Follow the Trail across fourteen states and it becomes a passage through American wilderness and memory: the grassy bald of Max Patch in North Carolina; long-abandoned ghost towns in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley; the knife-edge ridges of Franconia Ridge in the White Mountains of New Hampshire; the backcountry of Maine’s 100-Mile Wilderness. Hikers traverse one of the world’s oldest mountain ranges and pass by battlegrounds where America fought for independence and then later, fought itself. Fred Tutman, one of the many passionate volunteers who preserve the Trail, wrote in a reflection, “Parts of it are possibly still very much like what early visitors — Daniel Boone, Johnny Appleseed, or even Harriet Tubman — saw and experienced. To me, that’s such a simple and basic thing that people take for granted as space around us is plundered, gobbled, and built on.”

The A.T. snakes through remote ridges and along some of the most heavily developed sections of the Eastern United States. Along the way, it crosses eight national forests, eight ecological zones, six national parks, five major geologic provinces, two national wildlife refuges, and dozens of state forests and parks.

And it touches dozens of small towns like Hot Springs, North Carolina, where the Trail runs through the heart of downtown along Bridge Street. For weary hikers emerging from miles of wilderness, these towns offer a lifeline: trail supplies, a warm meal, maybe even a hot shower. The local economy in Hot Springs revolves around outdoor recreation and hospitality.

Like other towns along the A.T., it took a crippling hit after Hurricane Helene cut through America’s southeastern states last September with 140-mile-an-hour winds, torrents of rain, and catastrophic flooding. When a Category 4 storm rips through stadiums or marinas, insurance or corporate benefactors often step in to cover the repairs. But trails like the A.T. have no such safety net. Their survival rests entirely on those who cherish them. After the storm, staff from the ATC, joined more than a hundred volunteers from A.T. Clubs to help with the recovery effort.

The hurricane may have faded from national headlines, but many communities are still finding their footing in the aftermath. Helene also left a devastating patchwork of impact on the Trail: over 800 miles of the A.T. was battered, trees toppled, with entire sections washed away. More than 400 miles of Trail were closed for weeks, and some sections were closed for months.

Yet, thanks to the tireless efforts of dedicated volunteers, the ATC, and its partner organizations, the Trail has largely reopened, albeit with some temporary detours and closed shelters.

Our mission goes beyond repairing the damage of today; it’s about ensuring that the Trail can withstand the challenges of the next 100 years. Of course, the A.T. has always existed in a state of change. Less than half of the Trail remains where it was originally laid. For example, in 1958 — to avoid the steady spread of highways and housing — the southern terminus moved north from Mount Oglethorpe to Springer Mountain. Perhaps the only true constant in the history of the A.T. is that it begins in Georgia and ends in Maine.

The Appalachian Trail Conservancy has dedicated a century to safeguarding the Trail’s legacy in the face of steady change. But the A.T.’s continued survival over the next 100 years is not inevitable. It’s all too easy to think of nature as something best left alone, untouched. However, simply leaving the Trail alone is not an option if we want it not just to survive, but flourish.

The Trail’s revival didn’t come until the postwar years. Earl Shaffer (trail name: “The Original Crazy One”) wanted to “walk off the war,” and earned his place in A.T. lore as the first “2,000-miler,” completing a thru-hike of the entire Trail. It was a feat once deemed impossible and initially suspected to be a fraud.

Shaffer’s journey helped usher in a golden age of interest in the A.T. and captured the imagination of generations to come. More would follow in his footsteps all the way to the peak of Katahdin, even if few today embrace his practice of filling his boots with sand and eschewing socks to toughen his feet.

The National Trails System Act of 1968 established a framework for preserving and managing trails and designated the Appalachian Trail as one of the first National Scenic Trails. It granted federal protection to the A.T., authorized land acquisition to safeguard its corridor, and granted the ATC a formal seat at the table in stewarding its future.

The Appalachian Trail exists as a testament to the determination of countless people throughout our history who worked to make it a reality. Thanks to their contributions, the A.T. has become a national treasure and international icon on par with cherished World Heritage Sites, attracting a wide variety of visitors — thru-hikers, section hikers, day hikers, birders, or those just spending an afternoon outside. What unites them is a desire to disconnect from “the scramble of everyday commercial life,” in the words of the Trail’s visionary Benton MacKaye.

