Unsheltered

The true story of two Appalachian Trail southbound hikes-one the adventure of a lifetime, the other ending in tragedy-and how they came together twenty years apart.

In 1990, Molly LaRue and her friend Geoff Hood hike the Appalachian Trail southbound. But their hike ends abruptly a few months later when they are murdered in a Pennsylvania trail-side shelter.

Molly LaRue's second cousin, Nancy, hikes the same trail nearly twenty years later along with her friend Lonnie, who are both in their fifties. They hike south as well, Nancy vowing to finish the trail for Molly.

They follow the same white blazes, and like the young couple two decades earlier, are newbies to long-distance hiking. They must learn to deal with their own set of issues-antagonisms surfacing from hiking differences, crammed like sardines into a tiny tent, eating meals from a bag, no showers, sore feet-conditions that result in often humorous moments, while at times becoming so intense as to threaten their hike.

On a blustery night in a Virginia shelter, Nancy and Lonnie have a mystifying encounter that inextricably ties their hike to Molly and Geoff's. A man and his son walk into the lean-to where Nancy and Lonnie had set up camp, and as they unpack their gear, the man tells them how he found the bodies of two young hikers twenty years earlier. Their names, Molly Larue and Geoff Hood.

Interspersed in the narrative are stories about Molly's hike, her art and poetry, and her future goal to help disadvantaged teenagers overcome dire circumstances, one destined to never happen.