In Beauty May She Walk

In 2001, Leslie Mass turns a lifelong fantasy into reality. She began a grueling journey - a thru-hike of the 2,000 mile Appalachian Trail.

While on the trail, Leslie struggles to maintain her obligations to family and friends while making the trail a priority, sheds years years of social conditioning that dictate how a woman should act, and figures out when to ask for help, while understandign that sometimes help has to come from within.

For the first few weeks, Leslie learns how to pitch a tent in the rain, make her food bag animal-proofm and keep her socks dry. When the terrain toughens, she struggles physically to keep up with the trail community she socially depends on to keep going and focuses on putting one foot in front of the other, every day, to reach her destination. After September 11, 2001, she copes with being seemingly the only hiker on ther trail for miles, eventually forcing her to change her definition of "hiking her own hike."

A wife, mother, and suburban college administrator, Leslie is just like any other woman you might pass on a grocery aisle. Her story is an inspriing physical and mental journey to reach the goal of a lifetime.