An outdoorsman, poet, and hiker, Earl Victor Shaffer was born in 1918 in Pennsylvania. His upbringing near the woods instilled in him a love for nature, and when he returned from serving in the Army during WWII, it was nature that he turned to for healing.

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In honor of his friend Walter Winemiller, Earl decided to take on the challenge of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, seeking through his journey to "walk off the war."

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In 1948, after 6 months of walking more than 2,000 miles from Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine, Earl became the first person to ever thru-hike the Appalachian Trail.

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To this day, he is remembered for his groundbreaking thru-hikes (as the first, then oldest thru-hiker 50 years later in 1998), as well as for his beautiful Trail-inspired poetry, and advocacy for the Appalachian Trail.