Backpacking the Appalchian Trail With Seven Kids: Laura Tolbert Survived to Tell the Tale!

Laura Tolbert (00:00)
We actually only took one trip as all nine of us before we went. It was supposed to be six days and we only did four and then we came home. And that was honestly really discouraging kind of because like we couldn’t even do six days and now we think we can do six months.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (00:03)
Okay.

Yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (00:27)
On today’s episode, we’re speaking with Laura Tolbert. And let me tell you how excited I am to be speaking with Laura Tolbert.

She and her family, which includes herself, her husband, and her seven kids completed the Appalachian Trail from March through September of 2025. And she’s been planning this for a while, and I’ve been following her social media about the planning, and I’ve been so excited for them to embark on this crazy journey, seven kids on the Appalachian Trail. Okay.

But I’ve been so excited to follow her adventure. So every day checking in, she would share like a ⁓ tidbit from the day every day. So I’ve been, you know, religiously stalking her social medias. And then as soon as she was done, I was like, please be on my podcast. I cannot wait to talk to you. I can’t wait to get more information, but also share it with everybody because

I know other people are interested in hiking the Appalachian Trail and they want to know, it possible? Is it plausible to do this with kids? And Laura will let you know all the good, the bad and the ugly about it. So without further ado, I’m so excited to share this episode with you. So let’s get into it.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (01:49)
Hi, Laura. Thank you so much for joining me today. I’m so excited to talk to you about your experience on the Appalachian Trail. ⁓ How are you doing? How you feeling? Now you’re back home.

Laura Tolbert (01:58)
Hey Lauren, I am feeling great. It’s really, really nice to just all the things we were dreaming about missing when we were gone. Now we have them all back.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:09)
Now you have it all

back. You have a new appreciation for all of that too, right?

Laura Tolbert (02:13)
Yes, yes, the

house is just like exactly as it was when we left it and and that’s kind of kind of nice.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:20)
It is

nice to return to like the normalcy, the, you know, the day to day, right? The regular, the day to day.

Laura Tolbert (02:23)
Yeah, right. There were teams

that were familiar and some we liked, some we liked less, but yes, it’s really great to be back.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:33)
just so the audience knows, Laura just completed the full Appalachian Trail with her family. tell me who is in your family, ages, how many, you have a lot of kids. So will give me the breakdown?

Laura Tolbert (02:43)
Yes,

yes. So my husband and I both went and then we have seven kids. Our oldest is 18 and we have a 16 year old and then we have a 15 year old and a 13 year old who both had birthdays on the trail. So they started at 12 and 14. I think one thought it was fun and one thought it was kind of maybe not her first choice.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (02:58)
That’s fun! What a fun way to celebrate!

Okay.

Laura Tolbert (03:07)
And

then we have an 11 year old, nine year old, and a now eight year old who was seven for the whole hike

and turned eight

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (03:13)
wow. That’s I

Laura Tolbert (03:14)
couple days after we got back. Yes. Yes. Right. And that definitely impacted how the hike went. Yes. Yeah, for sure.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (03:16)
Yeah, that’s a good crew, though, that’s a big age difference, too, right, especially between 18 to seven. Totally different. Yeah, I was going to say skill level speed, you know, all of that. So

I know this decision was made a few years ago, to hike the Appalachian Trail. why did you decide you want to do this? And then how did you?

Laura Tolbert (03:33)
Yes.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (03:38)
decide that as a family that everyone was gonna be doing this.

Laura Tolbert (03:42)
Yeah, my husband

would joke that this was like the most planned out midlife crisis that anybody could have because we planned it for about seven years when I was pregnant with our youngest is when we hatched the idea. he had had a dream of doing this since middle school, but I didn’t even know what backpacking was like that word had no context for me at all until we were probably married for at least five years, maybe 10.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (03:49)
I love that.

wow.

Did he get you into backpacking and hiking and everything or…

Laura Tolbert (04:15)
He

he did we we camped together we met in middle school and so we camped together with a friend group in high school But not really a hiking kind of camping just like hanging around campfire kind of thing But then after we got married we went to Glacier National Park on our honeymoon and took a long hike There and it just sort of gradually became part of what our family did over the years that high school campout turned into people

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (04:20)
Okay.

Laura Tolbert (04:45)
bringing their spouses and children. And then it just kind of grew from there. And so then he suggested maybe he could do this someday. And I was like, oh, that’s nice. Maybe when the kids are gone. And then we watched some like a documentary and the documentary was really positive and made it seem really fun. And we knew that our youngest was gonna be our last one.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (04:48)
That’s fun.

Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (05:11)
And we were just like, let’s all go. It’ll be great. But none of us had ever gone backpacking before, except for my husband, when we made that decision. So then it was like seven years of figuring out, do we actually like doing this? And we did. So we kept, kept planning.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (05:13)
Let’s do it.

Gotcha. Gotcha.

Yeah.

how hard was it to convince the kids that you guys were gonna do this?

Laura Tolbert (05:33)
I mean, it really wasn’t difficult. The younger ones, it kind of was just part of their growing up. Like, we’re planning for this, this is what we’re doing. The older ones, they watched that documentary too. So they were like, oh, this does look

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (05:36)
Okay.

