Date: 2015-09-06
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Part Isee the video of the first part of this presentation in CharlotteHiking the Appalachian Trail was an extraordinary event in my life and I'm thankful for it. But I sure am glad to be home and glad to share the hike with you.Beginning on Feb. 15 I hiked all of the AT, from Springer Mountain in Georgia through 14 states to Mt. Katahdin in Maine - 2,189.2 miles.And that doesn't include the miles I hiked backwards.Oh, yes, three times. And getting turned around, hiking backwards, is a lot easier to do than that you might think. Hiking BackwardsThe most common way hikers get turned around is coming out of a shelter in the morning after a hearty breakfast of pop tarts.Shelters are usually located on side trails, from a tenth of a mile or so up to a half a mile off the trail. Hikers get up, pack up, eat up, hike back to the trail, and, sometimes, turn the wrong way. But that's not how I did it.OneThe first time I got turned around it was because I missed a turn, the same turn, twice. The date of this mishap is interesting. It was Friday, the 13th of March, a cold, rainy, blustery day, miserable day. An especially bad day to have to spend almost two extra hours on the trail. But it could have a lot worse, would have been worse had it not been for a couple of gravestones.I missed a left-hand turn at a T¢intersection and kept walking downhill on a nice, smooth trail. Nice, smooth trail? That's was a clue right there that I was going the wrong way. And didn't I notice the absence of the white blazes that mark the AT?Well, yes. But, sometimes, the blazes are really close together and, sometimes, they can be a quarter a mile or more apart. So I kept going.I was trapped by one of my own rules: "In for a dime, in for a dollar."I didn't give up until I got to the bottom of the hill and saw an orange sign with black letters that said: "No trespassing."I turn around, climbed back up the hill, missed the turn again, and headed right back where I came from. I kept walking until I came to some gravestones I remembered passing earlier that same morning. Kind of hard to forget gravestones, with plastic flowers, standing alone in the middle of nowhere.TwoAnother time it really wasn't my fault.I came down a slope and the trail just disappeared. Did it go left? Right? Straight ahead? Your guess would have been as good as mine.I walked a little way this way, a little way that way, looking for a white blaze marking the trail. You've heard the expression, haven't you, about somebody not knowing up from down? Well, before long I didn't know north from south. And when I finally found a white blaze I took off, heading back the way I had come.Once you're turned around, you could hike halfway back to Georgia without realizing it. Remember, you're hiking through a forest. And - I don't know whether you know this or not - but one bunch of trees looks pretty much alike another bunch of trees. Lucky for me in 15 minutes or so I ran into two German hikers I knew, Mother Nature and Between, her 18-year-old son.Between was in front and I asked him, "Why are you hiking south?"And he said, "I'm not hiking south."ThreeI don't know how my third southbound misadventure started but I'll never forget how it ended.I was hiking along when I saw a privy right beside the trail. I was surprised. And I was thinking, "Well, what do you know. Another trail side privy. That¢s only the second one I¢ve seen since I left Georgia. I used one this morning just like that one."Oh, NO!Oh, yes. It was the same one.It won't my faultWhy didn't I use a compass, and keep going north?Well, the AT is not straight, far from it. It winds around quite a bit, often for no reason I could discern. Sometimes you have to walk due south to go north. That's why a compass can't tell you, for drop dead certain, that you're headed in the wrong direction.The trail is marked with white blazes, about two inches wide and six inches long. The blazes are painted on trees, mostly, but sometimes on rocks, posts standing all by themselves in the middle of a field, fences, bridges. One is painted on the bottom of the canoe that ferries hikers across the Kennebec River in Maine, so they say. I never actually saw that one.While most of the trail is blazed, it's not all blazed, not by a long shot.Bless the volunteersNow, before I say another word about missing blazes, or anything else that might be taken as criticism of the people who maintain the trail, let me say this:Bless the hundreds of volunteers whose hard work enables the rest of us to enjoy the Appalachian Trail.They cut up and drag away countless blow downs, trees that have fallen across the