In a 12-page essay published in the Journal of the American Institute of Architects, he proposed a radical vision: a footpath that would stretch from the highest peak in New England to the highest peak in the southern Appalachians, threading through the eastern United States like a natural artery. MacKaye imagined the Trail as the backbone of a broader network of rural communities and wilderness areas that would serve as a social, cultural, and economic counterbalance to an increasingly urban, industrial landscape.

While MacKaye’s dream of a sprawling network of community camps and educational centers never quite materialized, if he visited the Trail today, he would see exactly the sort of thriving, robust, connected community he imagined. He would see it in the communities the Trail intersects and in the network of towns and villages that act as nodes of connection. He would also see it in the Trail’s cooperative management model that draws on the partnership of federal agencies, state governments, nonprofits, and the volunteers of Maintaining Clubs who generously give their time to maintain the treadway and the many bridges, shelters, and markers.

The challenges of the 21st century underscore just how prescient Benton MacKaye was. He understood that we need access to wilderness for the good of our souls. He understood that nature is something that binds us together. Many of the challenges society faced in the 1920s still resonate today. But one challenge unique to our time is the significant downsizing — and potential shuttering — of large swaths of the federal government. Compounding this is the urgent need to maintain and restore a Trail that faces relentless damage from unprecedented weather events like Helene, as well as the strain of ever-increasing visitor numbers. Safeguarding the Trail for future generations will demand bold, innovative approaches to management and conservation.

The ingenuity and determination that created the A.T. must now be directed toward ensuring its continued vitality. The key to both its past success and its future resilience is the power of organized collaboration. Today, our Cooperative Management System — with many partners working together to protect the Trail — is more essential than ever.

That spirit of collaboration is exactly what the Appalachian Trail Centennial Act (ATCA) seeks to strengthen. This bipartisan legislation, introduced by Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia, a Democrat, alongside Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina and U.S. Representatives Mike Lawler (R-NY) and Don Beyer (D-VA), would strengthen and better coordinate the Trail’s cooperative management model, strengthening protections for the A.T., streamlining Trail management, and further empowering the volunteers who maintain it. There could perhaps be no better way to mark the ATC’s 100th anniversary than by passing this bill.

As we have seen over the past century, no single organization or entity can manage a National Trail alone. The future will depend on partners collaborating, finding common ground, and working together to protect the places that we cherish.

In a time of increasing division, the Appalachian Trail remains one of the rare places where we can step away from the pressures of modern life and reconnect with something larger than ourselves. And we can also reconnect with each other: a stranger handing out water bottles on a hot day or warm cocoa on a frigid morning; a lift into town; seeking refuge from the cold in a shelter full of fellow hikers; or commiserating over sore toes and weary feet.

Every person who sets foot on the A.T. — and almost invariably falls in love with it, whether in a single day or over a lifetime of return visits — has a stake in protecting it. For too long, outdoor spaces like the Appalachian Trail have, fairly or not, been perceived as the domain of a tiny sliver of the population. This must change. Our continued success depends on cultivating the next generation of trail stewards and nature lovers.

The Appalachian Trail’s first 100 years were about establishing the path. The next 100 years will be about securing its future.

Protecting the A.T. is not just about preserving a stretch of land; it’s about sustaining the idea that a place of such profound beauty and historical significance belongs to all of us, and that we all share in the responsibility of caring for it.

Benton MacKaye looked out at a world that could have left him disheartened. Instead, he imagined something better, a new way of living. Surely, we can summon the same resolve and imagination today.

I can’t imagine what technology we’ll use in our daily lives 100 years from now. But I know we will still need places where we can go to find that transcendent feeling of being one with nature. No technology can replace the human impulse for purpose and healing that draws people to the Trail.

Generations from now, people will still yearn to step away from their devices. They’ll stand in awe at places like McAfee Knob in Virginia, humbled and inspired by views that no screen can replicate. And they’ll still rely on acts of kindness from others and the camaraderie of fellow hikers — all things that make these journeys possible.