⁓

Laura Tolbert (05:50)
So it really wasn’t difficult to convince people that.

that they would be willing to do it. There were definitely some kids that were really excited and some kids that were like, okay, I’ll get this and we’ll do it and it’ll be behind us. Yes, exactly.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (06:05)
We’ll check that box and never have to look at it again.

how did you handle school then on the trail? You homeschool, correct?

Laura Tolbert (06:15)
Yes, we homeschool and I did not want to have to have.

that kind of hanging over our heads while we were out there. So we started in July, on July 1st of 2024, we started school, which was really painful. I do not like doing schoolwork in the summer. know some homeschoolers do, but I’m like a full summer break homeschooler. And so we started on July 1st so that we were done before we left. And then we’re actually starting, we haven’t started yet. We just got back.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (06:20)
Yeah.

And to give up your summer.

Gotcha.

Laura Tolbert (06:46)
We finished at the very end of September and then we’re starting school mid-October. We’re starting it next week.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (06:52)
Okay,

okay, so it was worth the sacrifice of the summer to be able to thoroughly enjoy the trail. Yeah, yeah.

Laura Tolbert (06:55)
Yes, yes, and maybe the sacrifice. Yes, maybe

two summers because I think we’ll have to go into next summer a little bit, but that’s okay. And they learned a lot on the trail. harder to quantify what

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:03)
Yeah. Yeah. there’s so much to learn.

a lot of real life experience, a lot of botany, a lot of geology. You know, they’re definitely learning a lot of that. Now, how about work then? did you just take a six month sabbatical?

Laura Tolbert (07:11)
Yes. Yes. For sure.

I mean, I don’t work outside the home. Since I’m homeschooling, that’s my full-time job. But my husband took a seven month leave of absence from his work and he talked to them about that five years ago to kind of prepare. He had some big long-term projects he was working on. So just kind of prepare them. You can give me a leave of absence or I’m going to quit. and they,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:23)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, that is a full-time job.

Okay. Okay.

Okay.

Laura Tolbert (07:49)
I mean, it really, it was good that they were willing to do that, because that made it possible for us to keep his insurance while we were gone, which was helpful. didn’t, thankfully, didn’t need it on the trail, but ⁓ it was a good thing to have just in case. And ⁓ it just is a little bit more seamless. He doesn’t have to come back and worry about sending applications. So we’re really thankful he could do it that way.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (07:53)
Yes.

That’s awesome.

Yes.

Yeah, no, that’s

that’s incredible that they allowed him to do that. But obviously, I mean, if he’s been with the company for years and they, you know, they see him as valuable, they’re going to do what they need to to keep him. All right. So let’s talk about preparation, right? Because you don’t just like decide to go backpacking and go backpacking the next day, especially the length of the Appalachian Trail. What did you guys do to prepare? Did you do a lot of like mini backpacking trips and things like that?

Laura Tolbert (08:21)
great.

Mm-hmm.

Right.

We did. We tried to do, starting after we made the decision to go, ⁓ probably two times a year, we’d go with a small group of our families. So not the entire family at once. I mean, we just had a brand new baby at that time. So we didn’t take him. I know people backpack with babies, but we did not do that. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (08:44)
Mm-hmm.

Okay. Yeah.

No, if you don’t have to.

Laura Tolbert (09:00)
That was

the next level beyond what we were ready for. And ⁓ we would take a couple trips per year and just try to kind of acclimate like older kids and then gradually incorporate the next kid that was kind of aging into what we envisioned as the right age for what we were doing.

We actually only took one trip as all nine of us before we went. It was supposed to be six days and we only did four and then we came home. And that was honestly really discouraging kind of because like we couldn’t even do six days and now we think we can do six months.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (09:26)
Okay.

Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (09:43)
but my husband was really encouraging. He was like, when we could only do four days because it rained every single day that we were out there and they had to come off the trail just to dry out ourselves and our gear. And then he said, when we are out on the Appalachian trail, if we have to come off after four days for rain, we dry out and we go back. But we only had six days to work with.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (09:50)
Yeah, ⁓ that’s tough.

Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (10:06)
That was comforting, but also that was a little bit nerve-wracking to do one test run and have it only sort of work.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:11)
You

The

theater kid in me, I was a theater kid in high school, our saying was always, if you have the bad dress rehearsal, you’ll have a good show. And so that’s what I think about you. You could only do four days because that was your bad dress rehearsal. So you had a good show.

Laura Tolbert (10:23)
Yes.

Yes, yes, and

I’m really thankful it was not the reverse.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:32)
where are you located in the US? so where did you do a lot of your your mini hikes, your mini backpacking trips?

Laura Tolbert (10:35)
We’re in Indianapolis,

We did a lot of those in the Smoky Mountains, which is about a seven hour drive from us. It’s not terrible. There are a couple of backpacking trails in Indiana and one of them is actually super hilly and a lot of people use it as a Appalachian Trail training trail. And my husband and oldest daughter did that one.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (10:45)
Okay.

Okay.

