$29.95 U.S. (trade discount)
No e-book has been authorized.
Softcover w/ gatefold flaps
216 pages with 202 photographs and 4 maps = 206 (all color)
7.0″ x 9.0″ upright/portrait
ISBN: 978–1–960521-07-1
Published September 2025
Distributed by Casemate/IPM
www.casemateipm.com
Published in association with the
Center for the Study of Place.
Events and Exhibitions
April 25, 2026
2026 Rocktown Author Festival
Massanutten Regional Library
Harrisonburg, Virginia
February 5, 2025
Book Talk
Valley Village
Sunday, December 7, 2025 4 p.m.
Appalachian Trail Stories with authors Mills Kelly and Dave Pruett
Scrawl Books, Reston, VA
Friday, December 5, 2025 at 4 p.m.
Book Signing
ATC Visitor Center, Harpers Ferry
Friday, November 7, 2025
5:30–8:00 p.m.
Book Signing and Fundraiser
Co-sponsored by the Harrisonburg
Appalachian Trail Club and
Center for the Study of Place
Music by Jane Cox, Author’s presentation, Book signing
Lobby of the Hotel Madison, Harrisonburg, VA
October 8, 2025
Book Talk
Tidewater Appalachian Trail Club
Norfolk, VA
by Dave Pruett
Foreword by Mills Kelly
A terrific personal guide to hiking the famous AT in the Virginias!
In October 1921, the famous planner and conservationist Benton MacKaye formally proposed the establishment of the Appalachian Trail (the AT) from northern Georgia to Maine. The trail and its 2,197.4 miles was finally opened in 1937. Today, it is one of the most visited and cherished greenways and hiking paths in North America.
In Hiking the AT in the Virginias, Dave Pruett shares his incredible journey of hiking all 557 miles of the AT in Virginia and West Virginia—respectively the largest and smallest segments of the AT for any state. And many AT hikers say that no stretch of the AT provides such awe, diversity, beauty, and wonder as the AT in Virginia and West Virginia, which, prior to 1862, were one state. Pruett’s informative and beautifully illustrated book conveys what it is like to experience the AT’s many characteristics—its trails, vistas, water sources, bridges, weather, shelters, spurs, flora, wildlife, meadows, and trail magic—in an unforgettable and inspirational journey that he began at age 65 and completed as a septuagenarian at age 75.
Hiking the AT in the Virginias is written for general readers as well as the three to four million people who not only trek along the AT each year but also experience the nearby Skyline Drive and Blue Ridge Parkway and both Shenandoah and Great Smoky Mountains National Parks. For those who seek a sense of what it is like to walk and hike the AT in the Virginias, no matter one’s age, Pruett’s book is an indispensable guide.
About
About the Author
Dave Pruett is a long-term resident of the Shenandoah Valley who, following his semi-retirement in 2012, section-hiked the entire AT through the Virginias over nine summers, completing it in 2023 at age seventy-five. Pruett previously worked in the aerospace industry at NASA Langley Research Center and taught mathematics and computational science at Virginia Commonwealth University, the College of William and Mary, and James Madison University. In 1996, Pruett has received numerous teaching and research awards, including the Robert T. Knapp Award of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, for pioneering computer simulations of high-speed flows, work conducted in collaboration with world-renown scientists, at NASA LaRC. As a full-time faculty member in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics at JMU, Pruett garnered numerous teaching awards, including the first Mengebier Endowed Professorship and the JMU’s first Provost’s Award for Excellence in Honors Teaching, the latter for a groundbreaking honors course that explored the interface between science and spirituality. His first book, Reason and Wonder (Praeger, 2012), received a Choice Award from the American Library Association.
