Trails are connectors. They guide us from one place to another, but the path is rarely linear.

And the movement is less about the destination and more about the connections we make along the way,

with the land, with each other, and with ourselves.

The Appalachian Trail winds 2,190 miles up the eastern spine of the United States.

Though connected in 1937, the trail, the people who walk it, the animals who call it home, and the landscape it follows are ever evolving.

Where we walk is a special six-part series made in collaboration with the Appalachian Trail Conservancy

with support from REI that explores the women who help make the trail what it is

today and those who will help shape its future.

It was hard, you know, just pushing myself physically like that, but it was a kind of experience that made me dig deep and realized like what I was made of.

The Appalachian Trail really set the stage for my relationship with the outdoors.

It was a lifetime goal of mine to hike the AT and I was lucky enough to have been able to complete it all

even though I had to wait until I retired. But the most important thing I think that I found on the trail was the magic of the trail itself.

The hikers talked a lot about trail magic, but the real magic for me were the actual hikers. Home can be a lot of places.

And home for me is really where I can be my authentic self,

for the most part, that's dancing on a trail.

It doesn't really matter where, but... for the most part that's dancing on a trail.

It doesn't really matter where, but the AT

does feel like home.

I'm Gail Strav, and I'm Laura Borshevsky. On this, the very first episode of where we walk, we're reflecting on your memories of the Appalachian Trail, or AT.

The AT was conceived almost 100 years ago by Benton McKay to help communities around the trail escape industrialization and find connection in nature.

It was built by volunteers and to this day is still managed and protected by thousands of volunteers who give their time so that future generations may also enjoy the trail.

As you'll hear in this episode, the memories we make on the Appalachian Trail extend beyond the real-time steps we take.

...