Laura Tolbert (11:04)
But we mostly we either went to the Smokies or we went just on little camping trips in our state just to even have people be continually spending time in a camping environment, even if it wasn’t difficult.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (11:18)
Yeah.

you got to get used to being outside, sleeping outdoors, cooking your food, all of that. there had to have been a lot of research of like where the shelters are, where you’re going to stop like and do like, you know, a hotel overnight What kind of.

Laura Tolbert (11:22)
Yes.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (11:34)
research went into that. some of the shelters like, you know, don’t fit your family. So you had to do a lot of research and kind of planning of your stops. How, how long did that take? I feel like that would itself be like a six month process to figure out.

Laura Tolbert (11:47)
Yes, I

think it could be. We actually, ended up only doing probably about four days of planning and research at a time and just doing it on the trail. ⁓ We did some general research beforehand. There are some good things to know, like you need a permit to go through the Smoky Mountains. Like it’s good to just have that kind of stuff on your radar.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (11:57)
wow, okay. ⁓ okay.

Laura Tolbert (12:10)
Otherwise, we had there’s an app it’s called far out and it has a whole trail on there and a lot of information about

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (12:14)
I’ve heard about, yes.

Laura Tolbert (12:19)
different towns that you go through and we would just look at the next the next four or five days and just figure out where are going to get to, where are we going to stay, which shelters. Honestly with our group size we couldn’t really feel very confident counting on almost any shelter because even if it could sleep 12 are we sure that only three other people will be there? I mean our group was so big that we just had to find

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (12:38)
Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (12:47)
places that could have enough space for our four tents almost all the time, which is tricky. ⁓ And a lot of hikers will kind of hike until they just feel like stopping for the day. And we could not do that because we had to know where are we going that we will have space for all of us.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (12:51)
Gotcha. Gotcha.

No.

Laura Tolbert (13:08)
But we really only did four or five days at a time. And then we’d get to someplace, maybe we’d stay at a hotel, or we’d take a half day off to sort of plan the next four or five days.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (13:19)
How many miles did you guys, on average clock, did you keep track of that? How many you were doing every day?

Laura Tolbert (13:24)
⁓

overall we averaged about 11 and a half miles per day, including days when we did not hike at all. yeah, I mean, probably we hike on days we hiked, we probably averaged more like 12 and a half miles. ⁓ but, but yeah, I feel pretty good about that. know that definitely single, you know, single 25 year old men have a much higher average.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (13:28)
That’s good. Yeah, especially with a little one in tow.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

That’s good, I think, yeah.

Yes, no, but with the

group size and the ages that you are with, I think that’s really good actually. So you

Laura Tolbert (13:52)
Yeah. Yeah, I

think that average also helped us be able to enjoy it all the way through, because we were not always up against the clock and exhausted,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (14:01)
Yes, yes. Exhausted, yeah.

How did you handle food then? Like, you do like some taste testing ahead of time to see what the kids would enjoy? I know a lot of times people like, you know, ship stuff to certain cities, know, towns, whatever, pick up. How did you handle all that?

Laura Tolbert (14:21)
We did not ship ourselves anything. We were wary of…

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (14:24)
Wow.

Laura Tolbert (14:28)
just, we going to make it like we just weren’t sure what is it going to be like? Are we going to be able to make these distances? Just not knowing with a seven year old how to plan that far in advance, what kind of expectations to have? We just, we did not do it. And we also are, we play basketball all winter and we were so busy and I just didn’t even want to think about it. Just like, we’re just going to do basketball and then when that’s done, then we’ll do the trail. But that didn’t mean we

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (14:30)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Gotcha.

Laura Tolbert (14:58)
had we just had to buy everything as we went which worked out really well because sometimes you have something and you love it and then you eat it every single day for a week and then you realize you actually hate it. Yes.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (15:01)
Gotcha.

Then you’re done with it. You’re like, I did like this before.

I’ve been to Harper’s Ferry, so I know there’s like a, you know, trail store there. Were there a lot of places, trail stores in towns,

Laura Tolbert (15:21)
I mean, sometimes it’ll be a big grocery store, a big Walmart, and we had a ton of options. A lot of little towns have a Dollar General.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (15:25)
Mm-hmm.

There you go.

Laura Tolbert (15:30)
and

that usually has a lot of dehydrated, just add water or food. ⁓ And so that worked out. And then some towns only had a tiny little ⁓ country store or even a hostel, a hiker hostel will have some resupply on hand if there’s not a convenience.

store to drive to or to get a shuttle to. So there was always something we did have a stretch of the trail where we couldn’t ever get a store that was big enough for the quantity that we needed. And so we were just kind of like limping through buying that was actually in the White Mountains. But thankfully there were like gift shops. So we would be getting really overpriced food at these White Mountain gift shops.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (16:03)
Ugh.

Okay.

I was gonna say like some granola

bars here and there.

Laura Tolbert (16:17)
Yes, it’s like four dollar granola bars, but we just,

it’s like we had to take it. It’s food.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (16:22)
was there any like a part where like you were like the ration was a little low and you’re like, are we going to make it to the next stop?

