Monson, Maine. October 3.
Three more weeks of hiking will bring me back to New Hampshire and across some of the most rugged and demanding parts of the Appalachian Trail in Maine.
Pray with me for good weather because the final leg of my hike would really be a bitch in the rain, ice or snow. But the weather has been extraordinary since late August when Hurricane Irene sent me scrambling north, and I have been blessed with clear skies and great visibility through the White Mountains and on Mount Katahdin, where I flipped the hike and began walking back south through Maine.
I am now 163 miles from Gorham, NH and Mount Success, the end point of this remarkable adventure.
I hike south having shared the beauty and melancholy of Katahdin and Baxter State Park with other hikers who have reached their finish line. Many look stunned, their eyes glazed by the thought that “it’s over. I’ll be home (and the ‘real world’) very soon.” Their joy and pride of accomplishment is soon muted by the goodbyes and best wishes to others who know the challenges and the wonder and joy that have marked the long walk north.
Today marks six months to the day since I started north from Springer Mountain in Georgia.
Six months in the woods is a lifetime -- when I am in town I want to be in the woods; when on the trail, I want to stop hiking and wish I was in town. The end will be bittersweet, but the hike has taken its toll. I am physically, mentally and spiritually stronger than at any time of my life, and I am ready for what comes next.
Life is good. God is Great and my thanks and praise to Him for all I have seen and done for the past six months. Please join me in prayer for my continued good health and good hiking. I have seen others come agonizingly close to finishing their hikes only to be taken out by injury or worse, but I now am happy to be able to take my time and extra care as I walk south because I need no longer worry about getting to Katahdin by October 15.
At the top of Katahdin I gave thanks to God for everyone I have met and for the amazing adventure that has played out since I left Georgia in the spring, wondering how life in the woods and the harshness of this test would affect me or how long my hike might last. Each day I thank the Lord for the air in my lungs, for the food in my stomach and the strength in my legs and in my heart that has kept me going. I am truly blessed to have come this far.
I was thrilled to get to Katahdin on a clear day and to be able to see the lakes of Maine stretching far to the south and to look ahead to the 100 Mile Wilderness, the Bigelows, Saddleback and Sugarloaf, the Mahoosics and other stretches of trail that I hiked 30 years ago. I head south tomorrow and will retrace my steps from a hike 10 years ago, one that I thought might be my last hike because I was suddenly out of my depth and ready to quit.
I still carry a scar from Pleasant Pond Mountain, and I look forward to hiking that again -- and doing it right this time.
But that’s what is ahead. It’s time to look back.
The jump north from Massachusetts was the right call, and I would have had no choice but to skip Vermont anyway because the hurricane trashed the state and closed it to hiking. Much of the AT is still closed, and I hope to come back next year and see what I missed.
I last blogged before the August 28 storm, and, this being October, it’s been more than a month since I was last able to write about my journey. Truth is that I stared at a flashing cursor on a Word document in Gorham a few weeks back to write about the White Mountains, but could not find the words to share stories from the 75-miles stretch of trail that took me far above the tree line and tested me as never before.
The transition from Massachusetts from New Hampshire was dramatic, as we suddenly faced long and steep ups and downs through a range of 4,000 foot mountains to the top of Mt. Washington at 6,200 feet. But it was difficult to enjoy the views because the terrain was treacherous and, though the sun was shining across the Presidential Range, a harsh, cold and bitter wind blew me to the ground as I cautiously made my way down Washington.
As I trudged along, I cursed my stupidity.
Footing was treacherous and progress very slow, but the walk was more delicate and dicey for me because my shoes had little tread and the front of the right shoe was unraveling with each step. The dying shoes were worn nearly smooth and slipped on the rocks; they offered little cushion for sore knees and ankles continually being jarred by the steep descents.
I had switched from boots to lighter-weight trail runners in West Virginia, but foolishly -- stupidly, actually -- come to New Hampshire ill-equipped to deal with the rugged terrain. New boots would come to me at Pinkham Notch, but that meant new shoes (and the chance of blisters or foot problems) as the trail presented still more demands.
Long gone are the days of 15-mile-a-day hiking. New Hampshire and Maine offer the country’s toughest trails and it can take more than an hour to cover a single mile and five miles might qualify as a good day of walking. Twice, climbs of only three miles took more than five hours, and I once walked three miles in the dark to a campsite, my eyes adjusting to the limited light as my pace was slowed by the slippery boards that spanned trails still boggy from Irene.
New boots came just in time for the climb up Wildcat Mountain and then Carter Dome, where a late September snow storm blew across the mountain, coating the trees and making us grin while hiking in the snow and then shiver through the night at Imp Campsite where 10 hikers shared a shelter and temperatures dropped into the teens.
That blast of early winter convinced me to head north again and to climb Katahdin before the weather turned really nasty and then head south back to New Hampshire. The timing has been perfect as the leaves are turning from green to red, gold and silver and the trail through Maine flattens and wends through the lake country before hitting the mountains to the south.
The jump north means I am now a southbounder instead of a northbounder (in hiker parlance a SoBo instead of a NoBo) and That means an almost daily reunion and a daily dose of memories and shared stories as I bump into hikers I had known in Georgia or Virginia or New York and had not seen since.
Back in the spring, nine thru-hikers shopped at Wal-Mart together and also shared lunch at a Main Street café. Five of us are now in Monson together, hundreds and hundreds of miles and so many adventures later.
The Monson library closes in less than an hour. There is no time to start sharing stories and adventures, but I have filled a notebook with memories and a lifetime of stories to write and share. That will come later.
Thanks to all of you for the support and encouragement you have given me along the way. messages and the postings and text messages that gave me strength when I needed it the most. You are all Trail Angels and you will be in my heart and in my prayers forever.
I head south tomorrow with a glad heart and knowing that my merry woodlands adventure is 163 miles from its end. I hike south remembering the mantra that has brought me this far:
“Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord, thy God.
Happy Trails.
-30-
.
Monday, October 3, 2011
Saturday, August 27, 2011
North Before the Storm
Lee, MA,
The stench rose when the sun came through and burned away the rain in the Massachusetts forest and dried my socks, shoes and gear. It hit me as I walked that it was me that I smelled and I hadn’t had a hot shower since Pennsylvania about 200 miles earlier.
There was a cold sponge bath a week ore more back at the Graymoor monastery near the Hudson River in New York, but I had not gotten really clean in more than three weeks or washed my clothes in more than two. The odor crept up on me in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut, and grabbed me by the nose as I neared South Egremont, MA and 1500 miles along the Appalachian Trail.
The trip to town meant a $10 bunk and hot shower and a $3 laundry at the East Mountain Retreat Center, plus a pig out at Mom’s Restaurant outside of town where Strider and I ate a big meal. Shared a huge stack of blueberry pancakes for desert and then happily accepted the breakfast leftovers from a kindly gentleman and his granddaughters at the next table.
Luxuriously clean, rested and stuffed, I was/am a happy camper again. And, I am jumping north; the journey continues.
Hurricane Irene is headed up the coast and that sealed my decision to go north and finish my Appalachian Trail journey in sections. A bus will take Strider and me through Springfield, MA, then Boston and deep into New Jersey as we hope to beat the storm and get to New Hampshire over the weekend.
The jump clears the calendar and takes the pressure off the October 15 deadline that can seal off Katahdin and Baxter State Park as winter comes. Soon I will be hiking in the White Mountains, the Presidential Range, the Mahoosucs and the 100 Miles Wilderness and enjoying that 400 mile chunk of the AT in the fall before doubling back to do the 300 miles of Massachusetts and Vermont as winter comes.
On we go. The days are getting shorter, the nights cooler as August fades into September and I look forward to my cold weather gear that should be coming next week.
The change is invigorating and the hiking is about to become much more difficult, a welcome challenge after the lovely, flatter trails of lower New England that took us through birch and evergreen and along steep ups and downs through the scrub brush near the tree line and across rock ledges with wonderful views of the Berkshires.
The hike north from Pawling, NY and my trip to Manhattan featured a succession of idyllic villages offering poor hikers an array of high-end Belgian chocolates and coffees and trendy bookstores and antique shops. Each offers wonderful hospitality to even the smelliest of thru-hikers in town for a hot meal, a mail pickup or just a break from the woods for cold sodas and ice cream.
St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Kent, CT, (1826,)offers a friendly greeting from Father Kevin and lets hikers tent in its churchyard and use the parish hall bathroom. St. John’s Episcopal Church in Salisbury leaves its doors open all day and give hikers fresh new socks (for their “troubled soles”) from a Hiker’s Box in the vestibule. And there’s internet access at Scoville Memorial Library which, at 200, is the country’s oldest publicly funded library and looks far more like a Revolution-era church than a public building.
