Pennsylvania

Pa. woman shares insights on her 98-day hike across the Appalachian National Scenic Trail

Published

2 years ago

August 15, 2024

Pa. woman shares insights on her 98-day hike across the Appalachian National Scenic Trail

A Pennsylvania woman had her two daughters drive her to Georgia and let her off on a trail. She willingly solo-hiked all the way back to the Keystone State, and then kept on going north into Maine.

It was part of a Somerset County woman’s quest to hike all 2,197 miles of the Appalachian National Scenic Trail this summer.

Georgetta Frederick, 43, of Conemaugh Township, made the journey across 14 states in 98 days.

She finished her adventure Aug. 6. It was a trip several years in the making.

“In 2017 is when I discovered backpacking. There’s a trail here called the Laurel Highlands Hiking Trail, it’s kind of local. I got to do that with my youngest daughter and a friend, and we did it in five days. And the first time on that trip, I found my thing,” she said.

“I went back a couple of weeks later and did it by myself in three days ― it’s 70 miles,” she said. At that time she didn’t realize that most hikers don’t go on consecutive 23-mile days.

Becoming passionate about hiking, Frederick soon found out about the Appalachian Trail and decided that would be her next goal. “I’m a single parent, so I had to wait until my youngest daughter turned old enough for me to leave,” she said. “That’s why I did it this year.” Her daughters are Carla, 23, and Kaylee, 19.

Over the past five or six years she started planning and saving for this more than three-month adventure. In January, her official planning for the massive hike began. “I started planning logistics, food all that kind of stuff,” she said.

“I’m a very active person,” she said. Frederick is a self-employed house cleaner, she goes to a gym at least five days a week and does a variety of exercises at home.

How the Appalachian Trail hike began

Frederick backpacks with friends as much as possible but other times goes by herself. She took on the AT as a solo adventure because she wanted to travel at her own pace.

She explained that two hikers might not always want to go the same distance each day or would want to stay at camp for different amounts of time.

She started out May 1 at the trailhead in Georgia. “My daughters drove me down. It was so hard,” she said about saying goodbye to them. “They saw me off on the approach trail. It was hard to say, ‘See you later.’ I’ve never been away from them that long. But they were so excited and supportive, wanting me to go do my dream, which is super cool.”

She planned out her trip and had target distances for each day that averaged 23 miles. “I’m glad I had a plan, but it changes,” she said.

“I didn’t plan any recovery days, but I did take two recovery days. They are called zero days on the trail, which means you don’t hike any.” She took those days where she could find a place to sleep, take a shower and refuel at a restaurant where she could eat a lot. “That was a big thing, being able to consume the amount of calories you need when you’re operating at a calorie deficit like every day.”

Even though she trained and was in good physical condition, she still lost 12 pounds over the trip. “I thought it might have been more, but it wasn’t, so that is good,” she said.

She encountered steep terrain and the weather didn’t always cooperate. “In the first week, the first two days were beautiful, the next five days it rained,” she said. With this being a several-month trek, she wasn’t used to not being able to get home and regroup.

“Anytime I’ve had to deal with rain, it’s never been a super big issue because you know you’re going to get off the trail and go home and dry your feet out and you have different shoes. If your gear gets wet, so what, you can dry it. This was different,” she said.

At the end of the first week, her tent was wet from the rain and condensation and she started getting concerned about her down-filled sleeping bag. Fortunately, she was able to get off the trail for a day to dry out.

She finished faster than most people who take on this quest. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy reports most hikers need five months or more to go end to end. The challenge is something more than 20,000 people have accomplished, with some hikers breaking up the distance over several years.

“If I did something like this again, I probably would incorporate a little bit more rest days. Because every time I did take a rest day, my performance improved after that. You don’t realize how tired you’re getting,” she recalled.

Looking back on her journey, Frederick said, “I thoroughly enjoyed almost all of it. There were definitely times that were very hard, mentally hard,”

Even though she met people on the trail, she said she had some lonely times.

“I enjoy spending time with people a lot, every day,” she said about missing people in her hometown.

She saw turkeys, three bears, “a whole bunch” of snakes including one rattlesnake, and a beaver that wasn’t happy she was there. “I never saw a beaver before in my life and I was going into an area that was boggy … and I hear this hissing,” she said.

She soon saw that it was a beaver standing on a wooden plank and she backed up, tripped and fell down. “I got up and went around it,” she said about the beaver being angry, but not aggressive toward her.

