The Vista: An American Hiking Society Blog

Leonard Adkins, his wife, Laurie, and their 13-year-old dog, MacAfee of Knob, this week will begin a trek of the Appalachian Trail. It will be Adkins’ fifth hike of the 2,176-mile trail, Laurie’s fourth and the dog’s second.
Meet Leonard Adkins.

He is 55 years old and though he has called Virginia his home since 1991, he grew up in Charleston's East End.

His childhood was no foreshadowing whatsoever for the accomplishment Adkins would achieve, one that very few people in the world have achieved, and that is to hike the 2,176-mile Appalachian Trail that runs from Georgia to Maine.

According to the trail's official Web site, though 9,000 or more hikers have reported that they completed the entire hike since the trail was completed in 1936, a mere 125 or so have completed the journey two or more times. And just 30 have completed it three or more times.

Later this week, Adkins begins his fifth trek. His wife, Laurie, begins her fourth.

Their 13-year-old dog, MacAfee of Knob -- named for a 3,400-foot peak along the trail in Virginia -- begins his second trek.

It probably doesn't need to be said here, but few dogs complete the trail, let alone 13-year-old dogs. The Adkins' veterinarian has declared Mac, a 50-pound mixed breed, fit for the trip and he is one reason they intend to take a leisurely seven months for this journey.

How the self-described "city boy" arrived at this place -- where he hikes and writes about it for a living -- is remarkable, though Adkins would likely say it merely was a fortunate series of events.

He was never particularly athletic.

"I knew nothing about the woods," he said. Though he was a Boy Scout, "My scoutmaster's idea of camping out was driving out to an open field and setting up tents."

It was 1980, he was 29 years old, single, and had left a job as a social worker with the state welfare department when a friend proposed an adventure.

"He said, ‘Let's hike the Appalachian Trail together.' I said, ‘OK. What is it?' "

Adkins got a two-volume set on the trail, recalling "everybody in the book seemed to be having a good time."

He visited an outdoors store then located in Dunbar to learn what kind of equipment he'd need. He asked his boss at the stereo store where he worked for six months off.

"Amazingly, he said yes."

"As we got close to the time we were leaving, I started thinking, ‘I've never hiked a day in my life.'

"So one month before we were leaving, I drove

up to Spruce Knob and hiked two miles out -- what I'd call a tourist path now. I set up my tent.

"The next day, I walked two miles back out. And I said, ‘Well, 2,000 miles to go. Piece of cake.' "

Two weeks before he and his friend were to leave, the friend backed out. Adkins decided to forge ahead.

"I was in for a real shock," he recalled of his first days in Georgia. The beginning and end of the trail are the most difficult to traverse, with rough trails and huge altitude changes.

"I intended on doing the whole thing. But I only did 900 miles."

"Because I didn't know what to expect, in lots of ways I sort of fought the trail," he said. "It defeated me."

The story could have ended there, but that trail stayed in Adkins' head. He returned to Charleston and his job at the electronics store.

"March rolled around and I started to get the urge to finish what I started," he said. He asked his boss for time off -- and got five months. He began where he'd left off the year before, and this time he succeeded.

"It was like something had really changed in me and I'm not sure how to describe it," he said. "Something had happened to me over the winter. I started thinking every day is a day hike. And I'm having fun. And the next day is another day hike.

"The next thing I knew, the trail was over with.

"It was a total difference. And from then on, I was hooked."

He met Laurie in 1982, 10 days into his second through-hike -- that's what they call it when you hike the whole trail.

"We had the same hiking pace and we ended up hiking all the way to Maine together," he said. They married five years later.

Laurie comes from an avid sailing family and after a cruise through the Caribbean, where they took time to hike, Adkins decided to write a book about the experience.

"I'd never written anything -- I wrote it in long hand," he said. "The 17th publisher I tried went with the book."

He just finished his 15th book -- an explorer's guide to West Virginia. He has hiked more than 17,000 miles through the United States, Canada and Europe.

It is a good life, and Adkins has learned to survive bumps in the road.

He tries not to let weather or trail conditions daunt him.

"Whenever it's a bad day, you know a good day is coming," he said.

"Besides, what else would I be doing? Sitting behind a desk."

In 1990, just after he and Laurie returned from a hike of the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France, he had a heart attack.

"After 10 years of hiking 2,000 miles a year," he noted, dryly. "But how that happened -- it was genetics."

He's since had a clean bill of health, fortunately.

Adkins and his family leave today for Georgia. They plan to start hiking late Wednesday or early Thursday.

This will be a leisurely trip for all. Laurie, a physician's assistant, has quit her job to make this hike.

Adkins said they will take their time because they are older. But more than that, he wants to savor the journey.

"Even though we've taken five or five and a half months in the past, Laurie and I have always been disappointed when we've finished," he said. "We just always wanted it to last longer and to be out there longer."

"So this time around we decided we're going to take our time.