How to Walk 20,000 Miles
Liz Thomas ’07 is a professional hiker, adventure conservationist, and outdoor writer who held the women’s unsupported speed record on the 2,181-mile long Appalachian Trail. A guest editor and regular contributor to Backpacker, Thomas has been featured on Good Morning America and has appeared in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Yahoo! News, Men's Journal, Women's Health, and Outside, among other publications. Her book Long Trails: Mastering the Art of the Thru-Hike received the 2017 National Outdoor Book Award for Best Instructional book with judges calling in the “Bible of the Sport."
Thomas has served on the board of the Partnership for the National Trail System and the American Long Distance Hiking Association and as ambassador to American Hiking Society. A former staff writer at Wirecutter/New York Times, Thomas is currently editor-in-chief at Treeline Review, an outdoor digital media company dedicated to creating outdoors for all.
A 2007 graduate of Claremont McKenna College where she majored in EEP (Environment, Economics, and Politics) and was the Athenaeum student manager, Thomas holds a masters in Environmental Science from the Yale School of the Environment, where she held a Doris Duke Conservation Fellowship for her research on trails, conservation, and trail-side communities. She currently is on the board of the Roberts Environmental Center at CMC.
Since graduating from CMC, Thomas has hiked over 20,000 miles on more than 30 long distance hiking paths around the world! Ms. Thomas' talk is part of the Athenaeum's 40th Anniversary Series, which celebrates the achievements of CMC alumni from across the years and invites them to return home to Claremont.