Laura Tolbert (16:29)
that stretch in the White Mountains. They have some huts in the White Mountains that serve food. It’s really great because we could get as part of like a through-hiker kind of passport, you get a couple of, you can get baked goods or any leftover food they have from their paid people that are staying there. They will let you have, which is great. We went up to one and they have this huge vat of oatmeal that nobody at the breakfast had touched.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (16:33)
Yes, I’ve heard. Yes.

Mm-hmm.

Okay, that’s so nice. Yes.

Laura Tolbert (16:58)
And so we were starting to eat it and it was pretty clear very quickly why nobody had touched it. It tasted like somebody had spilled some kind of strange chemical in it. It was really terrible, but we were hungry so we still ate it. Yes, like, well, it’s weird, but whatever. Once it’s inside, once it’s in our body, it’s just fuel. So it’s fine.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (17:03)
Hello.

no.

Yeah.

Survival instincts kicking in.

Yeah, it’s fuel now, so just get

past the taste buds. Now, how long in total then did it take you to do the whole trail?

Laura Tolbert (17:29)
Yes.

195 March 20th to September 30th.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (17:40)
Now, how was the weather then? Like when you started, because you start in Georgia. So it’s not super cold, hopefully, in March in Georgia.

Laura Tolbert (17:45)
Yes.

It wasn’t although I think our first night on the trail was our coldest night of the whole trip It actually got in it’s slated and then sort of snow hailed and It got down into the low 20s and that that was really cold But thankfully that was the coldest night. We also had snow and we were in the smokey’s But it was not as cold. It was probably just right around 30 and then

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (17:54)
okay. ⁓

wow. Yeah, that’s cold. That’s cold.

Okay.

Laura Tolbert (18:16)
It was starting to get cold again. had a couple nights just below freezing without snow, thankfully, when we were up north in Maine also. ⁓ But overall, the weather was really great. It was my kind of personal goal. Like, OK, I just need to hike long enough to get to warm weather and then and then it’ll all be golden.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (18:33)
Hmm.

And it wasn’t like too

hot then on the trail either in the summer or did you feel?

Laura Tolbert (18:40)
Well,

it wasn’t for me. I like hot weather, but it got pretty brutally hot from June 1st to probably the end of July. was above 80 every day and above 90 a lot of days. had some days that were, the day we hiked into Harper’s Ferry, actually the heat index was like 110.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (18:43)
You like the hat?

wow.

Mm-hmm.

Ugh.

Laura Tolbert (19:02)
it was really hot. I can remember crossing the bridge over the Shenandoah River, just sweat, just pouring down because it totally exposed that bridge. Thankfully, usually we’re in the shade. So

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (19:11)
Yeah, totally.

as much as I love hiking, I hate hiking in the summer for that. Like I can’t I’m already like hot moving, you know, as soon as you start walking up a, know, especially in the Appalachian Trail, you’re walking straight up the mountain, right? ⁓ Yeah, yeah. I’m like, maybe, you know, maybe do this in the fall, winter and summer. But then of course, then it gets really cold. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (19:26)
That’s how at least half the family felt.

Yes. I mean it is, it is hard. I mean you need a lot more water. You just, it is taking a lot more out of your body.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (19:40)
Now, did you, like, as you crossed each state line, did you guys do anything to celebrate that? Or are you just like, woohoo, we did it, okay, keep moving?

Laura Tolbert (19:47)
I think it was more a thank goodness we’re in a new state.

We took a picture at most state crossings, but there were some where we actually during the day we got pretty spread out on the trail like we would be potentially miles apart on the trail from first person to last person. So there were a couple of state lines that were kind of toward the end of the day and people were just too far apart.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (20:04)
wow, yeah.

Laura Tolbert (20:12)
but there were definitely ones where we stopped and got a group photo and that was fun. it was always great to mark a new state. just, it never got old.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (20:20)
Of course, yeah, new accomplishment. Now does Virginia

feel as long to hike through as it feels to drive through?

Laura Tolbert (20:28)
It is really long. is

a quarter of the trail as in Virginia. Yes.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (20:32)
It is so long. It is a long state. People don’t realize

how long Virginia is because it swoops down like that. And then, yeah.

Laura Tolbert (20:38)
great and it’s you

know it’s not as huge as a big western state but for an eastern state it was really big and it was it was good i think for the first probably two-thirds of of virginia we all really liked it pretty well we got sick in virginia that was a little bit of a bummer and then the the final third i think we were just we were just ready for a new a new state change of scenery

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (20:41)
Yeah, it’s… it is, yeah.

You’re over it. You’re like, are we in Maryland

yet?

Laura Tolbert (21:03)
Right, it was a big relief to get to

Harper’s Ferry and then and then to cross into Maryland.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (21:08)
Did you have a favorite section of the trail? So obviously not Virginia. No, I’m kidding. Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (21:12)
I mean, Virginia’s so long. It’s hard to have it as a favorite because there’s so many great things, but then it kind of wears out its welcome.

⁓ that was not my favorite state. My favorite section was the White Mountains.

It was incredible. We had amazing weather. We had like one day of rain out of probably nine days in the White Mountains. It was just, it was amazing. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (21:28)
need to get up there.

