The Importance of That Which Has an End

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One of the most sublime things about the Appalachian Trail is that — it ends.  In begins in Maine (or Georgia, depending on where you start), and it unravels for over 2,000 miles.

There were countless times I wished it would surpass its mileage limit and continue on, unfolding forever into a far horizon so my vibrant young self could trek forever.  Yet, endings are so very important; containers in which we nest our hopes and dreams and accomplishments for safekeeping — and for the future.

Now, many years down the “trail of life” since my hike in 1985, I have found all the memories of that exploit sustain my heart and spirit; bittersweet at times, but oh so vivid!

The sight of delicate bluets alongside the trail during the early days of May when the hike had just begun.  The cooling breeze emanating from standing near a crystalline waterfall on a blistering summer day.

 

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The lazy purling water of a glittering Maine river on an autumn afternoon.  Numerous sunsets, each unique, each its own benediction to the day.  The memory of writing the adventures down in my journal.

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The many laughs and tales with fellow travelers by the night-time fireside.  The curious and informative entries of hikers from the world over in trail registers.  The outreach of smiling “trail angels.”  The respite in many towns and cities along the seaboard through which the trail runs.  The grace of rides given into town.

All these, and more, populate my mind today, as clear as if they happened just yesterday.   And, in my heart, they did.  They still do, because the movie of my recollections continues to re-run this one outstanding experience of my lifetime.  But, if it had never come to its end I wouldn’t have the gift inside me to unwrap during times when I need to get away.

So, you see, the ending is important.  Without an end to the trail the joys of the hike cannot curl up into my soul to find a home in which, when the time is right, they can come powerfully alive again.  It’s then they most nurture me and bless my life.

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So that I can say — “Yes, I did that!  I hiked the Appalachian Trail.  The memories and experience are mine to treasure and keep until I stand at the final trailhead.”

They are a story nestled within the larger drama of my life — one which still holds deep meaning — that began with something which has an end.

Hiking with Christmas on the Appalachian Trail

Always in my memory — backpacking the high ridge miles of Maine while enjoying the fragrance of countless conifers. Just like Christmas! Alas, the closest thing I have as a direct experience is the balsam candle which is burning. But, oh, the vividness of the memory! May the light and fragrance of this season fill your heart and soul with joy, peace, and hope!

Write in Front of Me

One particular thing I remember about Maine.  While all my senses were affected during my backpacking expedition, the continual smell of the evergreens in the 100-MileWilderness is something which stays with me to this day.  A powerful and marvelous recollection.  I remember thinking, “This is like hiking through a forest of Christmas trees!”  What enchantment!  Bunchberries at my feet, their intense green punctuated by the stark rubies of the berries only served to ornament the forest floor, which made the entire trail a holiday wonderland.  Nothing before or since has compared.  Only the snow was missing.  Just another reminiscence I keep and use to reconnect with the deep woods along the Appalachian Trail when I cannot be there in person.

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Creating A Backpacker’s Journal — Because You’ll Surely Forget!

Photo courtesy Ray Dumas @ Flickr

In the fall of 1985, after a summer backpacking the Appalachian Trail, I spent extensive time at a donut shop north of Boston. I know, there’s no worse way to sabotage a svelte hiker waistline than keeping company with chocolate croissants and dark roast coffee.  But I wasn’t there for an insatiable sugar binge.  I was there to write (OK, I did have some coffee).

I was there to copy what I had journaled that summer from one notebook into another.  I knew the fuzzing of memory over time would dim the the events of those rare days.  The photos I’d taken could never express my feelings, and some entries were so sparse they barely described what happened.  To prevent the potential fraying of my recall over time from robbing me of a record of that hiking season, it was vital I transcribe and clarify my brief journal.

First I reviewed the original material and jotted notes on entries which required expansion.  I corrected misremembered points. I expounded on moments which had deep meaning. I used a fresh corps of words to conjure a picture which featured adventure and exhaustion, frustration and elation, sadness and loneliness.  I penciled in what I felt and thought, all my regrets, misgivings, and moments when endorphins had me feeling I might take wing from the glorious summits I scaled.