trail. They lay planks and build walkways over swampy areas. They build and repair bridges. They haul rocks and build steps up mountains, to prevent erosion. They build turnouts to cut water out of the trail. And they mark the trail with those white blazes I told you about. For the most part, they do an excellent job.That said, I assure you that the Appalachian Trail is not always well-maintained or well-marked. It's not all that unusual to come to an intersection with another trail - hundreds of trails intersect the Appalachian Trail - and you won't have a clue about which way to turn. There's not a blaze in sight. After you've hiked for a few months, of course, you'll figure it out: The easy trail, the one that looks like a path through the park in your neighborhood, that will not be the AT. The AT will be the one with slick rocks and exposed roots and deep ruts - and it will be headed up uphill. Start datesMost north bound thru-hikers, NoBos they are called, start between March 1 and mid-April in an effort to avoid as much cold weather as they can.I started on Feb. 15 to avoid the hikers who start from March 1 to mid-April.Nothing personal. I just didn't want to compete with two or three dozen hikers for space in shelters that usually held six or eight.So, partly because I chose to go hiking during one of the worst cold spells in the recorded history of mankind - well, that might be a little bit of an exaggeration but it was the coldest winter in several years - I was the 31st north bound thru-hiker to arrive at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy headquarters in Harpers Ferry, 1,022 miles north of Springer Mountain. I can't be sure, but I think I was among the first three dozen or so to finish the whole trail.All the north bound thru-hikers I met were near the front of the pack at one time or another. They had a good time but they were also serious hikers who could cover a lot of miles when they took a notion. Four of the guys I hiked with in New Hampshire and Maine - Styles, Hulk, Krumbz, and Bruin - decided to hike all night and then take a zero [i.e., the day off] at Shaw's Hiker Hostel in Munson, MA. And they did hike all night - 40 miles. They didn't have a train to catch, they just did it for the fun of it.I wasn't fast. I did pass some NoBos while they were resting up in town - or asleep in a shelter - but I only passed three on the trail:one of them was legally blindone had something wrong with his kneeand one was called Slow Man.When the terrain was favorable, and I was desperate for one reason or another to get somewhere, I did some 20-mile days. And I did one 30-miler. But I wasn't fast, I was long: I started early, quit late, and didn't stop much in between.Old hikers, I think, do have one advantage over young hikers. No matter how blessed our lives have been, we've seen more troubles. So when trouble comes on the trail, sickness, injury, or day after day of bad weather I think old hikers are a little more likely to shrug it off. We've seen worse.How many make it?The Conservancy, which manages the AT, estimates that more than 2,500 hikers left from Springer Mountain, GA, last year, the southern end of the trail, intending to walk to Mt. Katahdin, Maine. Year in and year out, about out of four make it all the way.According to the Conservancy:About one fourth of the thru-hikers drop out in the first few days, before they get to North Carolina.Another fourth quit before they reach Harper Ferry, WV, which is not quite half way.Another fourth drop out up north somewhere, before they complete their hike.see the video of the next part of this presentation in CharlotteWho does this?Thru-hikers are mostly white and mostly young. More than half of all thru-hikers are in their teens and 20s. The male/female ratio, according to the Conservancy, is 75/25.Many of the hikers, young and older, are in transition. Some planned to join the armed forces as soon as they finished their hike. Some of them had graduated from college and had planned to start graduate school in August - business, law, medicine. Some had finished college and were not sure what to next. Some were between jobs, or careers, or marriages or they were at some other pivotal point in their lives. Some, of course, were retired. According to the Conservancy web site, since the 1930s a total of 15,524 people have thru-hiked the trail, including 25 who were age 70 or older and fewer than 500 who were age 60 or older.I met about 55 or 60 north bound thru-hikers including half a dozen or so men in their 50s to mid-60s. One of them, Pa Bert, was on his third thru-hike. I only met one woman who appeared to be in her 60s. She hoped that I might become the love of