Long walk into history: Macon’s Espy was second hiker to complete Appalachian Trail

ALPHARETTA — The man who once walked more than 2,000 miles on the sides of mountains now moves slowly across the living room floor, his wife and daughter flanking his walker.

Eugene “Gene’’ Espy is in the 97th autumn of life. Time has marched across his body and chipped away at his short-term memory.

 But he is still revered by those familiar with his story. 

Monday will mark the 73rd anniversary of the day he arrived at Mount Katahdin, Maine. On Sept. 30, 1951, he became the second “thru-hiker” to complete the Appalachian Trail, the longest continuous and marked footpath in the world.

To celebrate the day, the Espy family will visit Amicalola Falls State Park. The tent, backpack, boots, socks, carbide lamp, cooking utensils and canteen he took on his historic hike are on display at the Appalachian Trail Visitor’s Center.

Espy will also venture out and take a few symbolic “steps” at the stone arch at the main gateway – the ceremonial starting point on the “approach” trail. (The official trailhead starts 8.5 miles away at Springer Mountain.)

“He is determined, even if it rains,’’ said his daughter, Jane Gilsinger. “He kept hiking in the rain in 1951.’’ 

This past week, a 31-year-old Virginia woman named Tara Dower made headlines by conquering the 2,197-mile trail with a record Fastest Known Time (FKT) of 40 days, 18 hours and 5
minutes. 

She headed southbound from Maine to the southern terminus at Springer Mountain. She averaged almost 54 miles per day — the equivalent of running two marathons — adopting “every second counts’’ as her trail motto.  

By contrast, Espy began his 2,o50-mile journey at Mount Oglethorpe in north Georgia. He kept pushing ahead until he reached Mount Katahdin four months later. 

He paced himself across 14 states and 2,025 miles. He averaged 16.5 miles each day, including as many as 34 miles in one stretch.

 After mailing home his shaving razor to create more room in his steel-framed backpack, he arrived at the finish line sporting a 123-day-old beard. He lost 28 pounds, wore out three pairs of hiking boots, and killed 15 rattlesnakes. 

Although Dower’s feat was impressive, she was a young lady in a hurry. I doubt she had time to stop and smell the mountain laurel. Every moment must have been a rush, like fast-forwarding through a movie and missing all the beautiful cinematography.

Espy’s mission was to enjoy the journey. He carried his Bible with him and read it every day. “I was out to enjoy God in nature,’’ he said. He savored sunrises and sunsets and found wonder in wildflowers.

Growing up in Cordele, he was never at a loss for adventure. As a young man, he was a hybrid of Indiana Jones and Huck Finn. 

He became the first Boy Scout in his hometown to achieve the rank of Eagle Scout. He taught himself to waterski on a pair of homemade skis at Lake Blackshear by watching newsreels at the movie theater.  At age 16, he took a 740-mile bicycle trek through three states. He navigated a 125-mile stretch of the Ocmulgee River in a homemade sailboat.

“He was brave. He wasn’t scared of anything,’’ Gilsinger said. “He would have made a great Navy SEAL.’’

When he was a student at Georgia Tech, Espy drove a motorcycle up the sloped side to the top of Stone Mountain – the largest piece of exposed granite in North America. He hitchhiked to St. Louis and back in two days just to prove it could be done. 

His fascination with the Appalachian Trail came after hearing his seventh-grade teacher talking about it in class. A weeklong hike in the Great Smoky Mountains later whetted his appetite for the adventure.

  The early 1950s were the neophyte years of the Appalachian Trail. It was a time when the path was often crude, overgrown and poorly marked.  After requesting maps from the National Park Service in Washington, D.C., Espy was asked to take notes and make revisions along the way. The trail was very much a work in progress. Espy was a trailblazer in every sense of the word.

“He was out there all by himself and had to trust that the maps were OK,’’ his daughter said. “He would go a week without seeing someone else.’’

While Dower enlisted a support team helping her with logistics, food and supplies, Espy’s walk in the woods was a solo flight. The only voices he heard were the songbirds of the forests and the sounds of animals in the darkness at night.

He began his hike one month after his 24th birthday. He carried a 45-pound backpack and a walking stick he had carved as a scout.

Although he had informed his parents that he was going hiking, his mother was the “worrying kind,’’ so he did not mention he planned to go the distance.

He would have started sooner, only he had to wait for his 18-year-old hiking companion to graduate from high school. After one day on the trail, the young man took a hike. Literally. He quit and returned home.

There were no cell phones, of course. Espy would stop in towns along the trail and buy postcards to send to his family back home Cordele.

He would write to his girlfriend, Eugenia, who lived in nearby Warwick. They married three years after he finished the hike and celebrated their 70th anniversary this year.

Espy did not seek notoriety after his hike. He did not consider it all that remarkable. He and Eugenia moved to Macon in 1960, where he worked at the Naval Ordnance Plant and aerospace engineer at Robins Air Force Base.

He became a legend in the hiking world.  Espy was among those who cut the ribbon for the dedication of the new visitor’s center at Amicalola last October. In March, he returned for a book signing and a question and answer session with hiking enthusiasts.

A commemorative plaque honoring him was placed where the trail crosses the Richard Russell Scenic Highway between Helen and Blairsville. In 2008, he wrote his autobiography, “The Trail of My Life.”  His book has been displayed everywhere from the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, D.C., to L.L. Bean in Freeport, Maine.

There is a carved bust of Espy at the Appalachian Trail Hall of Fame at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, which is near the midpoint of the trail.  In 2011, he was one of six men (and the only one still living) inducted into the inaugural Hall of Fame class. The late Earl Shaffer, who was credited with finishing in August 1948, six years before Espy, was among those inducted posthumously.

Some trail historians believe Espy actually might have been the first thru-hiker. They claim Shaffer bypassed about 170 miles of the trail by taking shortcuts on country roads and traveling for short distances as a hitchhiker. 

But the Appalachian Trail Conservancy still recognizes Shaffer as the Neil Armstrong of the AT, and that’s OK with Espy. “We let it go,’’ Gilsinger said.

In his soft-spoken voice, Espy told me “hiking the trail meant more to me than just about anything I’ve ever done.’’

Gene and Eugenia Espy left Macon in 2019 to live with their daughter in Alpharetta. 

Gilsinger said she
cherished growing up in Macon with a father who was “different from most fathers I knew then.’’

“Mine shared his love of nature as he taught my sister and me, and later his grandchildren, how to identify trees, plants, and birds,’’ she said. “We took many walks in the woods around the church across from our house. My father emphasized the valuable gift of taking the time to be still and listen to the sounds of the forest, as he did on the AT. 

“I have always had great respect, admiration and trust for my father, so my view of him has largely never changed. I remain awestruck at his pioneering AT hike, and I love to see his joy when meeting other hikers. As a child, I felt he knew everything and could do anything – and did do more than most fathers. In return, he believed that I could achieve whatever I wanted, too.’’

Gilsinger said her father continues to be an inspiration to others along the trails – and trials – of life. She has observed this whenever they traveled to Damascus, Virginia for the Appalachian Trail Days Festival.

“People have come up to tell him about how he inspired them in other areas,’’ she said. “He helped them in their personal life. It’s a story of perseverance. 

“Every day, I have a greater appreciation for him, overcoming the challenges of being older. One foot in front of the other is still his motto.’’