These have been welcome and charming sites after the rigors of Pennsylvania and the struggles along the trail. After more than four months in the woods, hikers begin to feel the grind of the long walk from the south and have to reach deep to stay focused on the trail ahead and the goal of finishing the 2180 miles in one year. There is much work left to be done.
The trail through New York and Connecticut has been crowded with southbound thru-hikers, mostly young college graduates who left school too late for the south-to-north journey, but who can head south in June and make it to Georgia before the snows hit the Great Smoky Mountains and the Blue Ridge. They look fresh and eager at this stage of their journey and I wonder if I had that same enthusiasm and zeal when I was 700 miles along the trail and in Virginia.
I was relieved to get into the South Egremont because I had been slipping and sliding my way down Jug End, after falling four times on wet rocks, banging forearms and and drawing blood, I was eager to get this part of the hike behind me and to get my wits about me. Since leaving Pawling, NY 10 days earlier I had witnessed several trail tragedies and was able to learn from the misfortunes of others. I continued to marvel at the generosity of others.
Being Park Bears ”Just act humble, Strider and let it come to us,” I say as we walk into the Housatonic Meadows State Park and settle in at a picnic table between a recreational vehicle and three family-sized tents.
Two minutes later, a man brought two water bottles; then two minutes later, two young girls brought us to apples each; then the man invited us over for chicken salad sandwiches and chips and sodas and lemon bread and zucchini bread. We ate and talked hiking and told stories.
Rosemary and mike invited us to their RV for cranberry juice and we spent a half hour enjoying their company.
Lesson One Patience, Grasshopper. The mantra for the hike –. Let the hike come to you and do not hurry, because you might get hurt if you press and an injury could end your hike in an instant.
Purple and Carnivore are 50-somethings hiking south from Katahdin to Springer, but a fall near Sages ravine just inside Massachusetts on the way to Kent, CT could kill their hopes.
Purple was wailing as she came up the trail, one bandanna held to her forehead by another, her face wet with tears and red from tears and a frightening fall. She did not appear to be badly injured, but she was very scared and rattled by her fall. Carnivore looked on impassively as they decided to take a short side trail that would take them to a road into town. Her tears had dried
Patience, Grasshopper, and take care. That could be you.
Man Down. Steve came flopping into a campsite near Ten Mile Creek late one afternoon, both boots falling apart as he finished the first day of a planned 10 days in the woods. He's from Beaufort, SC and has come 25 hours by bus for this long-anticipated trip that's about to go horribly wrong. We chat as he uses my duct tape and his cord to strap his boots together and then we pitch camp ahead of the late afternoon storm that's moving in.
I was hoping for solitude, but it's also good to have someone my own age and from my part of the country around for conversation. Steve also has a large flask of very smooth Scotch and shares a liberal dose with me as the rain begins.
We hike together the next day and I go slower than I would have liked but have agreed to go with him as we are both headed into Kent – me for a mail drop and him for new boots – and Strider is a half day behind. His boots hold together and our conversation is steady as we negotiate the 10 tough miles to the road.
Strider catches us and we start down the highway toward town; we walk because three hikers makes hitch-hiking unlikely.
We're chatting and Steve's boots are musically flapping along the pavement when he suddenly goes down. Quicker than a thought, he hits the pavement, face and chest first and he is unconscious, his head next to a small puddle of blood. Strider and I look on in stunned horror as a small car pulls onto the shoulder and two young men get out to help.
Steve stirs, and Strider unsnaps his pack so he can move. The heavy pack had become Steve's worst enemy, adding torque and power to the tumble when he lost his balance and driving him to the ground. He bled from a cut over his left eye and said his ribs hurt. He pressed a white towel to his head, but the bleeding had stopped.
I helped Steve to his feet, and he slowly regained his senses, staggered by the fall and working to figure out what had happened and how much damage it had caused him. He cut the ropes from his boots, hoisted his pack and we walked another quarter mile into Kent. Steve went to the outfitter's store and found medical help while Strider and I met Father Kevin at St. Andrew's Church.
Heavy winds and rain blew through town as we camped that night; I was not there when Steve came back to retrieve his pack, but he was off the trail with a broken rib there was no concussion but he would not be hiking again soon.
Patience Grasshopper and be wise. This could be you.
Steve and Purple stay in my thoughts as I continue to go steadily north. I am now convinced that I will be able to finish the entire trail – unless a bad spill or accident takes me down.
My friend Ricky (Trailmaster) called last night. He hiked the entire trail 25 years or more ago and had been talking with our mutual hiking friend Cliff (Mr. Bag.)
“Cliff says 'he looks tired.'” Really, I have just walked 1500 miles; We laugh at that and discuss my plans to jump north. Ricky is impressed by my hiking success at 60, but, like me, realized that I would not make Katahdin by mid-October and that I am doing the right thing by shuffling the hike.
Strider and I camped a hundred yards up the trail and five miles out of Kent last night before catching a ride into town – and to Joe's Diner for a big breakfast and a library visit before the bus to Lincoln comes at 11.
We discussed our hitchhiking prowess as the first car by circled back to give us a ride into town. The young man at the wheel, looking I in the rear view mirrors, said, “are you guys brothers?” With a 40-year age differential, we both laughed at that, something I will probably never hear again.
Wednesday, August 17, 2011
From Georgia to Manhattan -- And Beyond
My 1400-mile hike from Georgia brought me close to New York City and a commuter train ride from my son, Noah, who happened to be in town from Atlanta to play music in Manhattan.
It hasn’t always been easy.
A wet sock was rubbing the bottom of my right foot raw as I hurried along the trail, working to get to a train station 40 miles ahead in Pawling, NY. I sorted through the logistics, knowing that I could not make it to Pawling in time on foot. Noah travelled with others, his itinerary iffy, and we worried that our rendezvous might not happen.
Trail loneliness was getting to me as I had been hiking and camping alone for several days and was increasingly weighed down by magnitude of the task ahead and the knowledge that I walked from Georgia to New York, but my ultimate destination was still nearly 800 miles away.
I had camped the night before atop Island Pond Mountain on a grassy field under a full moon. I was up and on the trail by 6:45, but by mid-afternoon, I was toiling through Harriman State Park, worrying that a side-trip to New York would leave me a day or so behind my hiking buddies and alone starting the last third of my thru-hike to Maine.
My iPod had died in Maryland, but I could not get The Byrds song “Glory Glory” out of my head as I limped along and worried about the journey ahead. “Halleluiah. Thank you, Jesus. Help me lay my burdens down.”
The hike across New Jersey and into New York had been magnificent, with both states far more beautiful than I thought they could be. The trails were smoother than oh-so-rocky Pennsylvania and brought us near ponds and through meadows and bird sanctuaries, and also offered enough steep ups and downs and hardships to keep hikers honest.
Then I met Colleen and Steve, day-hikers sitting atop West Mountain and drinking red wine and enjoying the views from high above the Hudson River. They shared a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bottle of Gatorade; we talked hiking and I posed for pictures with each of them before I continued north and pondered my options.
They caught up with me down the trail a few minutes later, and, on a whim, I asked them if they were headed anywhere near the Graymoor Spiritual Center, a Franciscan monastery 15 miles up the trail and a place that would allow me to jump ahead to Pawling in time to get to New York and meet up with Noah if that happened to work out.
“Grasshopper, we will take you any where you want to go,” Colleen said.
An hour later, I was walking across a field to join three friends at the monastery’s hiker shelter, carrying my pack and a six-pack of Coronas when Noah called me on the phone.
“Hey, Dad. I’m in Central Park at the John Lennon memorial. I was just at the place where he was shot.”
“That’s awesome, Noah. Can we go there Tuesday?”
“Absolutely.”
A half hour later, I received spiritual confirmation that I had made the right decision and come to the right place. My phone buzzed with a text message from the Messenger, my friend from the Mepkin Abbey monastery near Charleston who I had miraculously met for the first time on the trail in Virginia 900 miles earlier as he hiked south and I moved north.
“Yes, God is so great. United in Prayer,” he wrote. “Blessings on you, dear friend. Fr. Leonard, pray for us. Amen.”
I called him and we laughed at our wondrous spiritual connection and the coincidence of him sending me a text for the first time just after I had arrived at a monastery in New York. I said he had not been at Mepkin the times I phoned and instead I had talked with Father A.J., who always made me smile with his closing comment, “May God Bless you, Grasshopper.”
“That is actually an Ecclesiastical blessing,” the Messenger said, adding that Fr. A.J. was a retired Catholic Bishop before he became a monk, so that means his blessing carries more spiritual weight than one from a priest or a monk.
My time at Graymoor and my talks with myself and the Messenger brought me to a peaceful place with my hike and my fears that I might not make it to Baxter State Park before it closes on October 15 and that I could get very close to the end of the Appalachian Trail while being unable to finish atop Mount Katahdin.