Thinking back about the 14-state trek, Frederick said the views in New Hampshire were phenomenal. “New Hampshire was probably my favorite aside from Mount Katahdin, the very end. Because you just come out of the trees and you’re on this ridge-top for miles. You can see forever. You can see where you’re going, you can see where you’ve been. I don’t know how to describe it, but it was just wonderful,” she said.

Early on her journey, she looked forward to seeing the Grayson Highlands State Park in Virginia where there are wild ponies.

“I got there in the morning, it was rainy, it was cold it was foggy,” she said. “I did see a couple of ponies, but my experience there wasn’t great because of the weather. The weather really played a part in whether I could enjoy things or not. Because of the mileage that I was intending to do, I had to hike in all the weather, in all of it.”

She didn’t get any blisters on her feet, but she did break a bone. One day when she was trying to let her trail running shoes dry, she wore her camp sandals and accidentally kicked a rock and broke a toe. Fortunately, with the help of ibuprofen, she was able to continue her hike.

“I didn’t wear my sandals anymore,” she said.

What she learned about herself

At the end of her journey, she realized that, “I can do hard things. I knew that I could do hard things, but this was probably the hardest thing I ever tried to do. For the length of time and the mental aspect was much harder than I expected,” she said.

She also reflected on a saying: No person is an island.

“Really, that’s the biggest thing that I learned is that I know what my capacities are to some level. And that I don’t need help doing things, but help makes it so much better if friends are around,” she said. The people who supported her along the way were an important part of her journey. For example, her daughter, Carla, sent her boxes of things to resupply her food in different towns along the way.

“Know thyself was a thing I wanted to come out of this, understanding myself better, and I think I do,” she said. “I can do hard things if I persevere.”

Even on the bad days, she knew she would continue to the finish line. The only two ways she said she would have quit would have been if she would have been injured ― “Because that is a reality. That happens to people” ― or if she ran out of her allotted 100 days. She completed her challenge two days ahead of schedule.

Completing the Appalachian Trail

When she finally made it to the summit of Katahdin in Maine’s Baxter State Park, she said, “It was just amazing. I can’t believe I’m here. I’ve been chasing this for months. It was just the most perfect day.”

She was blessed with a clear day to enjoy the moment. She remembers not always being so fortunate on some hikes where the mountaintops were foggy. “It wasn’t. It was just a beautiful day,” she said. “You could see everywhere. It was just so amazing,” she said about the view.

Two of her friends, Chris and Payton Janovich, were with her on the final 10 days of her adventure. “They did not hike every day, but they were with me, they helped me,” she said about the father and daughter. They also drove back home.

If she tries it again, she plans to incorporate more time for rest and have a longer trip. “It would be more enjoyable at a less demanding pace,” she said.

What’s next?

Frederick is already thinking about conquering two other distance trails in the United States including the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trail.

Frederick likes to introduce people to hiking. People can contact her through her Trail Mama Hikes Facebook page. She’s able to advise people on what they need and can guide them in the Laurel Highlands. “So they are not out there by themselves and know they have somebody who knows what they are doing, just helping with the full experience,” she said about enjoying the outdoors.

For those contemplating an outdoor adventure, Frederick offers this advice. “Don’t wait. If you want to do something, figure out how to do it as soon as you can. So many people put off things.”

She said there will always be reasons not to do something, but don’t let that stop you. “If I waited for two years to make sure I had enough money, who knows what’s going to happen in those two years? Will I be physically able to do it? I don’t want to end my life being regretful of the things I didn’t do,” she said.

“Make a way. Go do it.”

Brian Whipkey is the outdoors columnist for USA TODAY Network sites in Pennsylvania. Contact him at bwhipkey@gannett.com and sign up for our weekly Go Outdoors PA newsletter email on this website’s homepage under your login name. Follow him on Facebook @whipkeyoutdoors.

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Pennsylvania

Catchy chemistry: Pennsylvania musician sings songs about the periodic table of elements

Published

11 hours ago

April 24, 2026

Press Room

Catchy chemistry: Pennsylvania musician sings songs about the periodic table of elements

Bethlehem, Pa — A Pennsylvania musician is making the periodic table of elements fun!

George Hrab and his band, The George HraBand, sing about all 118 elements in the periodic table in his show, “Occasional Songs For The Periodic Table.”

As they go through the table of elements, there are various musical styles, from reggae to heavy metal.

“So heavy metal fans and reggae fans will then appreciate and learn about protactinium or learn about einsteinium,” explains Hrab.

