Cindy Ross had her formal education at Indiana University of PA and Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia in Fine Arts, Painting. She is a long-distance hiker, writer, author, educator, and artist. She through-hiked the entire 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail and the 2,600-mile Pacific Crest Trail as a single woman, and later, married with kids, the 3,100-mile Continental Divide Trail, making her a Triple Crowner.
Out of her nine published books, she writes of her adventures in A Woman’s Journey on the Appalachian Trail, Journey on the Crest, and Scraping Heaven: A Family’s Journey Along the Continental Divide. She has also made a career speaking publicly about her travels and alternatively raising and educating their two children, Sierra and Bryce. It is the subject of her 8th book, The World is Our Classroom: How One Family Used Nature & Travel to Shape and Extraordinary Education, Skyhorse Publishing, NYC.
In addition to hiking, Cindy has visited 65 countries as a cyclist and paddler, which she writes about in newspaper and magazine articles published across the country.
Cindy has been an educator for most of her life, teaching backpacking and journal writing at local colleges, as well as facilitating her children’s homeschooling career.
She and her husband Todd Gladfelter built their own log home from scratch and live a simple lifestyle close to the earth. As experts in self-sufficiency, they have grown their own organic food raised chickens, goats, llamas and steer provided workshops on Voluntary Simplicity at the college level
They also ran a hostel on the Appalachian Trail as part of the Volunteers in the National Parks program and maintain a section of the AT through the local hiking club.
Cindy has been the Director of River House PA, a 501c3 nonprofit, which takes veterans into nature to heal. Her 9th book entitled, Walking Towards Peace: Veterans Healing on America’s Trails, was released April 2021 with The Mountaineers Books, Seattle. It traces the personal and deeply moving stories of 25 veterans who mostly hike (long distance and short) as well as paddle rivers and mountain bike trails, to help heal from their trauma.
Learn more about Cindy by visiting her travel writing blog at https://cindyrosstraveler.com/
570 views • posted 12/17/2021