“I don’t care. I am laying that burden down,” I told the Messenger. “I am going to keep walking until I get to Baxter and if the park is closed, so be it. I am going north and don’t plan to stop until I get to the end.”
Refreshed, another burden aside, my faith in myself and in my hike were restored. Strider and I decided to take the early commuter train to Grand Central Station. Noah hoped to be back from Boston by mid-day and we would get together so very far away from home.
God willing, I will be in Connecticut by the end of this week and this magical journey continues. Some memories:
New York City. “You look like a hobo,” Noah said when we hugged outside the Waldorf Astoria where I had been chilling on a sofa, waiting for him to get to town. We had a marvelous visit, almost not believing that fate had brought us together so very far away from Atlanta where we last had been together in early April, a day before my hike began.
He laughed at my skinniness and at the white scruffiness on my face. I had been shaving, but the youngsters on the trail convinced me to let the beard grow and “go wild.”
Manhattan was not as surreal as I thought it might be, and I was amazed that with a blink I would see many more people than I had seen in four-plus months of hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Pounding the Manhattan pavement all day was much like hiking the trail though I could look up and around instead of watching the ground for rocks and roots, no bugs buzzed around my face or darted into my ears or eves, and no cobwebs suddenly smacked me across the mouth or eyebrows. Walking without a pack was refreshing, but still tiring. As on the trail, there was so much to look at and absorb while getting from one unfamiliar place to another one several miles (or many blocks) away, not sure where I was heading, what I would find when I got there or where I would go after that.
My senses of hearing and smell have heightened during my months in the woods, and the city’s sounds and smells were powerful, jarring and intoxicating. Walking in Central Park was more soothing than on 5th Avenue or Broadway; Strawberry Fields, the Lennon memorial, was touching; the subway was funky; the World Trade Center site was nearly as sad and moving as when I had seen it a few months after 9-11.
Seeing my 23-year-old son walking along a sidewalk with my 20-year-old hiking companion will make me smile as I continue north.
Trail Sainthood. Strider and I met Trail Saint Carol at the CVS in Pauling while and trying to decide where and how to stash our packs while we went to NYC. We planned to camp at the Edward R. Murrow Memorial Park and worried about leaving our possessions unguarded for a day.
Trail Magic. Problem solved.
Carol invited us to her home where we stayed in guest rooms; she took us to town and the train at 5:30 in the morning and retrieved us at 10:30 that night. There was hot coffee when we woke both mornings, we cooked breakfast and shared stories of our journeys and adventures and of hers.
Ahead or Behind? We had stopped for a break at the Mohican Outdoor Center, 10 miles after crossing into New Jersey from Pennsylvania. It was nearly 2 p.m. before Strider and I pushed on toward a shelter 14 miles away and, as usual, he moved ahead and I took my time on the uneven terrain. Rain started and didn’t let up; I missed the shelter and found a place to camp, deciding that I had to stop as the rain slacked and darkness fell.
The next day I would be out early for a 15-mile day that I hoped would catch me up with Strider, Juntsi and Captain Redbeard. It didn’t. I stopped in Unionville, NY early one afternoon two days later and the three of them came into town a few hours behind me.
I had been working to catch up with them only to find out that I was ahead of them – not behind. That makes an old man feel good.
The Church on the Mountain. I was lucky enough to get to this hostel in Delaware Water Gap, PA on a Thursday because the church has been hosting potluck dinners for hikers since 1977. There were three of us there that night, far short of the 50 hikers who showed up a few weeks back, but that meant there was more food for us than I could imagine, including homemade cherry ice cream.
Celebrity Status. First the Indians, then the Japanese and then Colleen and Steve from New Jersey, but people want to get their picture taken with me.
The Indian man was carrying an 8-foot section of PVC pipe over his shoulder with a plastic bag hanging from the end. He said he and his son were out hiking for the first time and he was amazed to have run into a thru-hiker. “We need a picture. OK?” “Sure.”
Dad was wearing a University of Kentucky cap, but said he’s a cricket fan and just liked the color. The son took picture of me and Dad, and then Dad snapped the boy and me. They promised to email me copies.
A dozen Japanese came by me day-hiking in Harriman State Park in New York. A man in a black sweat suit and bright green bandanna asked a friend to take his picture with me. “You are living my dream,” he said.
Steve and Colleen were hiking in Harriman State Park to check their gear before they go to Europe for 10 days of hut hiking in the Alps. As we hiked later, with Steve leading the way, then Colleen and then me behind, I told her, “Colleen, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you sure do smell good.”
She shared that comment with Steve, and I think he laughed. A bit later, our hiking order was switched so she was leading, followed by Steve and then me.
I could not resist. “Steve,” I said, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you sure do smell good.”
To New York and Beyond.
The Mid-Atlantic states have been more captivating than I had imagined, as I had only seen them from the I-95 corridor on the few times I had drive north or from high above on an infrequent plane ride to New York. The mountains are much lower than in the South, but the ridges offer spectacular views of ranges like the Poconos and the Catskills that I have heard of but never seen.
The Hudson River is breathtaking after the long walk from Georgia, and I could almost imagine being among the Last of the Mohicans (a favorite movie) and part of an adventurous part of this country’s past.
Every day brings another magical encounter; each mile offers another wonder. Surprises wait over every ridge. It might be a family of deer or wild turkey crossing ahead, a snake or turtle blocking the path, or groups of scouts or day-hikers wide-eyed and eager to hear more about my walk in the woods.
I still hunger to get to New England, but I am quite happy to be where I am on my journey.
Happy Trails, everybody. Grasshopper is out of here, headed north.
-30-
It hasn’t always been easy.
A wet sock was rubbing the bottom of my right foot raw as I hurried along the trail, working to get to a train station 40 miles ahead in Pawling, NY. I sorted through the logistics, knowing that I could not make it to Pawling in time on foot. Noah travelled with others, his itinerary iffy, and we worried that our rendezvous might not happen.
Trail loneliness was getting to me as I had been hiking and camping alone for several days and was increasingly weighed down by magnitude of the task ahead and the knowledge that I walked from Georgia to New York, but my ultimate destination was still nearly 800 miles away.
I had camped the night before atop Island Pond Mountain on a grassy field under a full moon. I was up and on the trail by 6:45, but by mid-afternoon, I was toiling through Harriman State Park, worrying that a side-trip to New York would leave me a day or so behind my hiking buddies and alone starting the last third of my thru-hike to Maine.
My iPod had died in Maryland, but I could not get The Byrds song “Glory Glory” out of my head as I limped along and worried about the journey ahead. “Halleluiah. Thank you, Jesus. Help me lay my burdens down.”
The hike across New Jersey and into New York had been magnificent, with both states far more beautiful than I thought they could be. The trails were smoother than oh-so-rocky Pennsylvania and brought us near ponds and through meadows and bird sanctuaries, and also offered enough steep ups and downs and hardships to keep hikers honest.
Then I met Colleen and Steve, day-hikers sitting atop West Mountain and drinking red wine and enjoying the views from high above the Hudson River. They shared a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and a bottle of Gatorade; we talked hiking and I posed for pictures with each of them before I continued north and pondered my options.
They caught up with me down the trail a few minutes later, and, on a whim, I asked them if they were headed anywhere near the Graymoor Spiritual Center, a Franciscan monastery 15 miles up the trail and a place that would allow me to jump ahead to Pawling in time to get to New York and meet up with Noah if that happened to work out.
“Grasshopper, we will take you any where you want to go,” Colleen said.
An hour later, I was walking across a field to join three friends at the monastery’s hiker shelter, carrying my pack and a six-pack of Coronas when Noah called me on the phone.
“Hey, Dad. I’m in Central Park at the John Lennon memorial. I was just at the place where he was shot.”
“That’s awesome, Noah. Can we go there Tuesday?”
“Absolutely.”
A half hour later, I received spiritual confirmation that I had made the right decision and come to the right place. My phone buzzed with a text message from the Messenger, my friend from the Mepkin Abbey monastery near Charleston who I had miraculously met for the first time on the trail in Virginia 900 miles earlier as he hiked south and I moved north.
“Yes, God is so great. United in Prayer,” he wrote. “Blessings on you, dear friend. Fr. Leonard, pray for us. Amen.”
I called him and we laughed at our wondrous spiritual connection and the coincidence of him sending me a text for the first time just after I had arrived at a monastery in New York. I said he had not been at Mepkin the times I phoned and instead I had talked with Father A.J., who always made me smile with his closing comment, “May God Bless you, Grasshopper.”
“That is actually an Ecclesiastical blessing,” the Messenger said, adding that Fr. A.J. was a retired Catholic Bishop before he became a monk, so that means his blessing carries more spiritual weight than one from a priest or a monk.
My time at Graymoor and my talks with myself and the Messenger brought me to a peaceful place with my hike and my fears that I might not make it to Baxter State Park before it closes on October 15 and that I could get very close to the end of the Appalachian Trail while being unable to finish atop Mount Katahdin.