Laura Tolbert (21:38)
I loved almost every second of it except for that one rainy section. I mean, was really just funny.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (21:42)
That’s awesome. Yes. And the weird oatmeal.

Now,

⁓ obviously you were out for 195 days. So I’m assuming not everything went perfectly for you. You got sick in Virginia, Do you have any crazy stories you want to share? Any, you know, like weather related, equipment related, anything health related, I guess any crazy stories like anything like, my gosh, I can’t believe that happened to us.

Laura Tolbert (21:56)
Yes.

you

Well, the ⁓ the night that we got sick was probably one of the most dramatic nights for us as a group My husband tried to go help some of the other kids who were sick, but he was also feeling sick. He fainted in the woods

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (22:29)
happened? What did you get? Was it a stomach

Laura Tolbert (22:32)
a stomach virus, which is super

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (22:32)
or? Ugh.

Laura Tolbert (22:33)
common on the trail. And almost everybody gets it in Virginia. And I don’t know. I mean, it could just be because there’s so many miles in Virginia. I’m not 100 % sure. But almost everybody gets it in Virginia. And we were no different. But yeah, and I couldn’t even get up.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (22:37)
wow. ⁓

Maybe, yeah.

Wow.

Laura Tolbert (22:54)
teenage or 13 year old daughter like came in. She’s like, kids are throwing up over in the other tents. Can you come help? And I said yes, but I couldn’t get up. And I feel terrible that I couldn’t get up and help her, but I couldn’t. And I felt like I would faint. And then my husband did get up and did faint. So that felt like that was a really reasonable concern that I might faint.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (23:07)
Well, no, I mean, you you feel so weak when you have a stomach virus, you know, I mean, you you have no

Laura Tolbert (23:20)
we got out and it worked out. But we also had this hike in Pennsylvania. It was a really steep downhill. And our 13-year-old daughter, again, poor girl, she fell going downhill. And we did not really have any time. So was like, I think this might end our hike.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (23:27)
Mm-hmm.

no!

Laura Tolbert (23:41)
I didn’t see her fall so staring at my feet on this town hill but I

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (23:44)
Yeah, in Pennsylvania on the trail, yeah, you’re always looking at your feet.

Laura Tolbert (23:48)
it’s like there’s no scenery there’s just feet ⁓ but our other daughter who was hiking with her like yelled out like mom

And we looked up and she stood up and just had just blood pouring down her face. And my husband and I both just like, my goodness, is this, is this the end of her hike? Obviously we’re concerned about her too, but like, are we going to have to rush her to an emergency room? We’re on the middle of a trail. What do we even do?

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (24:00)
my goodness.

Yes, yeah.

Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (24:17)
And we went up there, like, you know, ran as well as we could on this terrain on the trail. And it just got this blood just pouring down. I poured water on it to like kind of wipe it away and just see what we were dealing with. I couldn’t even find the cut. It was so small. So I was like, well, I guess you’re fine.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (24:27)
Mm-hmm.

So small. Yeah, but heads bleed, man. They really can bleed.

Like no stitches needed.

Laura Tolbert (24:43)
Right? was just nothing. then like this rock that she had landed on had this like pool of blood on it. It was really, it was kind of disturbing.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (24:50)
How’s she feeling now?

Laura Tolbert (24:52)
actually were staying in a hotel that night, which was good. Even though it didn’t end up being a serious injury, it was nice to just get off the trail and just kind of reset emotionally and sleep in a real bed and make sure that she was okay and didn’t have like a concussion or something that we just couldn’t see at the time. And thankfully she was okay.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (24:55)
Good timing.

Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

Aw, poor thing. I feel bad it was in Pennsylvania too, but yes, we’re Roxylvania for a reason. It’s very treacherous out there.

Laura Tolbert (25:19)
Yes. Yes.

And she just, she ended up being, she always had stuff happening to her. Poor girl.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (25:24)
⁓

Poor girl.

you know, what doesn’t kill ya makes you stronger, right? So she’ll only be better off for it all. And she’ll probably also never let you live it down. She’ll be like, remember when you made me do the Appalachia Trail?

Laura Tolbert (25:35)
That’s right. Yes, and she loves dramatic stories and she’s got several. Never going hiking again. Remember the last time.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (25:50)
on social media, one of the things I loved seeing that you post about was the trail angels. And I know, you know, that’s the thing. can you just explain trail angels and what they, you know, some of the things that they did for you?

Laura Tolbert (25:57)
yes.

Yeah.

Yes, trail angels are anybody that helps hikers on the trail in any way large or small. it could be sometimes it was, you know, big groups of people serving hot dogs and burgers on a grill like right trailside, which is really, really always amazing.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (26:16)
I love that.

That

is so cool, I love that.

Laura Tolbert (26:23)
Yeah,

that was just like the best feeling in the world when you are finishing and you’re getting to a trailhead and you see a tent set up and you know somebody’s there cooking and you don’t have eat a hydrate of mashed potatoes. But it could be something much smaller. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (26:30)
Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (26:38)
We had people who just would leave coolers at a trailhead with cold drinks in them and that is something a trail angel would do, shuttling you to town. We had some people’s random strangers on the internet send us money, which was really generous. ⁓ And we had…

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (26:44)
That’s nice.

