Why would a sane person do this…?

At the Speed of Foot, is Mark Fleming’s account of hiking more than 2,400 miles on the famed Appalachian Trail.  In this memoir, Mark describes the look and feel of a of a trail he followed for six months in 2002 from Georgia to Maine and his ten-week return to the trail three years later. An avid hiker, Mark came to know the trail in the Blue Ridge Mountains near his home in Virginia and the idea of hiking the entire distance—to “thru-hike” the Appalachian Trail—grew from that introduction.  Mark’s spare prose and lyric descriptions put the reader on the trail with him, to share the hardship and joy of an incredible journey.

More than simply a hiking story, At the Speed of Foot, explores the events and ideas that led Mark to the Appalachian Trail.  Along with the mountain, forests, small towns and other hikers, Mark reflects on his experience as a combat veteran of Vietnam.  Anger and guilt contrast with the often subtle, sometimes spectacular, landscape that passes under Mark’s feet.

A million things separate what I am doing now from combat, yet for an instant, I see a file of green clad figures moving carefully ahead.  I look for booby traps.  It would be so easy to set one up on this trail.   I scan the woods on either side, looking for... what?  Viet Cong?  North Vietnamese soldiers?  Absolution?  All that was so long ago.  Why is this still so much a part of me?

In addition to Mark, who hiked under the trail name Rez Dog, the reader also meets Red, Gary, Montreal, Kutsa, Radar, Rocky Top, Polish Ninja, Kali-Frodo and other thru-hikers.  This band of brothers and sisters, all sharing the same dream, is a unique family in an alternate world, separate from the many population centers adjacent to the Appalachian Trail corridor.  This alternate world is defined exclusively by the footpath that runs from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Katahdin Summit in Maine.  Everything else is extraneous.  Only the next step is real.

At the Speed of Foot is a journey of discovery and endurance that encompasses the romantic allure and the hard reality of the Appalachian Trail.  Readers can decide for themselves if the trip is sane or otherwise.

For more information, please visit www.speedoffoot.com.