I recorded it all: the pain and pleasure, the wrong turns and risks taken.  I apprised the me I had then and since become, capturing in a net of ink and paper a person who, though different today, still lives.  My journal became a lesson book that still reflects the vibrant risk taker I had become.  Each time I read it, I feel I’ve come home.  No video, photo, or electronic blog post can take me back to the intimacy, power and precious story of those days like my handwritten journal.

Thus I would admonish you, my friendly reader; though you blog and video and snap the shutter, nothing will make your hiking memory become a valued legacy like taking pen to paper to document the details.  Do it soon.  Because — over time — you’ll surely forget!

The Greatest Hiking Risk: Hypothermia

I once did a random, unscientific survey. I asked day hikers, backpackers, and visitors along the Appalachian Trail what they considered the greatest hiking risk. Instantaneous responses were rapid and predictable: bears, snakes, and strangers topped the list of what most thought were the greatest hiking risk. This was true even among some experienced trekkers. Yet the greatest hiking risk for people recreating in the outdoors is hypothermia – an answer that surprises many. Some are not even aware of the condition, which can arise without warning and quickly turn an outing into an ordeal.

My experience with hypothermia came during a long distance hike on the Appalachian Trail in the mountains of Maine in the magnificent, rugged Barren-Chairback Range.

Photo courtesy Pictoscribe @ Flickr

I had been hiking nearly a week and it had rained every day. The trail became a river and it was impossible to keep my gear rain free. My pack was soaked through. Some food had become soggy and much of my clothing was damp despite having an adequate laying system and wearing a Gore-tex parka and wool sweater.

Camping proved a unique challenge. Placing my tent down quickly, I tossed the rain fly on top, then wrestled to set it up without getting water inside. During the few days I was fortunate enough to use traditional lean-to shelters, I found that wind would force the rain in sideways and sometimes the shelter roof would leak. My synthetic fill sleeping bag was not drenched but it made for a damp and clammy night of rest.

During an afternoon hiking the ridgeline, after a grueling climb, I found myself exhausted and soaked to the skin beneath my rain parka. Even with my wool sweater beneath I experienced mild shivering. The wind picked up and temperatures began dropping. A hiker’s “perfect storm” was forming.

I first realized something was wrong when my thoughts became foggy and unclear. I began to undergo what I will call “disturbed time” – the sense of losing awareness of what time of day it was or how long I had been walking.

Next, my speech became slurred and I noticed I was having a great deal of difficulty putting my gloves on after wringing water from them. It was at that moment I realized the danger. I knew less about hypothermia then than I do now, but I knew enough to recognize I needed immediate shelter from the elements. Though I wanted to stop, sit down and rest right on the trail, I knew such a choice would be unwise.

I knew from studying my map that morning that there was a trail to a shelter nearby where I could find a safer haven. As I began walking I felt fear and clung to it, using the fear to help me battle against what I now know were classic hypothermia symptoms.

After a time the turnoff appeared and the trail descended into a more protected footway leading to the shelter. The lean-to was a poor structure and wind was getting in, but the nails on the walls allowed me to I affixed a tarp to block the elements.

Photo courtesy IamNotUnique @ Flickr

Immediately, I lit my MSR Firefly cooking stove then tossed some Ramen noodles on to boil. I dug my space blanket from my pack, shed most of my clothing, and mummified myself inside it. After drinking hot soup, eating two energy bars, and spending an hour out of the wind, my thoughts began to clear. I was relieved. I had avoided a potentially fatal situation and I was sobered at how easily it nearly overtook me.

Hypothermia begins when exhausted hikers are exposed to wet and windy conditions outdoors, combined with temperatures 50 degrees or lower. Under such conditions body heat is lost and internal temperature drops. Hypothermia symptoms appear and unless these are treated the victim becomes comatose then collapses. Death soon follows.