“I don’t care. I am laying that burden down,” I told the Messenger. “I am going to keep walking until I get to Baxter and if the park is closed, so be it. I am going north and don’t plan to stop until I get to the end.”
Refreshed, another burden aside, my faith in myself and in my hike were restored. Strider and I decided to take the early commuter train to Grand Central Station. Noah hoped to be back from Boston by mid-day and we would get together so very far away from home.
God willing, I will be in Connecticut by the end of this week and this magical journey continues. Some memories:
New York City. “You look like a hobo,” Noah said when we hugged outside the Waldorf Astoria where I had been chilling on a sofa, waiting for him to get to town. We had a marvelous visit, almost not believing that fate had brought us together so very far away from Atlanta where we last had been together in early April, a day before my hike began.
He laughed at my skinniness and at the white scruffiness on my face. I had been shaving, but the youngsters on the trail convinced me to let the beard grow and “go wild.”
Manhattan was not as surreal as I thought it might be, and I was amazed that with a blink I would see many more people than I had seen in four-plus months of hiking the Appalachian Trail.
Pounding the Manhattan pavement all day was much like hiking the trail though I could look up and around instead of watching the ground for rocks and roots, no bugs buzzed around my face or darted into my ears or eves, and no cobwebs suddenly smacked me across the mouth or eyebrows. Walking without a pack was refreshing, but still tiring. As on the trail, there was so much to look at and absorb while getting from one unfamiliar place to another one several miles (or many blocks) away, not sure where I was heading, what I would find when I got there or where I would go after that.
My senses of hearing and smell have heightened during my months in the woods, and the city’s sounds and smells were powerful, jarring and intoxicating. Walking in Central Park was more soothing than on 5th Avenue or Broadway; Strawberry Fields, the Lennon memorial, was touching; the subway was funky; the World Trade Center site was nearly as sad and moving as when I had seen it a few months after 9-11.
Seeing my 23-year-old son walking along a sidewalk with my 20-year-old hiking companion will make me smile as I continue north.
Trail Sainthood. Strider and I met Trail Saint Carol at the CVS in Pauling while and trying to decide where and how to stash our packs while we went to NYC. We planned to camp at the Edward R. Murrow Memorial Park and worried about leaving our possessions unguarded for a day.
Trail Magic. Problem solved.
Carol invited us to her home where we stayed in guest rooms; she took us to town and the train at 5:30 in the morning and retrieved us at 10:30 that night. There was hot coffee when we woke both mornings, we cooked breakfast and shared stories of our journeys and adventures and of hers.
Ahead or Behind? We had stopped for a break at the Mohican Outdoor Center, 10 miles after crossing into New Jersey from Pennsylvania. It was nearly 2 p.m. before Strider and I pushed on toward a shelter 14 miles away and, as usual, he moved ahead and I took my time on the uneven terrain. Rain started and didn’t let up; I missed the shelter and found a place to camp, deciding that I had to stop as the rain slacked and darkness fell.
The next day I would be out early for a 15-mile day that I hoped would catch me up with Strider, Juntsi and Captain Redbeard. It didn’t. I stopped in Unionville, NY early one afternoon two days later and the three of them came into town a few hours behind me.
I had been working to catch up with them only to find out that I was ahead of them – not behind. That makes an old man feel good.
The Church on the Mountain. I was lucky enough to get to this hostel in Delaware Water Gap, PA on a Thursday because the church has been hosting potluck dinners for hikers since 1977. There were three of us there that night, far short of the 50 hikers who showed up a few weeks back, but that meant there was more food for us than I could imagine, including homemade cherry ice cream.
Celebrity Status. First the Indians, then the Japanese and then Colleen and Steve from New Jersey, but people want to get their picture taken with me.
The Indian man was carrying an 8-foot section of PVC pipe over his shoulder with a plastic bag hanging from the end. He said he and his son were out hiking for the first time and he was amazed to have run into a thru-hiker. “We need a picture. OK?” “Sure.”
Dad was wearing a University of Kentucky cap, but said he’s a cricket fan and just liked the color. The son took picture of me and Dad, and then Dad snapped the boy and me. They promised to email me copies.
A dozen Japanese came by me day-hiking in Harriman State Park in New York. A man in a black sweat suit and bright green bandanna asked a friend to take his picture with me. “You are living my dream,” he said.
Steve and Colleen were hiking in Harriman State Park to check their gear before they go to Europe for 10 days of hut hiking in the Alps. As we hiked later, with Steve leading the way, then Colleen and then me behind, I told her, “Colleen, I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you sure do smell good.”
She shared that comment with Steve, and I think he laughed. A bit later, our hiking order was switched so she was leading, followed by Steve and then me.
I could not resist. “Steve,” I said, “I hope you don’t take this the wrong way, but you sure do smell good.”
To New York and Beyond.
The Mid-Atlantic states have been more captivating than I had imagined, as I had only seen them from the I-95 corridor on the few times I had drive north or from high above on an infrequent plane ride to New York. The mountains are much lower than in the South, but the ridges offer spectacular views of ranges like the Poconos and the Catskills that I have heard of but never seen.
The Hudson River is breathtaking after the long walk from Georgia, and I could almost imagine being among the Last of the Mohicans (a favorite movie) and part of an adventurous part of this country’s past.
Every day brings another magical encounter; each mile offers another wonder. Surprises wait over every ridge. It might be a family of deer or wild turkey crossing ahead, a snake or turtle blocking the path, or groups of scouts or day-hikers wide-eyed and eager to hear more about my walk in the woods.
I still hunger to get to New England, but I am quite happy to be where I am on my journey.
Happy Trails, everybody. Grasshopper is out of here, headed north.
-30-
Monday, August 1, 2011
Trouble on the Trail
Palmerton, Pennsylvania, 1250 miles. Monday, August 1, 2011
My granddaddy's granddaddy walked from the deep South to Pennsylvania nearly 150 ago wearing a wool uniform and carrying a rifle, so my doing the 1250 miles from Georgia in shorts and a backpack doesn’t seem that big a deal.
His adventure did not end well. A Rebel soldier, he was wounded at Gettysburg and joined a 14-mile-long trail of wounded warriors who limped back South after three days of hell. I am not taking enemy fire, but my last week in Pennsylvania had me wondering if I might be going home in a box.
Late Sunday, I was lost near the summit of a 900-foot boulder field after scrambling and laboring up a very steep and challenging mile of trail to flat walking and a campsite six miles beyond. I had turned back from an impossible climb and was cautiously inching my way along a steep descent when I stumbled slightly, wobbled, spun and fell back, banging my head and slamming my left foot against a rock. Dazed and staggered, I wondered how I was going to get to the bottom without breaking an ankle, a leg or my neck.
All this high drama came just four days after I had nearly stepped onto a timber rattler and two days after I happily but cautiously hiked along a flatter boulder field, my feet never touching soil – just rocks – for a few hundred yards during a thunderstorm and drenching rain. Once confident that the Lord Jesus wasn’t going to call me home just yet, now I was not so sure.
I slipped off my pack and slid over to a broad flat rock to catch my breath. The sky was a spectacular blue and a hawk (perhaps an eagle) floated above while a small airplane flew by on approach to a tiny air strip below. All I could see was the boulder field beneath me and I could not enjoy the view because I was shaken, and, for the first time since leaving Georgia, I was scared.
On my own, I was in a mess. It was just past 4 p.m. and about 100 degrees when I walked out of Palmerton with a chocolate milkshake and without a worry about the hike ahead. I was the last hiker out of town and was sure nobody was behind me. Strider had called to tell me that the climb included scaling a few boulders and some hand-over-hand rock climbing but that the path was sometimes confusing.
I sat and watched the valley as my breathing calmed. I ate a Snickers bar, and drank a half liter of water while deciding what would come next. I was bloodied, but OK and knew that I would be able to get to the bottom. I needed to talk to someone because sharing my plight would take some of the terror out of it and I knew that talking through my options would help.
Strider could offer nothing but sympathy, but said he knew I’d be fine and that he would pray for me. I had talked to Kathy in Columbia before I left Palmerton and things were still rosy, and she now offered the reality check and reassurance that I needed to refocus and know I was going to be fine.
I picked my way cautiously down, lowering myself gently a step at a time, hoping the rock that I trusted would not shift under my weight, tip or slide and praying the tread of my Trailrunners would hold. I never saw another white blaze as I made my own path while brambles clawed at my legs and my ankles sometimes yelped.
The trail I found was not the Appalachian Trail, but it led me to a parking lot where two hikers were locking their car before heading up the hill.