That’s really cool.

Laura Tolbert (26:56)
people that would bring us to their, a couple people brought us to their house and let us stay at their house, which was really amazing. I will say Pennsylvania, even though the trail was kind of a bummer in a lot of places, the trail angels in Pennsylvania were amazing.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (27:03)
wow. I mean.

That’s good to know. like, maybe that’s something, you know, when when life slows down a little bit, maybe I’ll be a trail angel because even though I’m I am never going to through hike the Appalachian Trail, but I think it would be fun to be a trail angel. I think that’d be really cool. Sign up for that. Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (27:21)
Yeah, I mean it’s really…

Yeah, my kids are really excited at the idea of going back and

it’s a fun way to be a part of the community. mean, one of the best things about the Appalachian Trail is the community aspect. And that’s actually one thing that kind of sets the Appalachian Trail apart from the Western Long Trails, which just tend to be a little more remote. There are so many population centers close to the Appalachian Trail and the community aspect is just really strong.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (27:34)
Yeah!

Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

did you meet any other families also through hiking on the trail? Did you meet any other young kids like as kids as young as yours

Laura Tolbert (28:02)
No, not any young kids through hiking. We did meet another family that that has seven kids that was hiking with five, but their youngest was 17. So they were mostly hiking with a group of adults. We met a few people out for a weekend or a day hike with their kids.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (28:06)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay. Adults. Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Laura Tolbert (28:26)
but no other thru-hikers with small children. I do know there was one other thru-hiking family with small children, but we did not cross paths with them on the trail. They started before us and finished before us. ⁓ And we’d actually met them prior to the trail, so I knew they were going to be out there, but we just, our schedules did not align.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (28:35)
Gotcha.

Okay.

No.

How about ⁓ meeting up with friends and family on the trail? Because I know you had posted that you got to hike a few times with family, with friends. How did you coordinate that? That I guess it worked out, right?

Laura Tolbert (28:52)
this.

Yes, it did. And I’m really thankful that the people who came to visit us would kind of tell us when they wanted to come, but were really

on where, which was really, really helpful. I mean, you kind of either have to be super flexible on when or where, because we didn’t know exactly when we’d be places. And we would even let them know like five days before they’d say, Oh, I want to come out and visit you in the beginning of July. Where will you be? And like, well, I’ll let you know at the end of June.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (29:12)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because you don’t know exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Laura Tolbert (29:27)
where we’ll be in five days and you can come there and they did and that was really a huge morale boost to have friends come out for the kids

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (29:28)
Yeah.

Yes.

Laura Tolbert (29:39)
they just

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (29:40)
Now would they day hike

with you or would they stay overnight with you

Laura Tolbert (29:43)
It kind of depended on the situation. Like my husband’s sister, her family wanted to backpack with us. So we ⁓ were able to work that out so that they could backpack with us for a couple of days. But my sister came out and she has even younger kids and they’re not really into backpacking. So they wanted to kind of coordinate when we were taking a day off of the trail. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (29:51)
Okay.

Okay.

⁓

Laura Tolbert (30:09)
So that was

kind of like we would sort of try to plan around what they were hoping to be able to do, but they were all super flexible. It’s like, if it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But we really, we wanted to make it work. And, and it really did. ⁓ It did probably slow us down a tiny bit, but that’s definitely worth it to have to have people come out with it. Yes.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (30:21)
What the?

No, definitely. Yeah, like you said, like for the morale boost, you know, and just

to get a, you know, a hug from somebody that’s not one of the nine that you’re with, right? Like, hey, somebody new to talk to.

Laura Tolbert (30:39)
Yeah. Yeah. Right. It really,

I mean, every time I saw somebody from home, it was like immediately like tears in my eyes. It just, you, when you’re out there on the trail, you’re not really thinking about how much you’re missing those people. But then when they’re right there, it just, it really meant a lot to have people come out and, be willing to give up their time to just.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (30:52)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Laura Tolbert (31:09)
be wherever we were, which is just so thoughtful.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (31:11)
I think that’s awesome that, that

yeah, that they were able to do that with you and for you. I’m sure there, there were some things that you didn’t like about being on the trail. Do you want to share a few of those?

Laura Tolbert (31:24)
Yes, I mean, I don’t like having to to the bathroom in the woods. No, I mean, you get used to it and it’s fine, but you know, I did not like that. Days where it was rainy were definitely hard. And if it rained for part of the day and we had a chance to dry off before we set up camp.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (31:28)
No, neither do I. No, I don’t even like using latrines, you know, the… No. I’m such a princess about that, but you know, yeah.

Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (31:47)
then that was okay. But there were some days where it just, it just rained all day. And then the next day, if it was wet again or humid, like you’re just still, everything is just real wet. And, and those days are hard. Um, one of the hardest parts, and I almost feel bad saying that this is hard, but hiking behind my seven year old, it just, it is, and you know, if the trail was boring,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (31:51)
Mm, yeah.

You’re just wet. Yeah.

No, I understand. Because they’re a little slow and you’re like, just pick up the pace.