As with most life-threatening circumstances, prevention is the best safeguard. It is important to remain as dry as possible when being active outdoors and to beware of windy and wet conditions and situations where the temperature drops to a range of 50 down to 30 degrees. Gear that is rainproof and windproof is essential to wear, preferably before weather conditions deteriorate. Once they do, it becomes vital to take shelter in a tent or other structure.

Next, it is vital to begin to restore body heat, which can be done by preparing hot beverages and eating high-energy foods. Take note of classic symptoms, which may indicate the presence of hypothermia such as uncontrolled shivering, slurred speech, loss of memory, drowsiness, and exhaustion.

A victim of hypothermia must have all clothing removed and they should put in a warm sleeping bag. Another person should also strip and get into the bag with the victim to provide skin-to-skin contact to help restore lost body heat.

No one ventures outdoors without a measure of risk and there are many valid concerns, such as suffering a fall, lightning strikes, and other potential dangers. Yet hypothermia is by far the greatest hiking risk. With awareness and knowledge, you can be prepared and greatly reduce the chances you will become a victim.

Sources:

Appalachian Mountain Club. White Mountain Guide, 27th Edition, Appalachian Mountain Club, Copyright 2003., pg. xiii-xiv.

Watson, Tom. How to Think Like a Survivor: A Guide for Wilderness, Creative Publishing International, 2005, pg. 16.

Note To Self: When You Think About Quitting Your Thru-hike

No doubt about it: you will have days during your thru-hike when nothing will be as tempting as the notion of bailing out. I first met hikers who quit the trail well before the NC/GA border. Some discontinued their hike because of injury, others were homesick. One hiker said, “It just wasn’t what I thought it would be.” He caught a bus home the next day.

Within the first ten days of my trip I “enjoyed” nearly overpowering Georgia heat and humidity (and I’m from North Carolina!), discovering springs filled with brackish, un-potable water. Fifty-cent-sized blisters plagued both heels. The stinging nettles went on for miles, and drove some hikers nearly mad. One hiker made the habit of screaming aloud at the top of his voice as he plunged through them. Muscles and joints screamed for relief; moving gingerly first thing in the morning took persistent effort and ibuprofen became known as the “hiker vitamin.”

So, how can an aspiring long-distance Appalachian Trail backpacker up the odds of finishing atop Katahdin in autumn? There are as many answers to this questions as there are summits along the trail. But I recall in an old 1989 edition of the “Philosopher’s Guide,” some genuine advice. It suggested that if one feels like cashing in the trip they get off the trail and hold up in a motel for two or three days. If they find they aren’t missing what’s happening on the trail within that span of time, perhaps the hike is not for them and it’s time to set sights on a new goal.

I would add a simple suggestion; a “note to yourself.” Before you set out from Springer Mountain, jot down on a slip of paper the “why” which brought you to hike the Appalachian Trail. Make your reason as honest as possible, and retrieve it from your pocket to read during “those moments” — because you will have them, and that note to self may be the anchor and powerful motivation which keeps you hiking along the trail.

Land of Fire Dreams and Ice

I dreamt of fire last night. In my dream someone had triggered a stove-top fire. I reached for an extinguisher, which I tore from the kitchen wall, and turned back to face the blaze, only to find there were no flames left; the fire had simply extinguished itself.

Maybe this has something to do with the four-plus feet of snow outside my front door. I’m having to get used to walking in a snow canyon to get to the parking space. I have to contend with narrowing roads and snow mountains obscuring traffic at dicey street corners. I hear stories of people chasing others with shovels. Just last week a woman reportedly chased another female neighbor with a snowblower. Yikes!

