The Appalachian Trail, that celebrated and often idealized 2000-mile footpath between Maine and Georgia, taunts the imaginations of those who have never hiked it from end to end, and haunts the memories of those who have. Kirk Ward Robinson, trail name Solo, had already completed three southbound thru-hikes of the Appalachian Trail when he returned in 2021 for a fourth, northbound this time.

After his third southbound thru-hike in 2018, Robinson hadn’t planned to return to the trail again until 2028; but then reeling from a personal loss, the Covid pandemic, and an encroaching sense of mortality, he returned just three years later, at the age of sixty-two, to test himself once again on an Appalachian Trail that had grown to 2193.1 miles in length.

Through journal entries and lively prose, Robinson explores mortality, friendship, tradition, and obsession in a day-by-day narrative that is often humorous, always honest, and lays bare the reality of the Appalachian Trail during a journey that he believes was worth every drop of sweat and blood.

Final Notes from the Field: Northbound on the Appalachian Trail, the third and final installment in Robinson’s Notes from the Field series, pushes the boundaries of age and expectation while recounting twenty years of adventure on the Appalachian Trail.

See also Volumes I and II of the series:

Notes from the Field: A Diary of Journeys Near and Far

More Notes from the Field: Southbound on the Appalachian Trail and Other Journeys