawa
Created: Feb. 24, 2010
Last updated: Feb. 24, 2010
