The elderly lady set a great example – no hiking boots – no backpack – no GPS – no sleeping bag – no hiking equipment at all – just guts, a backbone and determination.

When 67-year-old Emma Rowena Gatewood told her children, she was going out for a walk, they shrugged, what’s the big deal, grandma.

In 1950, Emma read a story in the National Geographic that would play on her mind for the next five years. It described the famous Appalachian Trail, a 2,168-mile trail stretching from Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine.

The article said that no woman had ever completed the entire hike. In 1955, the indomitable Emma decided the time was right to embark on her impulsive stroll.

Wearing ordinary tennis shoes and packing a blanket, raincoat and plastic shower curtain, she told her by-then adult children she was going out for a walk and without a backward glance grandma set off.

Emma would later explain that the trail was nothing like the description offered in National Geographic which had given the impression of leisurely walks, with clean cabins waiting at the end of each stretch.

‘I thought it would be a nice lark. It wasn’t. There were terrible blowdowns, burnt-over areas that were never re-marked, gravel and sand washouts, weeds and brush to your neck, and most of the shelters were blown down, burned down or so filthy I chose to sleep out of doors.

‘This is no trail. This is a nightmare. For some fool reason, they always lead you right up over the biggest rock to the top of the biggest mountain they can find. I’ve seen every fire station between here and Georgia.

‘Why, an Indian would die laughing his head off if he saw those trails. I would never have started this trip if I had known how tough it was, but I couldn’t and I wouldn’t quit.

The walk ignited something unstoppable in Emma Gatewood. By the age of 75, she had completed the hike a further three times, breaking records as she went. She had also walked the 2,000-mile Oregon Trail from Missouri to Oregon, averaging 22 miles a day.’