Breaking the Appalachian Trail record step by step

What: “An Evening with Jennifer Pharr Davis,” overall record holder for thru hike of the Appalachian Trail
When: Wed., Nov. 5, 6:30 - 8 p.m.
Where: Durango Public Library

When Jennifer Pharr Davis set out to complete the Appalachian Trail in June of 2011, she was also setting out to walk into the history books. Not only did the 28-year-old finish the 2,181-mile trail in a record time of 46 days, 11 hours and 20 minutes – a record previously only held by men – but she shattered it by 26 hours. And she did it all by hiking – an average of 47 miles a day.

With her accomplishment, Pharr Davis, who had previously hiked the trail in 2005 and 2008, set the ultra-running world as well as the conventional approach to the trail on its head. For the 20 years prior to her hike, the Appalachian Trail record had been confined to ultra runners who typically covered the requisite 30 to 50 miles per day in a 11- to 13-hour periods. The commonly held belief was that a new record would require running faster with the same strategy – most certainly by a male.

However, Pharr Davis, not only broke the norm by hiking from north to south, but she hiked for 16 hours a day, beginning at 4:45 in the morning and walking well into darkness. To stick to her pace, she slept on the trail or at road crossings. Her husband, Brew Davis, served as her support crew.

Pharr Davis, of Asheville, N.C., will be at the Durango Public Library next Wed., Nov. 5, to talk about her experiences on the trail. She has written two guidebooks as well two memoirs: 2010’s Becoming Odyssa, about hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2005, and her most recent book, 2013’s Called Again: A Story of Love and Triumph, about her 2011record-setting hike. She also is the owner of her own guide business; was named one of National Geographic’s “Adventurers of the Year” in 2012; and was named Ultra- running Magazine’s  2011 “Female Performance of the Year. Her adventures have covered more than 12,000 miles on six continents.

“Records are made to be broken,” Pharr Davis told National Geographic. “It’s not the number. The method and the approach are what matters more at the end of the day.”

 But, Pharr Davis acknowledges she wasn’t always a world record-breaker or adventurer. She describes her first trip on the trail, at 21, filled with trials and tribulations. “I was not adventurer of the year; I was idiot of the year,” she told National Geographic. “I got struck by lightning. I had my eyes freeze shut in a snowstorm. I was followed by some male hikers I did not want attention from. I even came across a suicide on the trail. It was the hardest five months of my life.”

But as time passed, she realized how much she had grown, and the hike became a pivotal “life-changing” experience. “It left me longing to go back to the trail ... My ultimate goal isn’t to set a record. It’s to have a lifelong relationship with the trail,” she said.