Samson, a 2008 thru-hiker, said the section was the most difficult part of the trail in Pennsylvania and that he had gotten lost on that climb when he had come through. He offered to lead me to the top, but it was well past 5 o’clock and I’d had enough adventure for one day. I wanted a hot shower and a glass of Jack Daniel’s and accepted his kind offer of a ride back into town.
I had that one drink and shared my tale with Musher, a fellow northbounder who had watched me limp back into town and waited while I washed away the blood and pulled myself together. I did not eat dinner and sleep was difficult as I thought through the past week and scribbled notes in my journal, eager to get to the library and a computer on Monday morning.
I will strap on my pack and face that same climb early Tuesday, humbled and a bit battered, but structurally sound and eager to get going. I will climb out of Lehigh Gap without getting lost this time and find my way to the top and beyond.
By Wednesday I will be in New Jersey, but Pennsylvania will stay with me. This is why:
-- Gettysburg. Chilling. I took a Zero Day to get off the trail and take my mind away from hiking. This was a perfect choice. I took the tours, walked the cemetery and then brought the book Killer Angels along to learn what happened during the three days that left 50,000 killed, wounded or missing. I left the battlefield and caught a ride to the Mason-Dixon Line and crossed from Maryland into Pennsylvania like my granddaddy’s granddaddy before me.
-- The Half Gallon Challenge. A sign marks the 1090.5 mark, exactly halfway from Springer to Katahdin, and a Trail Challenge waited at a country store at Pine Grove Furnace State Park three miles away. I pulled in at the end of a steamy 17-mile hike eager to try and eat a half gallon of ice cream. The choices were grim – Peanut Butter Twist (gag), Banana Split (ack), or Cherries Jubilee (barf). Vanilla was my only option.
A half-dozen hikers looked on and cheered as Green Light and Joontsy ate. Green Light was groaning while he dug out another spoonful, and Joontsy’s face was bloated and an odd color and he looked close to being ill. Not deterred by seeing what pain lay ahead, I settled in and finished off a box of vanilla in 48 minutes while both of those youngsters had taken more than an hour.
My reward for ingesting more than 2400 calories at one sitting? A small wooden ice cream spoon and a caution to not get the spoon wet or the ink-stamped “Half Gallon Challenge” will run.
And no, I did not hurl. An hour later, I was ready for a cheeseburger and fries, but I lost my craving for ice cream and didn’t have more ice cream for nearly 48 hours.
-- Cumberland Valley and the Heat. Camping is prohibited in the 14 miles through the valley, and we made that day-long trip in 100-plus heat and humidity. It was Pennsylvania at its loveliest with smooth trails and mostly-flat walking through cornfields and forests and a mid-afternoon swim in Conodoguinet Creek (aka Whatyacallit Creek) four miles from camp to wash away the sweat. Add in swims in a lake near a campground and at a public pool in Boiling Springs and you have refreshed and happy hikers.
-- The Rattlesnake. I credit tai chi training with giving me patience and confidence as I sometimes teeter on the rocks of Pennsylvania and I believe it saved me from stepping into a life-challenging encounter with a timber rattler. That stutter-step move in the 32 sword form is called “wild horse crosses a mountain stream.” Having gotten past the snake, I now call it “grasshopper dances over rattlesnake’s back.”
-- Trail Angels. I stood in the rain beside the road for barely two minutes before Brad stopped and gave me a ride the two miles into Lickdale, PA. My shopping finished as the rain was ending and I was putting on my pack when Jeff came up and asked me if I needed a ride back to the trailhead. We stopped at Wendy’s on the way out of town. A Pentecostal pastor I met on the trail happily drove me all the way into Gettysburg.
-- Rockhound. A 43-year-old former Army MP, Rockhound had a heart attack in Troutdale, VA on April 2, the day I left Springer, and then had a double bypass operation and took three months off before getting back on the trail.
Most hikers haven’t had their walk disrupted by major surgery, but many of us have walked through crises of confidence, motivation, interest and will after making it halfway to Katahdin but knowing that we had more than a thousand miles to go.
Strider and I have hiked together since Franklin, NC more than 1100 miles ago, but he had gone to Gettysburg and was close to calling it quits. After a long talk with his mother and himself, he decided to stay in the woods and is happily hiking again, determined to get to Katahdin.
Francois Dillinger was distraught and yelling at himself when I arrived at the Ensign Cowell Shelter in Maryland and his buddy Sherpa was not doing much better.
“I have to finish this,” Dillinger said, “I have never finished anything that I started, and I have to finish this.” He had taken a series of zero days and was having problems getting re-engaged, although it seems like he’s now back on track.
Everyone has been running numbers – how many miles a day will it take to get me where I need to be? Will I make it? Am I behind schedule? Where are my friends?”
Our population has dwindled since we all left Georgia so many weeks ago. Those who keep track say that last year 1460 hikers left Springer for Katahdin, 747 of them made it to Harpers Ferry, and 349 made it all the way to the northern end of the 2,180 mile trail.
The success rate of a straight through thru-hike – about 10-15 percent.
It’s August now, and we start getting the same questions from others on the trail and in town as we move steadily north. Aren’t you running late? Are you going to make it to Maine? Wow, you still have a long way to go!
Undeterred, each moves on, knowing that half of us might leave the trail before reaching the end.
The mental part is the hardest because we often have to push our bodies through pain and injury, and because some days we would just rather not hike but go hiking anyway.
Sitting in the Palmerton, PA library, I take stock of my battered body as I am poised (odd word) to start my fifth month in the woods and on the Appalachian Trail.
Despite Sunday’s banging, my feet seem fine even though I switched from boots to Trailrunners in Harpers Ferry and I had been nursing a foot injury since the Shenandoah National Forest almost 300 miles back.
I took a chunk out of my right little toe when I was barefoot and kicked a rock while putting the rain cover on my tent before a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Bandages helped, but the constant pressure of my shoes and the pounding of rocks and roots have made it hard to heal.
As July becomes August, I move ahead, confident in my ability to go the distance and stick with the adventure of a lifetime.
I move ahead with the support and caring of folks at home, somehow inspiring them as Rockhound and many others out here (and at home) continue to inspire me and cheer me on.
Tomorrow I head back up the mountain that kicked my ass so badly the day before yesterday. And tomorrow I will get it done. I will miss Pennsylvania (or not) but look very much forward to what comes next.
Happy Trails.
On to New Jersey and New York and Connecticut and Massachusetts and Vermont and New Hampshire.
On to Maine.
-30-
My granddaddy's granddaddy walked from the deep South to Pennsylvania nearly 150 ago wearing a wool uniform and carrying a rifle, so my doing the 1250 miles from Georgia in shorts and a backpack doesn’t seem that big a deal.
His adventure did not end well. A Rebel soldier, he was wounded at Gettysburg and joined a 14-mile-long trail of wounded warriors who limped back South after three days of hell. I am not taking enemy fire, but my last week in Pennsylvania had me wondering if I might be going home in a box.
Late Sunday, I was lost near the summit of a 900-foot boulder field after scrambling and laboring up a very steep and challenging mile of trail to flat walking and a campsite six miles beyond. I had turned back from an impossible climb and was cautiously inching my way along a steep descent when I stumbled slightly, wobbled, spun and fell back, banging my head and slamming my left foot against a rock. Dazed and staggered, I wondered how I was going to get to the bottom without breaking an ankle, a leg or my neck.
All this high drama came just four days after I had nearly stepped onto a timber rattler and two days after I happily but cautiously hiked along a flatter boulder field, my feet never touching soil – just rocks – for a few hundred yards during a thunderstorm and drenching rain. Once confident that the Lord Jesus wasn’t going to call me home just yet, now I was not so sure.
I slipped off my pack and slid over to a broad flat rock to catch my breath. The sky was a spectacular blue and a hawk (perhaps an eagle) floated above while a small airplane flew by on approach to a tiny air strip below. All I could see was the boulder field beneath me and I could not enjoy the view because I was shaken, and, for the first time since leaving Georgia, I was scared.
On my own, I was in a mess. It was just past 4 p.m. and about 100 degrees when I walked out of Palmerton with a chocolate milkshake and without a worry about the hike ahead. I was the last hiker out of town and was sure nobody was behind me. Strider had called to tell me that the climb included scaling a few boulders and some hand-over-hand rock climbing but that the path was sometimes confusing.
I sat and watched the valley as my breathing calmed. I ate a Snickers bar, and drank a half liter of water while deciding what would come next. I was bloodied, but OK and knew that I would be able to get to the bottom. I needed to talk to someone because sharing my plight would take some of the terror out of it and I knew that talking through my options would help.
Strider could offer nothing but sympathy, but said he knew I’d be fine and that he would pray for me. I had talked to Kathy in Columbia before I left Palmerton and things were still rosy, and she now offered the reality check and reassurance that I needed to refocus and know I was going to be fine.
