M.J. "Nimblewill Nomad" Eberhart made headlines in 2021 as the then-oldest person to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail, at 86. Now 88, he's felling longleaf pines on an Alabama cattle ranch and milling the lumber himself to build something that didn't exist before: a nonprofit senior living community for long-distance hikers, cheekily named the Hiker Trash Old Folks Home.
The project grew out of the Southern Comfort Hiker Hostel, which Eberhart opened this past summer with partners Randy and LuAnne Anderson on a 160-acre ranch in Weogufka, about 8.6 trail miles from the southern terminus of Alabama's 350-mile Pinhoti Trail at Flagg Mountain. The Pinhoti links into Georgia's Benton MacKaye Trail and forms part of the Eastern Continental Trail, so through-hikers will be passing by year-round. The southern location also means mild winters, a real draw for older trekkers who want to stay active through the off-season.
Plans call for roughly a dozen rustic studio cabins arranged around a welcome center, pavilion, and bathhouse, with tent pads and RV hookups to follow. The first cabin and welcome center are already up, funded partly by an online fundraiser and a lot of free lumber and volunteer labor. Eberhart expects the first residents to move in sometime next year.
The idea took shape around a campfire years earlier, when Eberhart, the Andersons, and trail legend "Miss Janet" Hensley, a longtime thru-hiker shuttle driver, started asking what happens to hikers whose bodies can no longer carry a pack. The answer, for this crew, was to stay close to the trail anyway. Residents can volunteer at the hostel, feed and support overnighting trekkers, join dayhikes and trail-maintenance trips, or just swap stories with younger hikers around the firepit. Eberhart calls that deliberate mix of generations one of the project's biggest draws.
The land came courtesy of Lloyd Caperton, a rancher Eberhart met back in 2000 while hiking the then-unfinished Pinhoti, when Caperton's country store was the only hope of resupply in town. Caperton offered the group free rein to build and pledged to donate the property to The Nature Foundation on his death, with the hostel and home allowed to keep operating as long as they're self-sustaining.
Interest is already strong. Dozens of inquiries have arrived with almost no marketing, and organizers are drafting an application. The requirements are simple: genuine kindness, a real love of long-distance hiking, and the ability to climb two or three stairs unaided. Legendary thru-hiker George "Billy Goat" Woodard was slated for the first cabin before health issues delayed his arrival.
For travellers, this is a story worth knowing even if retirement is decades off. Alabama's Pinhoti Trail is gaining a proper trail-town anchor, and the hostel itself is a viable stop for anyone walking the Eastern Continental Trail or sampling the southern Appalachians in winter. And for older hikers wondering whether the trail life has an expiry date, Eberhart is living proof it doesn't: his friend Dale "Grey Beard" Sanders, 91, just broke the oldest-thru-hiker record, with Eberhart's help.
Story via Backpacker.
