5-year-old is one of the youngest people to hike the full Appalachian Trail
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Harvey Sutton is only 5, but he's already completed something many adults only dream about — he hiked the full length of the Appalachian Trail.
Along with his mom, Cassie, and dad, Josh, Harvey spent 209 days on the 2,100-mile trail, going through 14 states. The Virginia resident was 4 years old when his family started their adventure in Georgia, and turned 5 in August when they arrived in Maine. The Suttons usually woke up at 6 a.m. to pack up their tents and get moving, and traveled about 13 to 15 miles a day. Together, they walked through heavy snow, steady rain, and extreme winds.
It was "fun and hard," Harvey told NBC News, and he shared that he's not surprised he was able to walk as far as he did. Harvey — who was fueled by peanut butter and Skittles — is one of the youngest people to ever finish hiking the entire trail, and his mother told NPR in August that she discovered one way to keep him focused. "We learned that he is fabulous at hiking, but as long as we're playing make-believe and pretend with him all day long, then he moves quickly and hikes a lot faster than a lot of us imagine," she said.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