I have not succumbed to snow rage, but I do have snow fatigue — a weariness which comes from too much shoveling. Yet I did get in my licks on the driveway last week, during a rare sunny afternoon that foretold of the coming warmth of spring. I actually slowed down and enjoyed the rhythm of shovel/walk/dump/walk/shovel, and I removed snow to such a degree that a neighbor called my parking space “manicured.” Imagine! But, as a perfectionist, it’s never as perfect as I would wish, and the forecast of another storm makes me snarl that the forces of nature would yet again undo what I have worked so hard to dig out. Such is life in snow country.

I found myself wishing I had invested in snow shoes back in the fall, but the closest I got was a new pair of winter snow boots; they have had quite a workout.

The blessing in it all is that humor has barged happily in to keep things in some perspective. I’ve imported a few examples into this post. I relish the fact that “meteorological spring” begins March 1.

September Trail Song


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In mid-September a telling chill laces the evening air.  In daytime, while hiking, there comes a moment when the breeze takes on an edge that says “autumn.”  That moment is both welcome and dreaded.  Autumn is my favorite season of the year, but since I don’t backpack during winter I find the promise of colder days unwelcome, unless they find me sitting beside a roaring fireplace with hot chocolate.  Still, this is the next spoke in the seasonal wheel ordained since time began, and I find it’s easier going from September until late March if I simply embrace the chilly guest who has come to share my life the next seven months.

One good thing about September and fall hiking is the change in the trail.  Less water and muddiness and more firm going underfoot.  The colorful pattern made by yellow-gold and burnished red fall leaves is a delight to tread through.  The yellow-jackets sometimes found nesting in the trail are the most unpleasant possibility, but I have only been stung once.  I learned that, yes, it is possible to run far while carrying a heavy backpack when their venomous sting is felt.


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Nights come earlier and fire and wood smoke are welcome.  There is a sadness to the loss of the long summer days when I might come trudging into camp as late as eight-thirty in the evening.  Days are shorter now, so itineraries focus on making efficient miles and having time to set camp and gather wood.  The melancholy also has something to do with the absence of seeing more kindred souls on the trial than I did during warmer months.  Again, it’s both welcome to have solitude and be alone while hiking, but lonely not having others to share the joy with.


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The September trail song is a bittersweet one.  Introspective, but not necessarily despondent.  There is more time as I walk to think and assess the lessons learned from the high season just gone.  Lessons that cannot be processed in a crowd, teachings that only come when I am the only soul gazing into the blazing campfire alone, staring up through the leafless trees into the naked sky of eternal starlight.  A late-arriving hiker at my site would not be welcome during such a holy moment.  I hold the hot cup of coffee close to ward the chill from my fingers.  I hold the moment itself closer still.  A gift of blessing seems to settle down on me from the upward curls of firewood smoke, and I feel a presence not noticed during the daylight or during the busy trail months.  Alone, yet not.  Wistful, but happy and content.  I place another log on the fire, lie back against a supporting tree, and gaze at the moon cresting the horizon.  I sip and swallow.  I muse and think.  No epiphany intrudes on my thoughts, just the comforting awareness of being alone at a specific place and time, in the wild, listening to the song of the barred owls and the whistling of the wind through tall hemlock trees.


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Trails and Thomas Merton

Photo courtesy jimforest @ Flickr

Traveling trails — including the trail of life — takes many forms and evokes many prayers, such as this one by Thomas Merton. See if you can identify with his heart.

MY LORD GOD, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death. I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.

Guiding Light – A song for the trail

One song that haunts me wonderfully as I hike and backpack the trail is this one by Irish worship leader Robin Mark.  Ponder the lyrics; enjoy the video.

 

O the road is wide,

And water runs on either side.

My shadow in the fading light

Is stretching out towards the night.

 

For the sun is low,

But I still have yet so far to go.

My lonely heart is beating so,

Cause I’m tired of the wandering.

 

There’s a sign ahead,

but I think it’s the same one again.

I’m thinking about my only friend,

so I’ll find my way home.

 

Chorus:

When I need to get home

you’re my guiding light, you’re my guiding light.