her life, but that's another story.Otherwise, the oldest women I met were Red Feather, who was 43; Mother Nature, who appeared to be a few years older; and Cashmere, who was in her 50s.Mother Nature is the German woman I mentioned earlier. I hiked quite a ways her and her son and was with them at the end, on Mt. Kathadin.Red Feather's real name is Clara Hughes, a six-time Olympic medalist in cycling and speed skating. She last competed in London in 2012. At the age of 39 she still finished fifth in the world in cycling.Red Feather is a national figure in Canada but she pretty much flew under the radar until she got to Maine and began running into Canadians hiking the trail.I hiked several hours with her one morning - she slowed down and I speeded up - when we ran into 10 or 12 Canadian teenagers. Their leader said to Red Feather in English, "You look just like that Olympian."Red Feather replied in French, confirming that she was "that Olympian." The kids were quite obviously delighted to meet her.And could she hike? Oh, my! Cashmere, a college professor from Georgia who taught organic chemistry, was a flip flopper. That's a good thing. The Conservancy is encouraging hikers to start in the middle somewhere, hike north, or south, and then hike the other half of the trail. Cashmere was trying to hike the whole thing in 100 days, an average of almost 22 miles a day, so she could return to her classroom on time. I can't begin to tell you how difficult it would be to be to average 22 miles a day. Hiking 22 miles and averaging 22 are two very different things.AngelsThe hikers I met on the trail were the best part of the trip. And the trail angels were a close second, strangers who often seemed to show up when we needed them most.Some of the angels were anonymous. They would leave snacks, and drinks in the cooler, near a road, usually. But sometime they would hike in and leave them in the middle of nowhere. Gift like that are called Trail Magic.I did get to meet several trail angels:On an icy March afternoon in Georgia, a trail angel named Sherpa was waiting for hikers at Unicoi Gap. "Would you like some hot coffee?" he asked me. Two cups later, with cream and sugar, plus a banana, plus a Twinkie, I was on my way again.On April Fool's Day, California and I ran into a day hiker named Low Gear who was hiking south with his dog. We, of course, were hiking north. We got to talking and Low Gear decided to turn around, hike with us to Dickey Gap, and give us a ride into Troutdale, VA., to a hostel. When we got settled in, he gave us a ride to a restaurant four or five miles down the highway, waited for us to finish eating, and then took us back to the hostel. Another trail angel, Son Driven, drove us back to the trail head the next day.On the outskirts of New Hanover, NH, I was standing on the shoulder of the road, eating snacks a trail angel had left in a box in front of her home, when the angel herself, Betsy Maislen, walked out to the road and offered to fix me some breakfast. It was mighty good.On five occasions friends invited me into their homes and treated me royally, rescuing me from a winter storm on one occasion and from illness on another. One of them, Tim Peek, who lives with his wife, Meg, in Killington, VT, baked me a coconut cake for my 73rd birthday. Three angels who had read my blog decided to help me and, of course, any other hiker who happened to be nearby. When I got to Port Clinton, PA, Iceman was waiting for me when I came off the mountain. He took me to supper at a Cracker Barrel and then took me to his home in Lancaster, PA, about an hour away, where I got cleaned up and a good night's sleep. He tracked me down two more times -- once in Maine when I was almost out of food.Vicki took a day off from work, drove from a Washington, D.C., suburb to Harpers Ferry, retrieved the girdle I was using to keep my insides inside - I had a hernia - and returned it to me. I had left it in the restroom at the Conservancy headquarters. From Harpers Ferry she drove north until she got ahead of me and then hiked south until she met me on the trail.Hydro parked his pickup on Maine 17, near Oquossoc, ME, and waited in the rain at a trailhead where he thought I just might show up. He was right, and when he saw me emerge from the woods he offered me a ride into Rangeley. [And took me and Cashmere to lunch.] Boy was I glad to see him! My knee was injured and I had already decided to off the trail at that very spot.How you know you're an AT hikerI also met a number of section hikers whose company I enjoyed. Some of them were young, like California, a 26-year old emergency medical technician from, you guessed it, California. But most were older white