Synopses & Reviews
In 2000, inspired by her father, Leslie Mass decided she would turn a lifelong fantasy into reality.At the age of 59, she began to train for a grueling journey, a thru-hike of the 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail. i]In Beauty May She Walk /i] chronicles Leslie's struggles and triumphs during her hike. On the trail, Leslie struggles with how to balance the needs of her family and friends while making the trail a priority; how to shed years of social conditioning that dictate how a woman should act and how to know when to ask for help, while understanding that sometimes, help has to come from within. As the terrain toughens, she struggles to keep up physically with the trail community she depends on socially to keep going and realizes the difficulty of maintaining her obligations to family and friends. After Sept. 11, 2001, it all changes for a hiker even more alone on the Appalachian Trail.
Synopsis
This college administrator's well-written account of setting out to hike the Appalachian Trail at age 60, beginning with the learning and training process, is full of rich and emotionally charged detail about the journey and the personal growth that resulted from it, says
Library Journal.
From the back cover:
For the first few weeks, Leslie learns how to pitch a tent in the rain, make her food bag animal-proof, and keep her socks dry. When terrain toughens, she struggles physically to keep up with the trail community she socially depends on to keep going and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, every day to reach her destination. After September 11, 2001, she copes with being seemingly the only hiker on the trail for miles, eventually forcing her to change her definition of "hiking her own hike.