Cumberland Gap, the Notch America Squeezed Through

(NYTimes) - I CLIMBED slowly behind my husband, up the steady grade, my hiking boots crunching gravel, small twigs and dried leaves. The oak leaves had created a carpet of deep copper red in the woods on either side of the path, and overhead lacy branches of hemlock were silhouetted against the sky.
I was not carrying an infant in my arms, nor was I pregnant — unlike some of the thousands of women who followed their husbands through this gap in the Cumberland Mountains two centuries earlier. Occasionally those walkers did not have shoes or even softened animal skins to cover their feet, let alone hiking boots. Tough people these were, and comparisons to our own much different circumstances came naturally as we hiked this trail in Cumberland Gap National Historical Park. Continued

Photos: Wikipedia, Library of Congress, Wikipedia.