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Meet Ellen Wolfe
When she was about your age, Ellen Wolfe made a decision: to hike the Appalachian Trail. Stretching 2,160 miles through 14 States, it is one of the toughest trails in the world. Each year, 3,000 people set out to hike it, but less than 10 percent finish. Of that number, less than 20 percent are women. On July 23, 1997, after 4 months and 23 days of hiking from Georgia to Maine, Ellen became the first woman that year to complete the trail. But her journey started much earlier—when she was a small child in New Hampshire. She asked her mother, "Why is there white paint on that tree?" Ellen's mother explained that the white stripes on trees and rocks marked the path for hikers on the Appalachian Trail. Ellen decided that one day she would hike it, and years later, at age 44, she did! Carrying everything she would need in her backpack, Ellen set out on a cold, drizzly day from the southern tip of the trail in Elijay, GA. She hiked through snow, wind, rain, and some of the toughest terrain on the east coast. But through it all, she never lost sight of her goal—to finish the trail. Ellen also decided to turn her hike into a fundraiser for breast cancer research. She called it "A Hike for Healing" and raised over $10,000 to donate to the American Cancer Society. Ellen writes that she was "building success one step at a time." Those steps led her past the homes of bears in western Tennessee, wild ponies in Virginia, porcupines in Massachusetts, and moose in Maine to the top of Mt. Katahdin- the end of the Appalachian Trail. Recounting her journey, Ellen writes "it seemed like a dream. It was a dream come true." To look at a map of the Appalachian Trail, visit the National Park Service's site. |
