As we stood on a boulder looking south along the course of the Appalachian Trail, I realized I couldn’t truly grasp the gargantuan scale of America’s most famous footpath. We had started our journey an hour earlier about 2 miles south and west of our current resting spot. Our view from the southwestern face of Bromley Mountain took in Stratton Mountain sitting 10 miles south, which is where Benton MacKaye supposedly first envisaged this 2,150-mile hiking path.

In actuality, MacKaye didn’t intend to carve out a footpath. His vision was a reaction to the industrial growth of the early twentieth century: a series of work camps, educational nature retreats, and eventually self-sustaining villages, all connected via this Appalachian Trail. After first publishing his plan, it took years to arrange action around it. The Appalachian Trail Conference was founded in 1925 to begin organization of efforts to construct a trail connecting Mount Mitchell in North Carolina, and Mount Washington in New Hampshire, a roughly 1,200-mile stretch. More years passed with little action as MacKaye further refined his plans. MacKaye was very much a dreamer, but it would take real organizational efficiency and discipline to complete an undertaking such as this. Enter Myron Avery, a young lawyer and avid outdoorsman who took the reigns of the Conference in 1930. Avery, a kind of managerial phenom, had the trail completed — after extending the length by almost 1,000 miles to a total of about 2,150 miles — by 1937, using entirely volunteer efforts. Bill Bryson notes in A Walk in the Woods, “In under seven years, using volunteer labor, he built a 2,000-mile trail through mountain wilderness. Armies have done less.”

The product of their vision and labor is truly breathtaking. In the relatively short 25-mile section I recently hiked through southern Vermont, I was routinely taken aback at sweeping vistas where I could see 50-miles across the Green and Taconic Mountains. Serene mountain lakes sat nestled behind mountain ridges, blocking them from the lights and sounds of civilization just miles away on the other side. The thick forest around us changed regularly as we moved along, from birches and maples with their broad green leaves, to firs that lined the path with needled boughs. We traversed rocky summits, discovering bafflingly placed boulders deposited by receding glaciers at the conclusion of the last ice age. Nothing invokes curiosity quite like coming over the breaking point of a ridge to discover a ten foot round hunk of stone precariously perched at the top of a hill, knowing that it would take immeasurable human effort to place it there, but for the ebb and flow of nature it is just evidence of an ever-changing landscape.

While the natural features exhibited along the trail are endlessly impressive, the man-made trail enhancements are inspiring in their own right. On our second day, miles from any road, we happened upon a small river about 30 feet wide, currently running low with exposed river rock on either bank. To convey hikers from side to side, the Green Mountain Club — the volunteer organization in charge of this section of trail — had constructed a suspension bridge. With the structure made entirely from wood and being supported by steel bolts and cable, the bridge seemed to blend in perfectly with the backwoods setting. Massive concrete blocks had been poured on either side and anchored the bridge’s two-inch thick steel cables from their partially obscured positions under some dirt and pine needles. Such an undertaking seems staggering to me, especially when placed in the context of the trail. At most, a couple thousand people would use this bridge in a year, and yet it was masterfully constructed with obvious care and toil. While this was the biggest bridge we crossed, it was one of many that had been thoughtfully placed for the use of hikers passing through, to aid in their enjoyment of these woods.

When you’re walking the Appalachian Trail, even in the company of a good friend, you find yourself with plenty of time for silent reflection. While my thoughts wandered through hunger, planning the rest of the day, and a hundred other things, I always found myself drawn back to wondering “Why?” Why this particular course through the mountains? Why Springer to Katahdin? Most of all, why did I have such a compulsion to be out here, notching off sweaty miles and laboring up hillsides when I could be sipping iced tea at an outdoor cafe in Brooklyn? I came to arrive at a singular answer for these nagging questions; an answer that is my own, and for me justifies the existence of the trail and my need to be on it.

Think not of the Appalachian Trail as a protected wilderness corridor running the course of the eastern states. Nor as an endurance challenge for those with an extra five or six months with nothing else to do and something to prove. It is a museum. A living museum, full of live exhibits. A 2,150-mile series of displays dedicated to showing Americans what our home looked like before we started living here. Reminding us that we are transients on these continents that have shifted around for millions of years, pushing the peaks we stand atop higher into the sky, while the creeks and streams we ford with wooden bridges are endlessly eroding these hills back down to nothingness. It’s rambling course, intended not for the convenience of the hiker, targets mountain ridges and takes in views deserving of appreciation. The path itself is not groomed to make it especially easy to traverse. Most of the trail is a well-beaten path, wide enough for a single person, marked with breadcrumbs of rectangular white blazes painted on trees and signposts. You are plunged into nature and forced to take notice of the trees, the wildlife, and the world around you.

Benton MacKaye hoped to create much more than a simple footpath. While his original vision hasn’t been fulfilled as he intended, I believe that his mission to help us retreat to nature has been well served. To me the most important feature of the Appalachian Trail is its accessibility. Every one of the noteworthy and breathtaking features I will remember from this hike is no more than a half-day’s walk from a parking lot or trailhead. You can spend five months trekking the entire course of the trail, or you can spend an afternoon with your family heading off into the woods to get a momentary breath of fresh air and glimpse into the natural past. This museum is always open, admission is free, and you can stay as long — or as short — as you like.