Laura Tolbert (32:16)
then he would like start messing with leaves and go even slower. He loved it if the trail was exciting and fun, but most of the trail is just, you know, it’s putting one foot in front of the other. It’s not always going to be exciting. And hiking behind him on days when he was bored and then boredom translated into tiredness, then he was just like, that was really painful. And I would think, how am I going to hike? ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (32:29)
Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (32:45)
this one mile an hour for the next 11 hours. But I mean, well, we made it every day. Every day we made it. And my oldest son was just an absolute miracle worker with my youngest son.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (32:52)
You did it.

Laura Tolbert (33:01)
remember one day my youngest son was like hiking really slow and he didn’t he wasn’t feeling motivated and I was just like I can’t think of I couldn’t think of any consequence like it couldn’t

ground him. couldn’t take away screen time because we’re just out on the trail. And then my son, the oldest, my oldest son, he came up with this game, like earning points for different, like greeting other hikers on the trail or like, it didn’t even cross my mind to give him like a positive motivation. I was just like down in the dumps thinking about how depressing it was to go this slow. And my 15 year old son is out making this game and

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (33:13)
No. Yeah.

Brilliant!

I love that.

Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (33:42)
It was really humbling to have a ⁓ teenage boy be so much better at parenting in that moment than I was.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (33:50)
but he also is a young boy. He knows what would entertain him, would, you know, keep him moving. So maybe he was actually doing the game in his head at the time.

Laura Tolbert (33:54)
Yes. Yes.

I think

it was partly for his own sake, which was wonderful. it was really awesome to see, the ways that the kids work together and the ways that they recognize things about their other siblings and sometimes did use those to poke at. But also.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (34:15)
Yeah. ⁓

Laura Tolbert (34:20)
We couldn’t, like there’s a saying, like, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together. that, that was us. I mean, we, we could not have done it just as individuals.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (34:31)
do you have another trip planned or are done? Is this the last, the first and last big family backpacking trip?

Laura Tolbert (34:39)
I think it probably will be the only one that we do as a whole family just because our oldest daughter, she’s 18 now and she’s probably going to be moving on to college and then it’s just going to be kind of one after the other. So this was kind of the perfect window to hit to do the one. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (34:44)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (34:55)
I probably for three quarters or even fourth bits of the trail, I would have said, I don’t want to do a trail this long again. But by the end, I think I would do a trail this long again. So it’s easy to say now, but even the last couple of weeks, I was thinking, you know what? actually, I would do this again. And I think getting to the end of it and realizing we could do this.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (35:03)
Mm-hmm.

Now that you’re off the trail.

I mean, that’s an accomplishment.

Laura Tolbert (35:25)
it does make

you feel like, if I could do it once, I could do it again and I would enjoy it. I don’t know. I think it would be more like a, which kids of you want to come rather than this is something we’re definitely all doing as a family. And I think some would go and some wouldn’t. So we’ll probably have to wait a few years for us to save up some more money

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (35:37)
Yeah. Making.

Yeah, that’s awesome though.

Laura Tolbert (35:49)
But I think we’d be open to doing another one if the circumstances come together.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (35:54)
don’t know if I’d ever do the whole Appalachian Trail, but I think it would be fun to try backpacking, you know, a section, you know, a state, maybe not Virginia.

Laura Tolbert (36:01)
Yeah. Well, and the Appalachian Trail definitely don’t commit to all of Virginia if you’re only wanting

to do a short distance. West Virginia is only four miles. You could do a whole state. Probably have. But yeah, I mean, Appalachian Trail is kind of just like a long weekend backpacking trip over and over and over. So once you have done a weekend or two,

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (36:11)
I know, yeah, West Virginia. I think I’ve done the Appalachian Trail in West Virginia technically, so. But that’s awesome.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (36:31)
You could do the whole thing.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (36:31)
Just keep going. It’s like, what do

they say? It’s like eating an elephant, right? You can eat an elephant, you just one bite at a time, right? My second to last question, I guess, ⁓ trail traditions. I’m sure there’s a lot of trail traditions on the Appalachian Trail. Did you get to partake in any of them?

Laura Tolbert (36:35)
Yes, going by the time.

Hmm.

Well, we skipped hike naked day. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (36:52)
I think I skipped that too. Did you encounter anybody? No. Gotcha.

Laura Tolbert (36:55)
And thankfully didn’t see anybody participating. I think that’s the summer solstice is hike naked

day, which is like the most daylight. I guess you want to be seen the longest. It kind of sounds horrible anyway, like you’re wearing a backpack.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (37:09)
You wanna get sunburned?

Yeah,

I don’t like when my backpack, like if I’m wearing a tank top and my backpack’s rubbing on my skin, I hate that. Yeah, no.

Laura Tolbert (37:16)
Right, it’s like rubbing your shoulders. It seems

terrible. We didn’t do that one. We did participate. There’s a trail tradition of getting a trail name. so we all eventually got a trail name and we went as a group by the ⁓ fellowship, which we is like after Lord of the Rings, because there’s nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring. And we’re kind of thinking like.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (37:25)
Okay.

Mm-hmm.

Okay.