When I need to get home

you’re my guiding light, you’re my guiding light.

 

And the night is cold,

and yonder lies my sleeping soul

by all the branches broke like bones,

but this weakened tree no longer holds.

 

And the night is still,

but I have not yet lost my will.

So think I’ll keep on moving still,

til I find my way home.

 

Chorus:

When I need to get home,

You’re my guiding light, you’re my guiding light.

When I need to get home,

You’re my guiding light, you’re my guiding light.

Breaking News: Liebster Award Nomination

Thanks first of all to Rockin’ www.ladyonarock.com for this unexpected and humbling honor!  Rockin’ has, I believe, the most cutting edge, practical blog out there when it comes to backpacking and the outdoors.  Jam packed with incredible photography and blog entries that take you out of your day-to-day and to wherever she is in the wild, “Lady On A Rock” is a unique, informative, beautiful blog.  Gear reviews are not merely interesting here; they are practical  reports which allow the reader to evaluate whether the same gear would work for them.  Reports from the field on her journeys bring fun and excitement to life.  You really feel like you’re hiking right alongside her and it’s a refreshing read.  There are very few writers whose posts I really look forward to reading, and this is one!

In keeping with the rules…

#1 –  My answers to Rockin’s questions.

Favorite outdoor guidebook?

I grew up with one book which put the hiking hook in me; “The Complete Walker,” by Colin Fletcher.  I even read lengthy passages aloud to a hiking friend, and we both smiled and enjoyed Colin’s sense of humor and exploits.  Even years later the advice on many issues Colin touches on still holds true.  I would also mention two books which, while not officially practical trail guides, still opened the Appalachian Trail to my thinking.  The first, which I ready before my hike and which compelled me to tackle the A.T., was “Appalachian Hiker II,” by the Ed Garvey.  I read it twice before my hike, and it made the impossible seem possible for me.  After hiking the trail, I read “Waking With Spring,” by Earl Shaffer, a wonderful window onto the early backpacking days of the Appalachian Trail.

Why do you walk? The answer cannot be “Because I am crazy”.

Nothing strips away the gunk from my heart and soul like walking; especially in wilderness.  I believe my Creator designed every aspect of the wild to draw me closer to Him.  I am “called” to walk there, and when I cannot walk my life loses some of the richness and luster I think was intended for me to have.  I walk to see, and to see what I see.  To sharpen my perceptions, to take my place in the created dynamics of nature.  Plus I simply feel exhilirated, fit, and healthy when I walk the long distances.

Having a stressful day at work? what gets you through? an outdoor experience perhaps?

Stepping outside.  Breathing in…

I am a peak bagger. Do you have any recommendations?

Living in New England, I would certainly recommend Katahdin in Maine at the northern terminus of the AT.  Mount Washington in New Hampshire is a challenge in any season, with weather unlike anywhere else.  Being a southerner by birth, I have to nod strongly to the entire mountainous range of the Great Smokies, especially during the spring wildflower bloom in May.  Just thinking of that makes me tear up.

What gets you through the last miles of a hard day besides crying? Again selfish.

That cold, clear spring waiting at the end of the day.  Of course, being sentimental I am apt to cry in any case.  Dressing an unexpected, deep blister is also going to do the trick!

Your favorite trail food? It would be great if you could recommend a gluten and dairy free option.

I have a few.  I take along some olive oil and tabouli mix, make it up, and chill it in a spring.  Great on a hot day!  On some morning when my tastebuds require decadent fare, I will break out indian red corn fry bread mix.  In a pinch, bannock on a stick over a fire in the evening with a spot of Irish tea is a nightime treat.

I have to ask…what are 2 of your favorite funny hiking quotes? Shamelessly selfish again. I am gathering quotes for this summer’s blog entries.

