{"id":43,"date":"2025-09-03T04:31:00","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T04:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=43"},"modified":"2025-09-26T01:05:35","modified_gmt":"2025-09-26T01:05:35","slug":"gene-espy-pioneering-appalachian-trail-dude-gone-at-98","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/?p=43","title":{"rendered":"Gene Espy, pioneering Appalachian Trail dude, gone at 98"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Nice article in the NYT that should be accessible without being a subscriber. He was the second person to thru-hike the whole length of the trail &#8211; did it in 1951.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"300\" height=\"168\" src=\"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/6a00d834525a2f69e202e860f27f67200b-300wi.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10040\" title=\"Gene espy 1\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/09\/01\/us\/gene-espy-dead.html?campaign_id=2&amp;emc=edit_th_20250902&amp;instance_id=161699&amp;nl=today%27s-headlines&amp;regi_id=87616590&amp;segment_id=205078&amp;user_id=1c634a87d1656cc79c8753416632bbac\">But on May 31, 1951, when he was 24, he began a new journey that was even more arduous and seemingly preposterous: hiking the length of the Appalachian Trail, some 2,000 miles, northward from Georgia to Maine, in a single, continuous trek known as a \u201cthru-hike.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">It had been done once before, in 1948, by <a class=\"css-yywogo\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2002\/05\/12\/us\/earl-shaffer-first-hike-length-appalachian-trail-both-directions-dies-83.html\" title=\"\">Earl Shaffer,<\/a> a Pennsylvanian. But Mr. Espy didn\u2019t know about Mr. Shaffer until a farmer showed him a newspaper clipping while he was already on his expedition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">\u201cHe didn\u2019t do it to be the first,\u201d Mr. Espy\u2019s daughter Jane Gilsinger said in an interview. \u201cHe did it to have fun and see God in nature.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\">Here is his college 1950 yearbook picture &#8211;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"188\" height=\"241\" src=\"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/6a00d834525a2f69e202e860f27f73200b-200wi.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10041\" title=\"Gene espy yearbook\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"css-at9mc1 evys1bk0\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nice article in the NYT that should be accessible without being a subscriber. He was the second person to thru-hike the whole length of the trail &#8211; did it in 1951. But on May 31, 1951, when he was 24, he began a new journey that was even more arduous and seemingly preposterous: hiking the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=43"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10042,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43\/revisions\/10042"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=43"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=43"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tomfarandasfolly.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=43"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}