'Grandma Gatewood's Walk' by Ben Montgomery

Join Cal Lutheran faculty members and distinguished panelists for a discussion about Grandma Gatewood’s Walk: The Inspiring Story of the Woman Who Saved the Appalachian Trail. The nonfiction work by Pulitzer-nominated writer and journalist Ben Montgomery is the 2016 selection in the series Thousand Oaks Reads: One City, One Book.

In the spring of 1955, Emma Gatewood told her family she was going on a walk. She left her small Ohio farm with a change of clothes and less than $200. The next anybody heard from her, this 67-year-old great-grandmother had walked 800 miles along the 2,050-mile Appalachian Trail. When she stood atop Maine’s Mount Katahdin in September, she was the first woman to hike the entire trail alone.

Admission is free. Thousand Oaks Reads: One City, One Book is a literary event encouraging community members to read and discuss the same book. A four-week celebration of the selected book includes discussion groups and special events.