“It’s sort of a fun opportunity to teach people a little bit of something.”

The project started as a way to get Hrab out of a writers block and he never expected it to turn into something more.

“And before I knew it, I had like 50 done and then 60 and an 80 and then 100,” says Hrab. “And then I finished them all off and hoped that someday I’d be able to play them live with a band.”

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Pennsylvania

Democrat Josh Shapiro tests political muscle in swing-state Pennsylvania’s midterms

Published

23 hours ago

April 24, 2026

Press Room

LOCK HAVEN, Pa. — Josh Shapiro may be heavily favored to win reelection as Pennsylvania governor, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot on the line for him this year.

Shapiro, who is just beginning to hit the campaign trail, wants voters to give Democrats control of the state legislature for the first time in decades. And he’s pushing his favored candidates in competitive congressional primaries, an attempt to mold his party’s slate in the midterm elections that will determine control of Washington.

All of this means that, much like other potential Democratic presidential candidates, Shapiro is testing his political capital in ways that could shape his future and the party’s.

Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker successfully boosted his favored candidate in his state’s U.S. Senate primary. Maryland Gov. Wes Moore failed to convince lawmakers to redraw the state’s congressional map, while California Gov. Gavin Newsom achieved redistricting through a voter referendum last year.

Shapiro brushed off questions — and Republican criticism — about burnishing his credentials for a White House run.

“The only thing I am focused on is beating my opponent for governor and helping other Democrats get elected here and sending a clear message to Donald Trump that the chaos, cruelty and corruption that he’s been engaged in is not something that we support here in Pennsylvania,” Shapiro told The Associated Press after speaking to Democrats at a packed coffee shop in small-town Lock Haven.

Shapiro has never said whether he’s interested in running for president. But he does say he wants a voice in his party’s future. Democrats need to figure out how to “get stuff done” to make people’s lives better, he said, and he wants to be “part of that conversation.”

Stacy Garrity, the Republican state treasurer who is running for governor, said Shapiro can’t hide his ambition — and it’s bad for the state.

“We all know that he’s more interested in Pennsylvania Avenue than helping Pennsylvania families,” she said in an interview. “He thinks if he can hand Pennsylvania on a platter to the Democratic Party, then maybe they take a harder look at him.”

An opportunity to demonstrate strength

They just might.

Pennsylvania is a hard state to succeed in politically, and Democrats around the country are taking note of Shapiro because of that, said Paul Begala, a Democratic campaign strategist, commentator and senior aide to Bill Clinton when he was president.

The election gives Shapiro an opportunity to demonstrate strength.

“Right now, Democrats, the thing they want the most is a winner, and a very close second is a fighter,” Begala said. “This election is an opportunity for him to show that.”

Ahead of this year’s campaign, Shapiro put his stamp on the Pennsylvania Democratic Party by getting committee people to elect his hand-picked chair and plunging more than $900,000 so far this election cycle into the organization’s accounts.

He’s on track to break his own state fundraising record and tells voters that Pennsylvania is the “center of the political universe” in the fight for control of the U.S. House.

Democrats want to flip four House seats in Pennsylvania. Shapiro’s endorsed candidates include Paige Cognetti, mayor of Scranton; Bob Brooks, president of the state firefighters’ union; and Janelle Stelson, a former television news personality who narrowly lost two years ago.

Shapiro already cut an ad for Brooks, who is running in a hotly contested four-way primary for the chance to challenge freshman Republican U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie.

Contested primaries and GOP surrogates

Shapiro’s endorsements haven’t scared off Democratic rivals.

Ryan Crosswell, a former federal prosecutor running against Brooks, issued a campaign memo that — in a veiled reference to the governor — said Crosswell has “no party machine behind him, no power broker network, no favors to call in.”

For his part, Shapiro said: “I’m just focused on trying to elevate good people. Hopefully they’ll all win.”

Republicans, meanwhile, have their own surrogates.

Garrity said the White House asked her for a list of people she wants to visit in Pennsylvania.

Trump, Vice President JD Vance and a number of Cabinet secretaries have already visited the state’s contested congressional districts. Earlier this month, House Speaker Mike Johnson made a fundraising swing through Pennsylvania.

“We know the majority runs through Pennsylvania and the speaker is focused on doing everything he can to help those members defend their seats,” said Greg Steele, a spokesperson for Johnson’s political operation.

It’s quite likely Johnson will be back: Pennsylvania was his last campaign stop before the 2024 election.

