Trail Therapy

Love Life !

I'M BACK ON THE ROAD!
... hoping to be used in the mending of broken hearts before they stop beating. I'm doing my "Shelly Walk" in honor of my daughter. It's a corner to corner walk of the U.S., starting in Arizona, near the California border where I stopped last year.

Read my updates on the Trail Therapy Blog

Please visit

www.lovelifefilm.com

for stills and clips from the ongoing production of a documentary of Love Life walks.

National Public Radio aired my story on its "Hearing Voices" program! I have received numerous emails expressing appreciation with my walks and my "LOVE LIFE" message. Danner Boots has provided me with new Gore-Tex hiking boots... thank you Danner! The Cincinnati chapter of the American Foundation of Suicide Prevention purchased my new rain gear, an ARC'TERYX Gore-Tex Pro Shell, one of the very best made! Thank you Cincinnati AFSP!! I will use my old tent until I can get a new one... so, I'm good to go! I'll leave for Yuma, Arizona on the 26th of March.

Trail Therapy is the term I feel best describes what brought about the changes in my life after walking over 21,000 miles of the U.S.A.

I have hiked the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain in North Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. A distance of 2,167.3 miles.

In 2001, I walked the American Discovery Trail from Point Reyes National Seashore on the Pacific Ocean in California to Cape Henlopen State Park at the Atlantic Ocean in Delaware, 4,858 miles.

March 8, 2003 I left from the northern edge of the Everglades at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation in Florida and walked to the Pacific Ocean in California. From California I walked to the state of Washington. I then walked from there to Bangor, Maine. From Bangor, Maine I walked back to the exact spot where I started from in Florida. I finished on March 25, 2005 and covered 9,752 miles.

I have since hiked 314 miles of the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain to Irwin, Tennessee in Spring of 2006. Also in 2006, I walked from Blairsville, Georgia to Cincinnati, Ohio, approximately 393 miles. On March 23, 2007 I left Cincinnati and walked to Surry, Maine and then to Arizona not far from the California line..

I have walked through 46 states, passed through over 1400 cities, towns, and villages, and wore out 29 pairs of shoes covering approximately 21,304 miles. With the exception of my first hike of the Appalachian Trail, I carried over my head a large sign ..."LOVE LIFE."

The most difficult thing... but an essential one... is to "LOVE LIFE," to love it even when one suffers, because life is all. Life is God, and to "LOVE LIFE" is to love God.

~ Leo Tolstoy

Stephen "Stevie" Lee Fugate
1972-1999

In 1999 I lost my only son to suicide.

Stevie was operating my business for me while I attempted a "thru-hike" of the Appalachian Trail. I had traveled just over half the trail when I received word that my son had placed a gun in his mouth and effectively ended both our lives.

I am convinced that there is no pain equal to that of losing a child. The grief was indescribable. I felt as though someone had taken an axe and chopped out my heart while I was yet breathing! My son, this living, breathing, precious life, my beautiful contribution to the universe, was suddenly gone. I can in no way fully describe the pain, I don't know how to scream on paper...

Eight months later I returned to the exact spot where I had stopped my hike and proceeded to finish the "AT" as a tribute to my son. I screamed and cried almost every step of the way but I finished, having walked the entire 2,167 miles. While out on the trail in solitude, surrounded by the magnificent, inspiring beauty that encompasses that soothing and healing footpath, my life took a turn. For me, the Appalachian Trail became a pathway back to life... Trail Therapy. After completing my "thru-hike" of the Appalachian Trail I adopted a creed; I want no other parent to suffer the horror that I had to go through and I wanted no other young person to miss out on the chance to.. "LOVE LIFE"

I came up with the idea of walking across the U.S.A. I put a sign over my head.."LOVE LIFE" and off I went! I conveyed my message to all I encountered. I felt it so successful, I did it again. Only this time I walked around the United States. My beautiful daughter helped orchestrate both walks.

I was about four weeks from finshing my walk around the U.S.A. when I recieved word that my 36 year old daughter who suffered from M.S. had died from an accidental drug overdose. Again, my life seemed to be ended. Yet again I faced the horror! The answer was right there over my own head, I had to push on and.. "LOVE LIFE"

My little girl's little girl - my grandbaby Cassidy Jean Morgan born Nov. 2001	Michele "Shelly" Fugate Morgan 1968-2005

This web site is about my encounters with life's beautiful people and kindred spirits and why I still "LOVE LIFE"

With this site I hope to encourage all to get out on America's beautiful, wonderful, and therapeutic long distance hiking trails. I hope to particularly encourage our young people to find, explore, and enjoy the benefits offered by these soothing and educational footpaths. And I hope to remind those whom have already found Doctor Nature and her free 'Trail Therapy' through these paths, to remember to encourage others to visit her.

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Donations for Steve's Shelly Walk from corner to corner of the U.S.
Make checks payable to: Stevie Lee Fugate Foundation and sent to:
National City
Causeway Office
1700 Highway A1A
Vero Beach, FL. 32963