I picked my way cautiously down, lowering myself gently a step at a time, hoping the rock that I trusted would not shift under my weight, tip or slide and praying the tread of my Trailrunners would hold. I never saw another white blaze as I made my own path while brambles clawed at my legs and my ankles sometimes yelped.
The trail I found was not the Appalachian Trail, but it led me to a parking lot where two hikers were locking their car before heading up the hill.
Samson, a 2008 thru-hiker, said the section was the most difficult part of the trail in Pennsylvania and that he had gotten lost on that climb when he had come through. He offered to lead me to the top, but it was well past 5 o’clock and I’d had enough adventure for one day. I wanted a hot shower and a glass of Jack Daniel’s and accepted his kind offer of a ride back into town.
I had that one drink and shared my tale with Musher, a fellow northbounder who had watched me limp back into town and waited while I washed away the blood and pulled myself together. I did not eat dinner and sleep was difficult as I thought through the past week and scribbled notes in my journal, eager to get to the library and a computer on Monday morning.
I will strap on my pack and face that same climb early Tuesday, humbled and a bit battered, but structurally sound and eager to get going. I will climb out of Lehigh Gap without getting lost this time and find my way to the top and beyond.
By Wednesday I will be in New Jersey, but Pennsylvania will stay with me. This is why:
-- Gettysburg. Chilling. I took a Zero Day to get off the trail and take my mind away from hiking. This was a perfect choice. I took the tours, walked the cemetery and then brought the book Killer Angels along to learn what happened during the three days that left 50,000 killed, wounded or missing. I left the battlefield and caught a ride to the Mason-Dixon Line and crossed from Maryland into Pennsylvania like my granddaddy’s granddaddy before me.
-- The Half Gallon Challenge. A sign marks the 1090.5 mark, exactly halfway from Springer to Katahdin, and a Trail Challenge waited at a country store at Pine Grove Furnace State Park three miles away. I pulled in at the end of a steamy 17-mile hike eager to try and eat a half gallon of ice cream. The choices were grim – Peanut Butter Twist (gag), Banana Split (ack), or Cherries Jubilee (barf). Vanilla was my only option.
A half-dozen hikers looked on and cheered as Green Light and Joontsy ate. Green Light was groaning while he dug out another spoonful, and Joontsy’s face was bloated and an odd color and he looked close to being ill. Not deterred by seeing what pain lay ahead, I settled in and finished off a box of vanilla in 48 minutes while both of those youngsters had taken more than an hour.
My reward for ingesting more than 2400 calories at one sitting? A small wooden ice cream spoon and a caution to not get the spoon wet or the ink-stamped “Half Gallon Challenge” will run.
And no, I did not hurl. An hour later, I was ready for a cheeseburger and fries, but I lost my craving for ice cream and didn’t have more ice cream for nearly 48 hours.
-- Cumberland Valley and the Heat. Camping is prohibited in the 14 miles through the valley, and we made that day-long trip in 100-plus heat and humidity. It was Pennsylvania at its loveliest with smooth trails and mostly-flat walking through cornfields and forests and a mid-afternoon swim in Conodoguinet Creek (aka Whatyacallit Creek) four miles from camp to wash away the sweat. Add in swims in a lake near a campground and at a public pool in Boiling Springs and you have refreshed and happy hikers.
-- The Rattlesnake. I credit tai chi training with giving me patience and confidence as I sometimes teeter on the rocks of Pennsylvania and I believe it saved me from stepping into a life-challenging encounter with a timber rattler. That stutter-step move in the 32 sword form is called “wild horse crosses a mountain stream.” Having gotten past the snake, I now call it “grasshopper dances over rattlesnake’s back.”
-- Trail Angels. I stood in the rain beside the road for barely two minutes before Brad stopped and gave me a ride the two miles into Lickdale, PA. My shopping finished as the rain was ending and I was putting on my pack when Jeff came up and asked me if I needed a ride back to the trailhead. We stopped at Wendy’s on the way out of town. A Pentecostal pastor I met on the trail happily drove me all the way into Gettysburg.
-- Rockhound. A 43-year-old former Army MP, Rockhound had a heart attack in Troutdale, VA on April 2, the day I left Springer, and then had a double bypass operation and took three months off before getting back on the trail.
Most hikers haven’t had their walk disrupted by major surgery, but many of us have walked through crises of confidence, motivation, interest and will after making it halfway to Katahdin but knowing that we had more than a thousand miles to go.
Strider and I have hiked together since Franklin, NC more than 1100 miles ago, but he had gone to Gettysburg and was close to calling it quits. After a long talk with his mother and himself, he decided to stay in the woods and is happily hiking again, determined to get to Katahdin.
Francois Dillinger was distraught and yelling at himself when I arrived at the Ensign Cowell Shelter in Maryland and his buddy Sherpa was not doing much better.
“I have to finish this,” Dillinger said, “I have never finished anything that I started, and I have to finish this.” He had taken a series of zero days and was having problems getting re-engaged, although it seems like he’s now back on track.
Everyone has been running numbers – how many miles a day will it take to get me where I need to be? Will I make it? Am I behind schedule? Where are my friends?”
Our population has dwindled since we all left Georgia so many weeks ago. Those who keep track say that last year 1460 hikers left Springer for Katahdin, 747 of them made it to Harpers Ferry, and 349 made it all the way to the northern end of the 2,180 mile trail.
The success rate of a straight through thru-hike – about 10-15 percent.
It’s August now, and we start getting the same questions from others on the trail and in town as we move steadily north. Aren’t you running late? Are you going to make it to Maine? Wow, you still have a long way to go!
Undeterred, each moves on, knowing that half of us might leave the trail before reaching the end.
The mental part is the hardest because we often have to push our bodies through pain and injury, and because some days we would just rather not hike but go hiking anyway.
Sitting in the Palmerton, PA library, I take stock of my battered body as I am poised (odd word) to start my fifth month in the woods and on the Appalachian Trail.
Despite Sunday’s banging, my feet seem fine even though I switched from boots to Trailrunners in Harpers Ferry and I had been nursing a foot injury since the Shenandoah National Forest almost 300 miles back.
I took a chunk out of my right little toe when I was barefoot and kicked a rock while putting the rain cover on my tent before a thunderstorm in the middle of the night. Bandages helped, but the constant pressure of my shoes and the pounding of rocks and roots have made it hard to heal.
As July becomes August, I move ahead, confident in my ability to go the distance and stick with the adventure of a lifetime.
I move ahead with the support and caring of folks at home, somehow inspiring them as Rockhound and many others out here (and at home) continue to inspire me and cheer me on.
Tomorrow I head back up the mountain that kicked my ass so badly the day before yesterday. And tomorrow I will get it done. I will miss Pennsylvania (or not) but look very much forward to what comes next.
Happy Trails.
On to New Jersey and New York and Connecticut and Massachusetts and Vermont and New Hampshire.
On to Maine.
-30-
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Lesson One -- Watch Your Step
July 27, Port Clinton, PA. -- Had my left foot landed where I was about to plant it, someone else would have been telling this story and I probably would not be around to read it.
It was late yesterday, near the end of a 15-mile day that would get me to Eagle’s Nest Shelter, about 1200 miles along the Appalachian Trail. I moved across Pennsylvania in gorgeous weather, welcoming the cooler temperatures and the clean air that followed the rain-soaked 17 miles the day before, that hike a relief from the 18–miles the day before in the humid high 90s.
My knees and feet were feeling a long day on rocky trails when the path smoothed and the walk became easier. Had I planted my left foot where I saw it about to land, I would have been ankle deep in a fat rattlesnake coiled on the edge of the trail.
The snake would have surely struck while I struggled to free myself from the eight-foot tangle of angry snake fighting for its own life from a sudden attack from above. Had I been bitten and struggled along for help, I would have soon found still another rattler just off the trail to my right.
Happily, instincts kicked in because conscious thought was scared out of me. Years of tai chi trained me to stutter my step to get my left foot past the snake and push me ahead, to a short hop over a fallen log and onto my right foot, where I pivoted in fear to see what had almost happened.
The fat snake just stared at me and hissed. I just stared back and tried to breathe, assuming that I was safely out of range.
My breathing returned to normal as I pulled out my camera and gathered my wits while thinking through what might have just happened. As I walked on, I sorted through the memories from earlier that day, a routine one on my six-month journey from Springer Mountain, GA to Mount Katahdin, ME.
The snake will live on in my memory, but I have to go hiking now and do not have time to post the rest of this section of my amazing journey and the memories – the half-gallon of vanilla ice cream near the halfway point, the latest trail news, and many other wonderful tales and wonders. That will come soon, but this story had to come while fresh.
My anxiety about getting to New England in time to finish is fading, because something magical happens nearly every step of the way. My old buddies Chowhound and Chuck Wagon are now a couple of days behind and should be with us soon.