Laura Tolbert (37:41)
what if all nine members of the fellowship had just stayed together instead of splitting up? And so that was kind of our vision is the fellowship that stays together. Mine was blue skies, ⁓ got named that by the kids, ⁓ sort of making fun of me for always like pointing out if the sky was blue and just like.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (37:53)
I like that. What was your trail name?

Hmm ⁓

Laura Tolbert (38:07)
no matter what terrible conditions the weather had been 20 minutes before, like, there’s blue skies. ⁓ But I like it too, because I think it was, they were trying to point out that they appreciated my positive attitude.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (38:20)
was gonna say

that it sounds like a very optimistic name, know, like your, yeah, your positive attitude. I like that. The half glass fool kind of name. I do that too when we’re hiking. Well, not so much like pointing out the blue skies, whatever, but I’m always pointing out like, look at that. That’s so pretty. Look how nice that is.

Laura Tolbert (38:24)
Yes.

Yeah.

I mean, there’s so

many beautiful things out there. And one of the things that really just struck me multiple times on the trail is all of these things out, these things in nature are so beautiful, whether we’re there or not. they’re just, they are beautiful for the sake of beauty. Like they just, and I love that. And then the fact that we got to be there to see them was just, I mean, it was a gift. was, it was truly a gift. And I’m-

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (38:53)
I know, yeah. They’re just there. They’re not there for us, they’re just there. Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (39:09)
Really thankful.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (39:10)
I’m like I said earlier, I’m like so excited that you got to do this. Like I’ve been following along with this planning of yours for the last couple of years. So I’m I’m grateful that you got to do this because I got to follow along and live vicariously through you. Now I don’t have to do it. All right. So before I let you go, I’ve been asking everybody this question.

Laura Tolbert (39:16)
Thank

⁓ thank you. Now you don’t have to go.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (39:35)
And this might be tough because you’ve had a lot of views along the way, but if you could only do one kind of hike for the rest of your life, would you choose to hike to a view, an overlook, or would you choose to hike to a waterfall?

Laura Tolbert (39:52)
⁓ I would choose a view. We had very few waterfalls on the trail, feel like, because it was so dry for the second half of the hike, which was actually nice for hiking, to have so little rain. But a lot of the waterfalls that had been advertised were more like a water trickle. ⁓ But some of them are really, really beautiful. I love Niagara Falls. I do love a great waterfall. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (39:57)
Yeah, there’s that many on the trail, yeah.

Yes.

We’re non-existent.

Yeah.

Laura Tolbert (40:22)
but I would choose a view. There were some views on the trail. We’d just be hiking along, looking at your feet, and then just look up. And I couldn’t even help just like laughter, just bubbling up and just how beautiful and incredible what we were seeing was. So yes, I would choose a view.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (40:39)
Mm-hmm.

I

like it. There’s no wrong answer as far as I’m concerned. I think, yeah. All right, so obviously I keep mentioning your social media and that I’ve been following it along. So I want you to share, if anyone wants to see, because you have a YouTube as well. So if anyone wants to look back on your social media, see what you guys are up to, look at your YouTube videos, can you share where they can find all of that?

Laura Tolbert (40:46)
I mean, you really can’t go wrong with

yes.

Yes, is Tolbert’s, Tolbert’s Take the Trail. T-O-L-B-E-R-T-S. I always am like, am I spelling my own name right? ⁓ Tolbert’s Take the Trail. And ⁓ yes, the YouTube videos are very unprofessional. But I had a lot of fun taking video and preserving memories. ⁓

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (41:13)
You’re like…

Doesn’t matter.

Laura Tolbert (41:30)
And then ⁓ Instagram, we actually, my husband and I did this together. We made little short clip reels of sections on the trail and then set them to music. And I really love how they are. And a lot of them are on YouTube, but some of them I couldn’t download because of music copyright issues. So, but those are all on Instagram. And those are, I think, fun. And the kids enjoyed watching them all on our drive home. Yes.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (41:37)
Okay, yep.

good memories, can

look back on them and that’s your scrapbook. That’s what my husband says about Instagram. He’s like, it’s my scrapbook.

Laura Tolbert (42:01)
Right, it really is. Yes, I know.

It saves a lot of time, just picture and it’s just there.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (42:08)
It does.

you’re on YouTube, you’re on Instagram, and do you have a website or

Laura Tolbert (42:14)
I guess I do have a blog. It’s also, it’s toldbertstakethetrail.wordpress.com. I’m three weeks behind, so hopefully when this episode airs, it will actually be done. But if not, we’re still stuck in New Hampshire.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (42:20)
Welcome.

You have a couple months. Well, Laura,

I am so grateful for you to take the time and share your experience about hiking with a large family on the Appalachian Trail. ⁓ I’m so glad you did it, like I said, because I could live vicariously through you. It was so fun keeping track, you know, and you’re you’re and you’re on threads too, because I loved all your trail micro miracle posts, like all of that.

Laura Tolbert (42:38)
you

yes, yeah.

Lauren – Her Side Of The Trail (42:55)
And I just appreciate you taking the time to share all this with me. So thanks for being here.

Laura Tolbert (42:58)
Well, thanks for having me

on. It’s been really fun to talk with you about it.