23 year-old returns to Duluth after hiking in the Appalachian Mountains

Northlander Hannah Cornwell is back from completing her extreme hiking trip. Taking six months to travel through the Appalachian Mountains at just 23 years-old.

"It was crazy so I started all the way back in February so I left Duluth when it was still snowing and finished July 12th and now it’s summer back here so it was crazy", says Hannah.

The Appalachian Trail is a long trip on foot. Starting in Georgia and ending in Maine. That’s the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest sixteen times.

However Hannah wasn’t alone in her journey. She says she, “set out to do the trail by myself but then within the first couple days I met a group of people and just started hiking with them and went all the way with one of them.”

Hannah is a golfer at heart and had no prior hiking experience. But she says the physical exertion wasn’t the hardest part of the hike. “It was a very long mental game. And I didn’t think it was going to be mental, I thought it was going to be physical.”

Finally she encourages everyone to try hiking. And to start of slow and take a change like she did. “Start small. Start with weekends, a week, two weeks, three weeks, and don’t hesitate to go on a long hike even if you’ve never done it before.”