And I had a surprise letter at the Port Clinton post office – a wo0ndefrul letter from an old pal at DSS who, as I write, is taking her own time on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia -- walking from Springer Mountain to Neel’s Gap. Great Hike. You Go Girl!!
So on I walk, my days filled with amazing challenges and payoffs. The day before the snake, I had called the monastery looking for the Messsenger, but he was not at work and I spent some time talking with Father A.J. We caught up on news from there and here (the Messenger and wife are expecting) and he closed with a wonderful goodbye:
“God Bless You, Grasshopper.”
That conversation was fresh in my mind when I found the snake. And another message from earlier in the hike that sticks with me:
“Patience, Grasshopper. And Trust in the Lord Thy God.”
Happy Trails everyone.
It was late yesterday, near the end of a 15-mile day that would get me to Eagle’s Nest Shelter, about 1200 miles along the Appalachian Trail. I moved across Pennsylvania in gorgeous weather, welcoming the cooler temperatures and the clean air that followed the rain-soaked 17 miles the day before, that hike a relief from the 18–miles the day before in the humid high 90s.
My knees and feet were feeling a long day on rocky trails when the path smoothed and the walk became easier. Had I planted my left foot where I saw it about to land, I would have been ankle deep in a fat rattlesnake coiled on the edge of the trail.
The snake would have surely struck while I struggled to free myself from the eight-foot tangle of angry snake fighting for its own life from a sudden attack from above. Had I been bitten and struggled along for help, I would have soon found still another rattler just off the trail to my right.
Happily, instincts kicked in because conscious thought was scared out of me. Years of tai chi trained me to stutter my step to get my left foot past the snake and push me ahead, to a short hop over a fallen log and onto my right foot, where I pivoted in fear to see what had almost happened.
The fat snake just stared at me and hissed. I just stared back and tried to breathe, assuming that I was safely out of range.
My breathing returned to normal as I pulled out my camera and gathered my wits while thinking through what might have just happened. As I walked on, I sorted through the memories from earlier that day, a routine one on my six-month journey from Springer Mountain, GA to Mount Katahdin, ME.
The snake will live on in my memory, but I have to go hiking now and do not have time to post the rest of this section of my amazing journey and the memories – the half-gallon of vanilla ice cream near the halfway point, the latest trail news, and many other wonderful tales and wonders. That will come soon, but this story had to come while fresh.
My anxiety about getting to New England in time to finish is fading, because something magical happens nearly every step of the way. My old buddies Chowhound and Chuck Wagon are now a couple of days behind and should be with us soon.
And I had a surprise letter at the Port Clinton post office – a wo0ndefrul letter from an old pal at DSS who, as I write, is taking her own time on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia -- walking from Springer Mountain to Neel’s Gap. Great Hike. You Go Girl!!
So on I walk, my days filled with amazing challenges and payoffs. The day before the snake, I had called the monastery looking for the Messsenger, but he was not at work and I spent some time talking with Father A.J. We caught up on news from there and here (the Messenger and wife are expecting) and he closed with a wonderful goodbye:
“God Bless You, Grasshopper.”
That conversation was fresh in my mind when I found the snake. And another message from earlier in the hike that sticks with me:
“Patience, Grasshopper. And Trust in the Lord Thy God.”
Happy Trails everyone.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Halfway Home, a Long Way to Go
Mary’s Rock, in the Shenandoah. July 3, 2011
Thunder boomed and the wind whipped across the bald rock face, threatening to roll my tent, as I lay inside pushing hard against the walls and hoping that my weight would be a solid anchor.
The lighting kept flashing and the rain blew sideways for the better part of an hour. I was nervous and prayed for God’s protection, wondering whether my decision to camp at this exposed site at 3500 feet was foolhardy. Surely, I thought, the folks who made my Hubba tent had tested its stability in high winds, and, surely, the tent poles were designed to not attract lightning.
I had started to Maine on April 3, three months earlier, and had decided that this would be a great place to camp. Mary’s Rock looks over Luray, VA to the west and the sunset was outstanding, despite the storm to the north I thought might be moving away and would not affect me. Wishful thinking. In my bravado, I ignored my conversation from earlier in the day with two southbounders who had camped here until a storm forced them off the mountain in the dead of night.
It was a nerve-wracking hour, and though the rain continued, the thunder seemed to be moving away and the lightning flashes grew faint. The wind slowly died and the tent stopped flapping. The rain stopped and my breathing returned to normal as the storm passed.
I peeped from the tent and then crawled out. The storm had moved north, the sun was settling beyond Luray and leaving luminous orange trails as the lights of the town flickered and headlights moved through the valley below.
Exhausted, I crawled back inside, leaving the tent’s rain fly open so I could watch the sky as the storm continued to fade.
The evening adventure was the perfect end to a nearly perfect day. Another thunderstorm had roused me in the middle of the previous night and I had banged my little toe against a rock and ripped skin away as I worked to put the rain fly on my tent before the rain. (Knock on wood, that’s my only foot injury, but it still bothers me a week later.)
Rain always makes it more difficult to break camp, but the sun warmed the forest and I had a nice walk to the Skyland Resort and Restaurant where I was delighted to find an” all you can eat” breakfast buffet and a Sunday Washington Post. Feeling like a normal biped instead of a smelly woodlands creature, I enjoyed two large plates of eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, biscuits, gravy, and potatoes and three cups of coffee while scanning the paper and watching the valley from a comfortable spot indoors.
I slept well at the close of that adventure-filled Sunday and was up by six and on the trail a half-hour later on Monday morning. Though I was still almost a week away from Harper’s Ferry, I was a bit less than that away from one of the most unexpected, cool and emotional moments of my 90-plus days in the woods.
Just past a stretch of steep ups and downs known as the Rollercoaster and the Devil’s Playground, a simple sign was nailed to a tree.
1000
Miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia, that is. Any doubts, dismay and frustration from the journey vanished. I grinned and fished my cellphone from my pack to call my son and share the moment. I had hiked 1000 miles! And that, friends, is a long, long way.
Another sign had marked the end of 535 miles of Virginia trails and the move into West Virginia (the fifth state of the hike) but it had just a fraction of the impact of the 1000-mile sign. I strapped my camera to a tree and set the timer for a memory-saving shot of me, the tree and that marker.
The next eight miles were a blur, with a cascade of memories of the past 13 weeks in the woods. At Keys Gap, I walked a half mile down WV Highway 9 to Torlone’s Pizza, where my thru-hiker friend Torch joined me for cheeseburgers and a couple of beers to toast our milestone.
The stretch from Rockfish Gap at Waynesboro, VA to Harper’s Ferry, WV brought me to the midpoint of my woodlands adventure. As I walked, I thanked God for his many blessings, and prayed for my friends on the trail and at home. My spiritual journey had brought me closer to Him, and I also praised Jesus Christ and thanked Him for being part of my life and for helping me shed many of the burdens that I carried with me to the Appalachian Trail.
I carry these and many other memories as I continue to move north:
The first park ranger I met in the Shenandoah National Park wore a Smoky Bear hat, but it looked like a child’s cap teetering on top of his 300-pound body. His many chins jiggled and mountains of flesh rippled under his uniform as he gave me the forms that would allow me to camp in the park.
I learned the true meaning of the verb – to Yogi. Derived from the Yogi Bear cartoons, it is hiker parlance for begging for food, i.e. “Grasshopper yogied the family at the picnic table and came away with four peanut butter sandwiches and a banana.”
The quiet evening at Manassas Gap Shelter quickly shifted into party mode when Lunchbox pulled out a five-liter water bag filled with red wine. Lunchbox, one of a few guys hiking in a kilt, and his lady friend Long Trail, were a half-day behind their friends Indy and Snags; it would have been rude not to help him lighten that 10-pound burden. One cup of wine quickly turned into several.
Mr. and Mrs. Black, eccentric and charming honeymooning southbounders, lived up to the reputation that preceded them. A smallish man, he carried 110 pounds of gear and her pack weighed more than 60. A former Marine honing his survivalist skills, Mr. Black was admittedly ADHD with a smattering of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (“a slightly dangerous combination,” he said.) He transformed campsites into comfort zones, building stone fire pits and wooden benches for “the missus” and worked to decorate his hiking stick with the skins of snakes he had killed and eaten and with feathers of turkeys and hawks.
Spud and Snake Hips, a 60-ish couple also staying Bears Den Hostel, helped me work through the calendar issues that we face as we work north hoping to make it to Mount Katahdin by mid-October. They were catching a train to Massachusetts and planned a New England section before jumping back to the Middle Atlantic states.
The Shenandoah National Forest was everything I had hoped it would be when I continued north after a Zero Day in Waynesboro, Virginia. The trail crosses Skyline Drive many times as it wanders toward West Virginia, and the forest is more open and welcoming to tourists who drive along the ridge, enjoy its beautiful vistas and perhaps take to the woods for a day hike.
