RESTON, Va. — A story of a Virginia woman who walked out of her executive suite and into the wilderness of America is helping us all get uplifted.
Cris Howard, from Reston, spent the last 33 years in the in the biopharmaceutical industry. She quit that job on Good Friday, April 7, to fulfill a lifelong dream to hike the entire Appalachian Trail.
Two days later she was in Spring Mountain, Georgia, beginning her trek.
"Over the course of six months, I will walk through 14 states, ending on the peak of Mount Katahdin in central Maine in mid-October," Howard said on her blog.
Howard says everything she needs to survive will be carried in her 30 pound backpack, including sleeping gear and cooking gear.
She was inspired to make the big change after seeing a map of the trail in a friends cabin. After a recent melanoma scare, she decided to go make it happen.
The Appalachian Trail is the longest hiking-only footpath in the world, measuring 2,200 miles (3,500 km) along the East Coast of the United States.