men, in their 50s and 60s. In early April I hiked for 10 days with California. We climbed a lot of mountains together in all sorts of weather and whenever I commented - OK, whined - about the steepness or length of a climb, or cold, wet weather, or anything else, California would say: "It's all good, Lucky."One day in April we got an early start on what turned out to be an easy trail. By mid-afternoon we had hiked 17.2 miles to the shelter where we had planned to spend the night. It was too early to knock off work, I admit, but isn't 17.2 miles enough for one day?California was talking to some other section hikers while I went to get water and, by the time I got back, he had decided to hike another 6.5 miles to Trent's Grocery, where he could get something to eat.Did I want to go?I did. On the way, California told me, "I guess you know you're an AT hiker when you're willing to walk six and a half miles for a hamburger."When we got to the store I ate two hamburgers, two orders of fries, drank two cokes, and ate four candy bars. An hour or so later, when I crawled into my tent, I was hungry again.Eat all you canFor the first three weeks I had very little appetite and I lost almost a pound a day. If I had kept losing like that by the time I got to Maine my backpack would have weighed more than I did. But after those first few weeks I was always hungry. We all were. One of the things I liked best about thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail is that you could eat as much as you wanted of anything you wanted and still not gain weight. Thru-hikers burn up to 6,000 calories a day, according to the Conservancy. We couldn't carry enough food to replace that many calories but brother, sister, we tried to make up for it when we got somewhere where we could eat.Here what I'm talking about:One morning three other thru-hikers and I walked half a mile down Vermont 103 and had breakfast at Qu's Whistle Stop, a restaurant near Wallingford, VT. It wasn't an eat-all-you can place but it was hiker friendly and they served generous portions. I ate two eggs; sausage; hash browns; toast and jelly; two pancakes with maple syrup; orange juice; and plenty of coffee. And then all of us had a banana split.Eat-all-you-can restaurants, like the one right beside on the trail at Pinkham Notch in New Hampshire, were a treat thru-hikers never passed up. That morning I ate two scrambled eggs, two servings of hash browns, a blueberry muffin, a sausage patty, 10 pieces of bacon, two glasses of orange juice, two glasses of apple juice, a bowl of fruit, and three cups of coffee. Oh, and four pancakes.On the trail I didn't fare as well.On July 7th, the day I hiked to Monson, ME, the last town before Mt. Katahdin, I was down to one piece of hard candy. I hadn't had had much to eat for several days because I was low on food and getting off the trail to resupply would have delayed the end of my hike. I got up at 4 a.m., packed, ate the candy for breakfast, and was on the move at 4:50 a.m. I arrived at Maine 15, the Monson trailhead, at 1:30 p.m., after hiking 17.9 miles. Beside that last piece of hard candy, I had traded a SoBo a dozen water purification pills for the three small packs of nuts. They were delicious.When I started my hike, on Feb. 15, my belly hung over the top of my waist-size 38 inch pants. When I came home on Day 28, to see a surgeon who told me I had a hernia, I switched to a pair of size 36s. Later I moved down to size 34s and by the time I got to Monson they were too big.I might add, I'm still wearing 34s, but they're not too big now.Time to Go, LuckyBy the way, 4:50 a.m. was not the earliest I started hiking. Back in March I had hiked for nine days with J, a retired fire captain from Georgia. J liked to get up early and was usually drinking coffee by 4:30 a.m. I normally got up at 5 and we would hit the trail by 6:30 or so.One cold snowy night we stayed in a shelter about two days south of Damascus, VA., a great trail town, by the way. J and I slept parallel to the back wall of the shelter and still got snowed on - that's how strong the wind was that night.Anyway, we had agreed to skip breakfast and get going by 6:15. We would use our headlamps for the first 45 minutes.Next morning, J called out in the dark, "Lucky?" "It is time?" I asked, and he said Yes.So I got up, dressed, and packed up as quickly as I could. It was still snowing. And cold. Just as we were leaving, J asked me to check the time.I did. It was 4:20 a.m.J insisted that he had no idea, and he sounded so sincere. I told him, of course, to sell that somewhere else. But at least we got a jump on the day.Stay tuned: Part II, Now about that "love of my life thing."Stay Tuned: