Quick Summary
Betty "Legend" Kellenberger reflects on why hiking is so hard to explain to non-hikers who question her sanity for wanting to keep going. She frames movement as a lifelong practice — one that's kept her capable at 80 because she started at 40 — and contrasts the simplicity of a hiker's daily routine (wake, pack, eat, hike, camp, repeat) with the clutter of everyday life like TV, chores, and pointless meetings. She reframes hikers' complaints about wet socks, cold starts, and exhaustion not as pity-seeking but as celebration and redefines "victory" in small terms: dry socks, a found protein bar, a flat tent site. The real challenge isn't hiking a specific trail but simply deciding to commit to a life that makes each day count.
Words and Photos by Betty “Legend” Kellenberger
In 2025, at the young age of 80, Betty “Legend” Kellenberger became the oldest woman to ever complete an Appalachian Trail thru hike, and she’s got no plan to stop exploring trails around the world anytime soon. Read about her 2025 AT thru hike HERE.
What is it about hiking that I wish I could share with my non-hiking friends? Do not get me wrong. I have tried. I just don’t seem to be able to share it in such a way that they can understand or accept. Their obvious doubt is always present. In the questions they ask, after I share my answer, or the statements they offer up as reasonableness that seem to question my sanity, my grip on reality, and why they will “continue to pray for me.”
I had a friend inquire what my plans were now? After I had completed the Appalachian Trail. After I set a new age record. After I’d gotten back home. I started to describe my next hike. She was visibly shocked. Why would I do that? Why wasn’t my accomplishment enough? She was befuddled.
What does enough mean? Does enough mean I no longer have to move? To train? To get off the couch and go out again? To experience the joy that comes from physical activity? Or the delight that comes from spending time in God’s creation?
To me, movement is a way of life. Because I moved when I was 40, I am able to move when I am 80. To me movement means no TV., no dusting, no pointless meetings where everyone feels the need to be heard, whether they have something to say or not. Anything that keeps your focus on your troubles and not your blessings. Having an attitude of entitlement rather than an attitude of gratitude.
Hiking is experiencing the world "outdoors." It begins with a shorter, simpler to-do list.
Get up – check
Pack up – check
Eat – check
Hike – check
Set up tent – check
Repeat
And yet, every day is different. Where you went? How long you hiked? What you saw? Who you walked with when it would appear there is no one there? It is having time to figure out who you are, what you truly believe.
When hikers describe the conditions we’ve endured, it is not pity we are seeking. We are bragging. We are acknowledging. We are celebrating. Whether it is hiking in wet socks, a cold start, tired backs, sore feet, exhaustion at the end of the day that is intense enough to silently debate food OR sleep because we cannot imagine or conjure the sufficient strength or willpower to do both.
Victory to a hiker means finding a pair of dry socks. Not necessarily clean, just dry. Discovering an unexpected protein bar in our food sack. A tent site that doesn’t slant too badly. Enough filtered water left in our bottles that we can wait ‘til morning to resupply. Victory can mean waiting til morning to celebrate because, right now, we are just too tired.
To the uninitiated, that sounds like torture, which makes our explanations totally inadequate.
How can we help them understand that the hardest decision is deciding to? Whatever that means for them. Not ‘to hike the AT,’ though that was one of my decisions. Any decision that results in a life-altering commitment to move, to do, and to consistently figure out a way to make each day count.
To quote (without permission) Dr. Seuss, “Oh, the places you’ll go.”
