Move & Explore
Extraordinary effort
2-6
Local 5-Year-Old Becomes Youngest to Conquer a Northbound Trek on the Appalachian Trail
Photo and reporting by
Liberty Champion
Harvey Sutton walked 2,193.1 miles with his parents over 209 days, Georgia to Maine, finishing the Appalachian Trail at 5 years, 4 months and 11 days old, the youngest northbound thru-hiker on record. A few weeks later he started kindergarten, where he's learning to count to five.
The parent picked up a hammer too
Josh and Cassie didn't carry Harvey when his legs got tired. They played make-believe with him for ten hours a day, and when they leaned into the game, his pace picked up on its own.
Why we picked this one
The record is the headline: youngest person to walk the whole trail north, 2,193.1 miles, five years old. What actually got him up the mountain, by his dad's own account, was ten hours a day of pretend games, because that's what kept a five-year-old's legs moving faster than a crawl. You don't need six months and a YouTube channel for the small version, just a trailhead, a game you're willing to play badly, and a mile you assumed your kid couldn't finish.
Pick a trail that actually goes somewhere, a lookout, a creek, a fire tower, anything better than the parking lot. The phone stays zipped up until you're standing in front of it, whether that takes twenty minutes or all afternoon.
Read the full story at
Liberty Champion
Where it happened:
Lynchburg, VA
Nobody thought a five-year-old could walk 2,193 miles until he did it, one make-believe game at a time. The trail behind your house is still just sitting there.