Disclaimer: This is not a hiking book as such, but it's a great survival story based on an actual historical event. Two women, one young, one elderly, undertake a hike of 600 miles that would put any ultra light hiker to shame.

Follow the River is a fictional account based on the true journey of Mary Draper Ingles. In 1775, at the height of the French and Indian War, Mary Ingles was kidnapped by Shawnee Indians during a raid on Draper's Meadow, a pioneer settlement in southwest Virginia located near present-day Blacksburg. Most of the settlers were massacred during the attack, but Mary, along with her two little boys, her sister-in-law, and a neighbor, were taken captive and transported almost 600 miles north to a Shawnee encampment near what is now the Ohio/Kentucky border.

Mary was 23 years old and pregnant at the time of her capture. A couple of days after her capture, she gave birth to a little girl right on the trail. Despite her weakened state, the Shawnees packed her and her newborn onto a horse, and the captive party continued northward immediately afterward. They eventually wound up near the Scioto River not far from present-day Chillicothe, Ohio. Mary was then separated from her sons and sister-in-law when the Shawnees traded her to a French trapper. Broken-hearted and increasingly desperate, she resolved to escape and return to her husband, so they could then attempt to reclaim their lost children. A few weeks passed before Mary saw her chance to escape. Knowing the infant would not survive if she took it with her, Mary left her 2 month old baby behind in the care of a friendly Shawnee women and then escaped, accompanied by an old Dutch woman, another captive she met at the encampment.

Mary's journey home back to the New River Valley in Virginia followed the Ohio, Kanawha, and New rivers and covered almost 600 miles of untamed wilderness. Traveling on foot, with no food, supplies, tools, shelter, or weapons, the two women foraged for what little food they could find in the dying season. Facing starvation, hypothermia, and illness daily, with no maps or guides, they chose a path that hugged the rivers in the hope of eventually reaching home. As late summer gave way to a cold autumn, their situation became more and more desperate. Neither woman could swim, so they often had to travel up or down stream for considerable distances out of their way in order to find a safe place to ford the river. Near the end of the journey near present-day Pearisburg, Virginia, Mary faced her most daunting challenge yet - a climb up and over the crumbly 200 foot limestone cliffs of the New River. She arrived home finally, emaciated, naked and starving, in the bitter November cold. You will need to read the story to find out what happened to her and her family after she made it back home.

I read this absorbing book several years ago. While her journey didn't take her directly along today's Appalachian Trail, hikers and others familiar with the New River/Pearisburg area will enjoy its indirect connection to the AT.

For those who read this book and area interested in a more historical account, check out John Hale's Trans-Allegheny Pioneers published in 1886. The author devotes an extensive chapter to the details of her capture, her escape, and her life after she returned to Drapers Meadows.