Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail audiobook cover

Grandma Gatewood's Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail — One tough grandma versus the Appalachian wild

Rating: 3.5
Author: James Cooper

by Ben Montgomery 🎤Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

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✍️ 3.5 Editorial

🎤 3.5 Narration

7h 56m

Non-Fiction

History & Politics

🎖️

Mission Brief

One tough grandma versus the Appalachian wild

•Comms Quality: Warm and inviting, though occasionally too light for the gritty subject matter.
•Op Tempo: Inspiring survival mixed with a bit too much mid-century history lesson.
•Final Assessment: Borrow/Stream

Is this for you?

✅Pick this if: you love solo survival stories and don't mind mid-century history digressions · you enjoy hiking grit tales and accept filler to reach the inspiring journey · you want pure stubborn determination and can skip slower contextual sections

❌Skip if: you need constant trail momentum or have zero patience for historical tangents · you prefer focused narratives without mid-century politics or weather digressions · you dislike warm cheerful narration mixed with gritty survival subject matter

📚Best for fans of: Sailing Alone Around the World, A Walk in the Woods, Wild

Read Time3 min read

Duration7h 56m

Best Speed:1.25x recommended

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Reviewed byJames Cooper

Retired Colonel, 25 years Army. Cried during The Things They Carried.

🎧 Listens on West Texas drives, looks for grit without expensive gear, zero tolerance for tactical posers.

Last updated: Sep 28, 2026

Deployment Zone 📍

Emma Gatewood makes every "tactical" gear junkie I know look like a crying toddler. Seriously. I run a security firm where guys spend thousands on lightweight polymer nonsense and moisture-wicking fabrics just to stand in a parking lot. Grandma Gatewood hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in Keds. With a shower curtain for a tarp. I listened to this on a drive out to a client site in West Texas—lots of empty road, plenty of time to think about grit. And let me tell you, this woman had it in spades. She didn't have a support team. She didn't have GPS. She just had a sack of clothes and a refusal to quit. That's the kind of operator I respect. That same hardheaded solo-survival streak is what I liked in Sailing Alone Around the World, just with saltwater instead of mud and blisters. ## The Logistics of Grit (and Where the Intel Fails) The core mission here is incredible. A 67-year-old great-grandmother walking 2,050 miles alone in 1955? It's the ultimate survival story. Montgomery did his homework on her journey. You feel the aches, the cold, and the sheer stubbornness required to put one foot in front of the other for five million steps. Ranger (my German Shepherd) perked up every time she encountered a dog on the trail—which was often. But here's where the briefing got messy—the author wanders off the trail more than a lost lieutenant with a broken compass. There is so much filler. Look, I get it. You want to set the scene. But do I really need a deep dive into the weather patterns of 1955 or a tangent on mid-century politics while she's trying to survive the elements? It felt like padding. I found myself tapping the "skip 30 seconds" button just to get back to Gatewood. If I wanted a history textbook on the Eisenhower era, I would've bought one. I wanted the hike. ## The Voice in the Headset Patrick Lawlor is... interesting. He's got this warm, slightly bouncy delivery. It's not the gravelly, serious tone I usually go for in military histories or thrillers. At first, I thought, "This guy sounds way too cheerful for a woman eating berries to survive." But after about an hour, it clicked. He leans into the "quirky grandma" angle. It gives the story a lightness that probably kept me from turning it off during the slower, filler-heavy sections. He captures her spirit—that polite but iron-willed demeanor. Lawlor sounded more squared-away to me on Forgotten 500, where the material gives his steadier gear something heavier to haul. (That said, his character voices for the people she meets on the trail? Not his strong suit. A few sounded like cartoons. I've heard better impersonations from my drunk uncle at Thanksgiving.) ## Who's This Mission For? If you're into hiking, survival stories, or just want to feel bad about complaining that your coffee is too cold—this one's worth your time. Skip it if you have zero patience for historical tangents; the middle section drags with context you didn't ask for. ## Mission Debrief Gatewood is a legend. She saved the Appalachian Trail by shaming the people in charge of it, simply by walking it when they said it couldn't be done. Mission accomplished on that front. The book itself? A bit of a slog in the middle. Just be ready to fast-forward through the history lectures to get back to the action.

After-Action Report 📋

Audio production quality notes that may affect your listening experience

🎙️

Single Narrator

Read by a single narrator throughout the entire audiobook.

🎭

Character Driven

🐢

Slow Burn

Quick Info

Release Date:December 16, 2014

Duration:7h 56m

Language:English

Best Speed:1.25x

Audio Code:58694736

About the Author

Ben Montgomery

1 book

Ben Montgomery is a staff writer at the Tampa Bay Times and cofounder of the Auburn Chautauqua, a Southern writers’ collective. He was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 2010 and has won many national writing awards. He has worked at newspapers in Arkansas, Texas, New York, and Florida.

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About the Narrator

Patrick Lawlor

Patrick Lawlor is an award-winning audiobook narrator based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has narrated over 300 audiobooks across nearly every genre and has been a professional narrator since 2001. Lawlor is also an accomplished stage actor, director, and combat choreographer.

15 books

3.7 rating