I can only offer one, but it’s memorable.  When first setting out up the AT in Georgia, I met a fellow from the Boston area by name of Cronin.  At a shelter one night, he was grousing about how the trail up the Georgia mountains seemed to 1) lack switchbacks (which it did!), and 2) the trail would wind this way and that so much that when you would think yourself at the summit, you were crushed to find you were not.  As a result, the frustrated man coined “Cronin’s Law,” which I have used when appropriate.  Here it is: “Never assume you’re at the top!”

We are all bloggers. What keeps you motivated to keep writing?

I often believe I was born then paper and pencil were tossed in my crib, so it’s in the blood.  I am motivated by the hope that something I say will inspire or comfort someone, or that they will be able to relate to what I share.  Plus I simply love words and the use of them.

Since I loved this question I am going to ask. How old were you when you first camped? hiked? backpacked?

Oh those thrilling days of yesteryear!  At about ten years of age a friend convinced me to shoulder an army surplus backpack and hike with him into the posted land some three or four miles behind my rural home.  “Farmer Brown” never discovered us, and we didn’t burn down the acreage, but we made our own trails and camped in the woods for years.  Army surplus mess kits and canteens were among out equipment; cans of Spaghettios and foil packs of hamburger, potatoes, and onions were often stuffed among the coals to cook.  We had a grand time!  After my military stint, I got serious in the 70’s and bought a Kelty Tioga frame pack and ventured into the Uwharrie Mountains of central North Carolina, which were hilly and packed with eastern diamondback rattlers for some reason.  Later I expanded my explorations into the Linville Gorge area of the Blue Ridge mountains, the Pisgah Range, and Shining Rock Wilderness.  I was hooked.  Later came the AT and then Vermont’s Long trail.

Who doesn’t love a good sunrise and sunset? Where have been your favorites?

I took a basecamp trek at Mount Mansfield in Vermont, where I parked my pack at Taft Lodge for a week and daypacked many of the summit trails.  One August morning, cool and filled with the fragrance of conifers, I woke early and ventured outside where about eight other lodgers were sitting on an eastern-facing shelf of rock.  No one said a thing, as if it might shatter the moment.  Then through the reddish-gray striations of cloud on the east a striking sun broke through, crepuscular rays spitting out across the surrounding summits like lasers, and bathing our perch with golden light.  I have no photo of it, but I’ve never forgotten it.  It was a holy moment.

So what is your next planned adventure?

There are a number of short/long options I’m curious about doing.  I might re-hike the Shenandoah National Park stretch of the AT next summer.  Meanwhile, possibly a return visit to the Monadnock-Sunapee Greenway which runs up the center of New Hampshire.  A dream trail would be the North Country Trail, and the Great Eastern Trail has caught my attention as an AT alternative.

Rule #2 – Nominate bloggers 

LADY ON A ROCK  http://www.ladyonarock.com  Following Rockin’s adventures will make your day!  (Reverse nomination alert!)

CHASING KATAHDIN  http://www.chasingkatahdin.com “Dairy Queen” is living the dream on the AT.

A FORK IN THE ROAD  http://jfetig.com  Yogi said, “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” So I’m following the white blazes.Rule (Jim Fetig)

WATERFALLS HIKER  http://waterfallshiker.com  Exploring the cooler, wetter side of western North Carolina.

#3 – Provide nominees with questions

What is the greatest danger/peril you have experienced or come close to?

How does your love of the wild enrich your life?

Which book, of all you have read, has affected your life the most?  How?

Would you be prepared, if necessary, to provide first-aid care to another injured hiker you came across?  What is the level of your skills/training in this area?

Which creature would you least like to encounter when outdoors?  (Excluding humans)

What is your threshold of risk in the outdoors; i.e., would there be a circumstance, place, expedition you would say no to?

If you have just one last walk you could take, anywhere in the world, where would it be?

Which is more important to you — physical stamina or mental toughness — when outside?

What’s the most hilarious thing that has ever happened to you when outside?

What do you value most in life?

Describe your philosophy of life?  Who are you?  Why are you here?  What legacy will you leave behind?