Arlette Laan
Arlette, trail name Apple Pie, grew up in the Netherlands and currently lives in Lowell, MA. She began hiking when she was eighteen on vacation in Switzerland. Arlette has completed the John Muir Trail (2002), the Pacific Crest Trail (2003), the Continental Divide Trail, (2004), the Appalachian Trail (2005), the Arizona Trail (2009), The Grand Enchantment Trail (2012), The Te Araroa in New Zealand (2015), The Long Trail (2015), the Florida Trail (2017), the Hayduke Trail (2017), the Colorado Trail (2017), Benton-MacKay Trail (2018), Pinhoti Trail (2018), Cohos Trail (2018), the New England Trail (2018), and all of the Pacific Northwest Trail in sections (2007, 2012, and in 2019). In 2014 she completed all 48 4000-footers in an 11 day unsupported backpacking trip called the White Mountain challenge or Direttissima. She did this again in 2019 in a fraction over nine days (and this earned Arlette the number one female FKT of the Year spot for 2019). Add to this the Potomac Heritage Trail (2020) and the enormous North Country Trail (2021-2022). It doesn’t end there, in 2022 she also completed the Natchez Trace. In 2022, upon completing the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, Arlette is the first woman to hike all 11 of the National Scenic Trails in the United States and has since that time, added the Ouachita Trail (2022).