About the Contributor
Mills Kelly is a Professor Emeritus of History at George Mason University and Senior Scholar at the award-winning Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media. He has been hiking the AT since 1971 and is the archivist for the Potomac Appalachian Trail Club, co-maintainer of a historic cabin in Shenandoah National Park, and the maintainer of the Manassas Gap Shelter—one of the original shelters built along the AT during the 1930s. Professor Kelly has received numerous grants and fellowships from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Delmas Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, and U.S. Department of Education. He is the author of numerous books, most recently Virginia’s Lost Appalachian Trail (The History Press, 2023), Teaching History in the Digital Age (University of Michigan Press, 2013; 2016), World History Matters: A Student Guide to World History, with Kristin Lehner and Kelly Schrum (Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 2009), Without Remorse: Czech National Socialism in Late Habsburg Austria (East European Monographs/Columbia University Press, 2007), and a forthcoming history of the Appalachian Trail as told from the perspective of hikers.
Slide Show
When in September 2013, a year into retirement, I headed south on the Appalachian Trail (AT) from Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, with the goal of section-hiking all 550 miles of the Trail in the Virginias, I had no idea of the adventures (and misadventures) that lay ahead. A Luddite at the time, I carried physical maps and a flip phone for emergencies. Three years later, I graduated to a smart phone whose advantages included serving also as a lightweight camera and allowing apps like FarOut to replace cumbersome maps. In 2023, at age 75, I traipsed the last few remaining miles of the AT in the Virginias. Here are some favorite photographs, most captured with an iPhone SE. Enjoy the beauty, moods, and wonders of the AT as it wanders the Virginias!
Praise
“Dave Pruett’s book is an enlightening and visually enjoyable journey that introduces readers to the beauty, moods, and magic of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia and West Virginia. Pruett aptly captures the lure of the Trail, which draws him back to hike sections year after year, despite injuries and setbacks. His observations and appreciation for the A.T. will inspire readers of all ages to plan their next adventure on this iconic recreational resource.”
—Sandi Marra, President and CEO, Appalachian Trail Conservancy
“David Pruett’s Hiking the AT in the Virginias: A Septuagenarian’s Journey is a deeply personal and useful guide to an experience many people dream of having. The 557 miles of the AT that pass through Virginia and West Virginia draw hikers from across the U.S. and the world to the rugged beauty of a national park, national forests, and state parks. The proximity to major urban areas like Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Richmond opens the door for extended walking experiences to large populations of city-bound outdoor enthusiasts. Pruett’s book, in words and pictures, conveys a unique sense of place that makes each section of the AT accessible and attainable. It helps you imagine connecting the sections and completing the whole, whether in segments or in a single push. It is a wonderful sourcebook for information on everything from AT condition hotlines to resistance against environmental degradation. This is a book for inspiration and insight.”
—William Wylie, Commonwealth Professor of Art at the University of Virginia and author of The Eighty-Eight: Photographs from a Japanese Pilgrimage and Riverwalk
“As Dave Pruett opines in this marvelous book: ‘The attentive hiker will never be bored on the AT. Every mile affords ample opportunities for surprise or awe.’ This is as true of Pruett’s book about the Trail as it is of the Trail itself. With engaging, often riveting prose and an abundance of beautiful photographs, Dave Pruett celebrates the world-renowned AT through the stunning and challenging landscapes of Virginia and West Virginia in intimate and honest detail. He is a perfect trail companion for the journey, affectionately recording his encounters with fellow hikers, both ‘day’ and ‘through,’ and celebrating the incomparable beauty of the mountains and valleys of the Virginias and the unparalleled biological diversity of the Appalachian region. Pruett tells it like it is—carrying a forty-pound pack is not for the faint of heart or weak of knee. As a day hiker and occasional back-packer who lives in Washington, D.C. As one who has regularly hiked the AT from the Pennsylvania border through Maryland and into Virginia—as well as many stretches in other states from Maine to Georgia—I reveled in every page of Pruett’s book. After reading the text and lingering longingly over the photographs, I can’t wait to get back out on the trail and hike south toward Mount Rogers!”
—Melanie Choukas-Bradley, author of City of Trees: The Complete Field Guide to the Trees of Washington, DC, A Year in Rock Creek Park: The Wild, Wooded Heart of Washington, DC,and Sugarloaf: The Mountain’s History, Geology, and Natural Lore