Trump and Vance could return, too, and in the meantime, the president is keeping an eye on Pennsylvania. On Tuesday night, he took to social media to take credit for a decision by owners of two coal-fired power plants not to close in what he called a “BIG WIN for the Great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which I love.”

Shapiro starts hitting the campaign trail

As he begins to campaign, Shapiro is proving himself to be a draw even in Pennsylvania’s out-of-the-way areas. Earlier this month, he helped pack a ballroom for Centre County Democrats and the coffee shop for Clinton County Democrats.

“I saw brand-new people, I saw people who have not been engaged in the party in years,” Bre Brannan, Clinton County’s Democratic Party chair, said. The crowd included Republicans and independents, too, she said.

With a Democratic “trifecta,” Shapiro tells audiences he could get more done, citing legislation Republicans have stalled. That includes raising Pennsylvania’s rock-bottom minimum wage and expanding legal protections for LGBT residents. He also has a housing affordability plan he’s pushing this year.

Consolidating control of the state Legislature would be no small feat. Democrats hold a one-seat majority in the state House and haven’t held the state Senate majority in over three decades.

Few Democrats in the party’s 2028 presidential sights have an opportunity to demonstrate political strength and party-building aptitude in swing states.

The opportunity could help Shapiro prove his mettle when the presidential campaign season cranks up and would-be candidates go in search of institutional support, endorsements and donor commitments.

Pouring money into down-ballot races and flipping seats may not help Shapiro with the average voter. But activists, donors and other elected officials care a great deal about that, strategists say.

Success would strengthen Shapiro’s hand at a time when candidates are trying to win the “perception campaign” that they are the strongest candidate, Democratic campaign strategist Mike Mikus said.

“It doesn’t guarantee anything,” Mikus said. “But it is definitely something to bring to the table when you’re lining up donors, endorsements and finance chairs, things like that. It’s compelling to them.”

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Pennsylvania

93 animals living in ‘deplorable conditions’ rescued from Pennsylvania home

Published

1 day ago

April 23, 2026

Press Room

93 animals living in ‘deplorable conditions’ rescued from Pennsylvania home

76 dogs, 15 cats and kittens, and two Flemish rabbits were removed from a residence in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, after officials said they were found living in deplorable conditions.

Pennsylvania SPCA shared that their law enforcement team had responded to a home on High Ride Road in Columbia, after receiving a tip from concerned citizens.

When officers arrived at the property, officials said they detected a foul odor coming from the outside of the residence, which grew stronger as they approached the front door and the garage connected to the home.

Through a window of the residence, officials said officers saw several dogs in distress, including a black Newfoundland-type dog with heavily matted fur, a Shih Tzu-type dog with matting throughout the body, several shepherd-type dogs, and a Chihuahua with significant hair loss.

Officers also found piles of excrement and pools of liquid throughout the interior of the residence.

A fenced-in porch area was coated with feces, and multiple dogs were also seen in crates in the garage, living in feces-laden conditions, officials shared. Those dogs included a mother German Shepherd and her puppies were found crammed into a crate.

Pennsylvania SPCA

After executing a search warrant, officials said officers were able to confirm the severity of the animal’s conditions and they began removing the animals.

Among the animals removed, officials said many were covered in fecal matter and suffered from extreme matting, fur staining, hair loss on the face and body, and scabbing. Some animals were even found living in hutches, while others were confined to crates zip-tied shut.

After all 93 animals were removed from the property, officials said they were turned over to the Pennsylvania SPCA and are now undergoing forensic medical examinations.

Officials said more information about their conditions and potential charges will be provided following those examinations. The charges could include knowingly, recklessly, or intentionally ill-treating an animal, failure to provide access to clean and sanitary shelter and lack of veterinary care.

“The conditions these animals were forced to endure were truly heartbreaking,” said Nicole Wilson, Director of Animal Law Enforcement and Shelter Operations at the Pennsylvania SPCA. “Ninety-three animals living in filth, without clean water, adequate shelter, or basic care – this is why our team works around the clock to respond to these calls. We are grateful to the Good Samaritan who spoke up, the officers from West Hempfield Township and Lancaster County Sheriff Deputies who were committed to the safe removal of all animals and we are committed to ensuring each of these animals receives the care they deserve.”

Anyone with information about this case, or other cases involving animal cruelty, is urged to call the Pennsylvania SPCA’s Cruelty Hotline at (866) 601-SPCA. Tips can also be left anonymously.

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