Occasionally, our final Siblings’ Book Club list results in slightly more than a “Top Ten.” When this happens, I always include a “Runners Up” section, and this year, AWOL on the Appalachian Trail made it as a runner-up. In hindsight, I wish it had been a Top Ten.

My History with Hiking Books

I’ve dabbled in hiking memoirs before, so a book recounting a months-long hike is nothing new for me. Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer (1996) begins this way, though it soon turns into survival, so barely counts as a hiking memoir. Blind Courage (1992) is far more in this realm, with the added twist of the David McCasland making his hike across the Appalachian trail blind!

Two books, though, nearly derailed my ambition to read anything further in this genre. A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson (1998) was so full of complaining that I couldn’t stomach more than half the book—much like he couldn’t finish his hike! The Way Out by Craig Childs (2004) was so introspective and flowery, I simply couldn’t take it seriously and begged for a way out—of the book.

Thus with a varied history of reading books of this sort, I was leery about what kind of memoir AWOL would be. I was pleasantly surprised to find that it delivers exactly what it promises, an honest reflection of the author’s ambition to reach his goal. This is a highly readable, always informative journal of amateur-hiker David Miller’s “through hike” of the Appalachian Trail.

Favorites of AWOL

What I loved most about this book is that David Miller hiked the trail simply because he wanted to. His marriage wasn’t in shambles. He hadn’t just been laid off from work. He wasn’t even hitting a midlife crisis! He was just a normal dude with a happy marriage, a healthy family, and a good job. He simply wanted to take his hobby to the next level and made all the necessary arrangements to do so. Happiness is such a blaring omission in so many other memoirs, this quirk just stood out to me. He writes:

I never considered quitting. The most uncertainty I had about continuing was when I had injuries: a sore knee, an infected foot, and a sprained ankle. Those injuries tested my resolve, but ultimately reinforced my desire to continue. Possibly it was a motivational advantage for me to be attempting a thru-hike in my particular circumstance: not young, not single, not retired, and not rich. If I left the trail, I couldn’t try again next year. It was a one-shot deal. (Chapter 14)

Miller was able to capture in this book his daily pains, emotions, and encounters along the trail with such clarity, because he had actually been publishing newspaper articles throughout his trek. This ambition thus focused his record-keeping, giving us readers a far more genuine taste of the hike than we’d otherwise get from an author’s hazy recollections based on hastily scribbled notes. This authenticity shines throughout the book.

Apart from discussing the sites and towns and people and pains he experiences along the way, Miller also gets introspective. Take this line for example:

Why do we voluntarily, happily (mostly), submit ourselves to tribulation? Aside from the spectacular moments, aside from the gratification of working to accomplish a goal, there is ownership. This endeavor is much more endurable because we “own” it. We are here by choice, and we are going about it in the way of our own choosing. (Chapter 11)

While Miller gives a real taste of the blisters and failures one has to endure along the trail, he also focuses on the culture of the hike, something that’s composed of both the other hikers and the towns they move through. We get to know certain hikers by their trail names (“AWOL” is Miller’s own moniker), people from all across the spectrum—the loners and the liars, the committed and the quitters.

Conclusion

Overall, “AWOL” took 146 days to hike 2172 miles from south to north, a successful single-season hike that both drained and exhilarated him. His family joined for some portions of the hike, and occasionally they’d meet up in small towns for dinner or a night in a hotel, but Miller walked this thing monster entirely and most often alone. It was an experience of introspection but also of learning more about the trail and people who pepper its path.

One of my favorite lines came in his Epilogue, a piece of life advice that bears repeating:

My daughters, especially my youngest, missed me. Being away from home for long stretches cannot be a way of life. Still, it is important for parents to continue to live their own lives. We can’t sit by and say we’ve already made our decisions, done our striving, and dish out opinions on the doings of our children. Words alone lack authority, and we risk making them surrogates for the life we’d like to lead. We can better relate to the budding aspirations of our children if we follow dreams of our own. (Epilogue)

This was a fantastic read, and I highly recommend it, both for those who might want to tackle the trail themselves and those who know they never could. I’m in that latter group.

©2025 E.T.