It took them five months to do it.

But unlike many hikers who venture along the Appalachian Trail, David and Emily Kallin were able to fuel themselves from the vegetables they had grown back home in Dresden, Maine,  using them to supplement their diet of dehydrated food.

That was important to them, because they were hiking as a family.

They also took their two kids and family dog, Orion.

David, Emily, nine-year-old Nathan, and eight-year-old Maddy started hiking from Springer Mountain in Georgia on March 31.

They averaged 15 miles per day during their 2,185-mile odyssey that cost them between $8,000 and $9,000.

On August 31, they stood atop Maine’s highest peak, Mount Katahdin, in remote Baxter State Park, to complete the journey and become the sixteenth family in 77 years to hike the entire trail, according to the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.

“We probably ate better and healthier than most of the other hikers. I think going as a family […] that was more of a priority for us,” Emily told WCSH-TV in Portland, Maine.

Outdoor adventure is a strong thread that holds the family together. Emily grew up in a hiking family and together with David, they thru-hiked the AT in 2002. When it was time for children, they wanted to introduce the backpacking lifestyle to their kids.

“Since having children nine years ago we have made outdoor adventures a priority, always with the hope that we could do a long-distance trip as a family,” Emily wrote on the family website, which contains a blog about the trip. “My favorite time with my family is on the trail. We are all together, focused on the same task, away from the demands of our home routines, and appreciating the great outdoors.”

Emily works at home, engaged in subsistence farming to feed the family. David’s an attorney with an eye on land use, conservation, and natural resource law.

David also hiked as a child, being a passenger in his father’s backpack when he was six months old for a hike up popular Table Rock in Grafton Notch.

He and Emily met in 2001, and soon hit the trail together.

“Emily and I met in college a year earlier as ultimate frisbee players competing for rival colleges in the Boston area,” David said on the website. “Our first backpacking trip together was a frigid two-night trip in Maine’s Bigelow Mountains in February of 2002.  Our second backpacking trip together was a four-and-a-half-month thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail starting in Maine in August and ending in Georgia in December. By the end of that hike, we knew that we would be together to support each other through the rest of life’s challenges.”

According to the Portland Press Herald, each year the family takes a trip, chosen by the kids, during spring school vacation. Last year it was a 120-mile bicycle trip to camp in Acadia National Park. In February, they take an annual trip in Baxter State Park, skiing 14 miles to their campsite.

For the AT trip, David was granted a six-month leave of absence (they had planned to take that long on the trail, but traveled faster) on the condition the family blog about the experience. The children were taken out of elementary school two months early and were home-schooled on the trail.

“They kept up their schooling with essays, and learning about plants. And they memorized poems,” David told the newspaper. “But a big part of their learning has been learning from others, from people other than us. It’s something I did not expect.”

Image courtesy of kallinfamily.com