Walking on the Wild Side

"Walking on the Wild Side traces the stories of forty-six men and women who, for their own personal reasons, set out to hike America's most well-known, and arguably most social, long-distance hiking trail. Once on the Appalachian Trail, long-distance hikers live mostly in isolation, with their own way of acting, talking, and thinking; their own vocabulary; their own activities and interests; their own conception of what is significant in life; and to a certain extent their own scheme of life. As a result of this transformative experience, the Appalachian Trail becomes a 'storied' place for hikers where the power of place unfolds in the stories they share about their trail experiences. In Walking on the Wild Side, Fondren reveals the distinct social world created by long-distance hikers. As a microcosm of the broader social world, long-distance hikers on the Appalachian Trail seem to have one foot inside American cultural mainstream and one foot outside of it"--Provided by publisher.