This section of my hike was a bit lonely as many of my fellow thru-hikers had decided to “aqua blaze” and paddle the Shenandoah River down to Harper’s Ferry instead of hiking the 160 miles from Rockfish Gap. At times, I felt like a park bear, just another tourist attraction.
“Are you a thru-hiker,” a woman asked as she and her two pre-teen children crossed my path.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You guys are like rock stars out here,” she said as her son, wide-eyed in wonder, stared up at me and clutched his trail maps. I laughed out loud and I answered the usual “what is it like” questions before we went our separate ways.
This part of the trail was a delightful break for hikers as we could now carry fewer supplies, resupply and have hot meals at the Wayside restaurants, and wash ourselves and our clothes at any of several campgrounds through the park. The hiking also was a tad easier with milder ups and downs and fewer rocks and obstacles.
I had planned a short stop at Big Meadows Wayside, but that turned into a two-hour stay as the lush green lawn was a wonderful place for a break. I bought a cheeseburger, fries and a soda and watched tourists come and go while I devoured the hot lunch at a picnic table. The burger, actually a double burger, was one of the best I had found on my hike, so I had a second one (I needed the fuel) and then two scoops of blueberry ice cream before dozing in the shade.
I had hoped to resupply at the Elkwallow Wayside on the Fourth of July and snag enough food (and maybe a burger or two and a blueberry milkshake) to get me to Harpers Ferry, but the storm that rocked me at Mary’s Rock the night before had knocked out the power at the Wayside and forced a change in plans.
Low on food, I was pondering my options when a Trail Angel came from nowhere and saved the day. He was a former thru-hiker just out looking for hikers to share the goodies that he had packed into the back of his car. He gave me bananas, Gatorade, granola bars, a bag of cashews, some cheese and a few Snickers bar; a family picnicking nearby made me four peanut butter sandwiches before wishing me well and sending me on my way.
I continue to marvel at the generosity of others and their willingness to help hikers.
Nature also has a very special way of taking care of things, and food is little more than an arm’s length away as berry-laden bushes often line the trail. Blackberries and raspberries were bursting forth and sweet juices stained my hands as I stopped to devour a luscious natural treat.
My mood and outlook about my hike to Maine improved as I walked, but I missed many of my fellow travelers who had decided to paddle instead of walk. It helps to share the journey and sort through issues and make sense of things; we support each other as we all wrestle with doubts and frustration and fatigue while plowing ahead on the long walk to Maine.
Happily, I again had pep in my step and pride in my stride (a campaign slogan from a Statehouse candidate a few decades ago.)
Gandhi and I (not that one, he’s dead) shared our worry about getting to Katahdin before Baxter State Park closes on October 15, and we discussed our options before deciding we would hike on and get as far North as we can and not worry about the deadline that looms a few months ahead. Our best would simply be good enough.
I am determined to not let the Monkey of Expectations crawl once again onto my back and to stop worrying about the calendar and not obsess over how many miles I need to cover before reaching my goal. Each of us came into the woods for different reasons and we brought our own expectations along; we all watched as our plans continue to evolve and our hikes play out in ways we did not expect.
Trail normalcy returned when Penguin walked into camp late one night. “Hey, Penguin, is that you? It’s Grasshopper!” “What’s happening, Grasshopper! Good to see you.”
We had met in the Great Smoky Mountains more than 750 miles south and our paths continued to cross as we moved ahead at different speeds. Torch also came into camp that night and we discovered that he had started a day after me, and I learned that some of the hikers I had met in Georgia were still on the trail.
Crossing the Shenandoah River and reaching Harper’s Ferry was a magical moment, though I was getting here six days later than I had once hoped. I arrived a stronger, though far lighter, man than the one who left Georgia so many weeks ago carrying 55 pounds of gear and the excess baggage that comes with a 60-year journey.
While it’s possible to leave many worries behind, it is also easy to bring them along and the solitude and grind of a wilderness adventure can also bring issues and worries into sharper focus. They can also weigh on your psyche more heavily because there are fewer demands and distractions that offer cover in the “real world.” The woods also offer a separate set of demands and issues and worries.
I will think about all of that some other time.
I am off to the Post Office and the outfitter, where I will buy a new pair of shoes because my Vasque Breeze boots are worn out after barely 750 miles. I am going to move into lighter “trail runners” that many hikers favor, and head north along somewhat flatter but still demanding trails.
Katahdin is still my goal, but I may decide to jump north to New Hampshire and hike the northernmost 500 miles of the trail before jumping back south to cover the middle section and finish my 2180 mile journey. My goal is still to hike the entire Appalachian Trail in one calendar year, and it really matters little whether it’s straight through or includes some skipping around.
We all hike our own hikes. And, like with the rest of our journeys, what truly matters is what’s in our own hearts, and minds and souls.
My journey still depends on God’s will and mine, and there are miles and miles to go before I sleep and my travels end.
There is an ice cream shop in Harper’s Ferry that is calling my name and sitting at this computer brings me no closer to Maine. It is time to eat more fuel because, God knows, I will burn it up as I move along through the summer’s heat and humidity.
On through West Virginia and Maryland and Pennsylvania – and perhaps sooner rather than later to the Presidential Range in New Hampshire and the grueling test of Maine.
Happy Trails. On I go!
-30-
Thunder boomed and the wind whipped across the bald rock face, threatening to roll my tent, as I lay inside pushing hard against the walls and hoping that my weight would be a solid anchor.
The lighting kept flashing and the rain blew sideways for the better part of an hour. I was nervous and prayed for God’s protection, wondering whether my decision to camp at this exposed site at 3500 feet was foolhardy. Surely, I thought, the folks who made my Hubba tent had tested its stability in high winds, and, surely, the tent poles were designed to not attract lightning.
I had started to Maine on April 3, three months earlier, and had decided that this would be a great place to camp. Mary’s Rock looks over Luray, VA to the west and the sunset was outstanding, despite the storm to the north I thought might be moving away and would not affect me. Wishful thinking. In my bravado, I ignored my conversation from earlier in the day with two southbounders who had camped here until a storm forced them off the mountain in the dead of night.
It was a nerve-wracking hour, and though the rain continued, the thunder seemed to be moving away and the lightning flashes grew faint. The wind slowly died and the tent stopped flapping. The rain stopped and my breathing returned to normal as the storm passed.
I peeped from the tent and then crawled out. The storm had moved north, the sun was settling beyond Luray and leaving luminous orange trails as the lights of the town flickered and headlights moved through the valley below.
Exhausted, I crawled back inside, leaving the tent’s rain fly open so I could watch the sky as the storm continued to fade.
The evening adventure was the perfect end to a nearly perfect day. Another thunderstorm had roused me in the middle of the previous night and I had banged my little toe against a rock and ripped skin away as I worked to put the rain fly on my tent before the rain. (Knock on wood, that’s my only foot injury, but it still bothers me a week later.)
Rain always makes it more difficult to break camp, but the sun warmed the forest and I had a nice walk to the Skyland Resort and Restaurant where I was delighted to find an” all you can eat” breakfast buffet and a Sunday Washington Post. Feeling like a normal biped instead of a smelly woodlands creature, I enjoyed two large plates of eggs, sausage, bacon, fruit, biscuits, gravy, and potatoes and three cups of coffee while scanning the paper and watching the valley from a comfortable spot indoors.
I slept well at the close of that adventure-filled Sunday and was up by six and on the trail a half-hour later on Monday morning. Though I was still almost a week away from Harper’s Ferry, I was a bit less than that away from one of the most unexpected, cool and emotional moments of my 90-plus days in the woods.
Just past a stretch of steep ups and downs known as the Rollercoaster and the Devil’s Playground, a simple sign was nailed to a tree.
1000
Miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia, that is. Any doubts, dismay and frustration from the journey vanished. I grinned and fished my cellphone from my pack to call my son and share the moment. I had hiked 1000 miles! And that, friends, is a long, long way.
Another sign had marked the end of 535 miles of Virginia trails and the move into West Virginia (the fifth state of the hike) but it had just a fraction of the impact of the 1000-mile sign. I strapped my camera to a tree and set the timer for a memory-saving shot of me, the tree and that marker.
The next eight miles were a blur, with a cascade of memories of the past 13 weeks in the woods. At Keys Gap, I walked a half mile down WV Highway 9 to Torlone’s Pizza, where my thru-hiker friend Torch joined me for cheeseburgers and a couple of beers to toast our milestone.
The stretch from Rockfish Gap at Waynesboro, VA to Harper’s Ferry, WV brought me to the midpoint of my woodlands adventure. As I walked, I thanked God for his many blessings, and prayed for my friends on the trail and at home. My spiritual journey had brought me closer to Him, and I also praised Jesus Christ and thanked Him for being part of my life and for helping me shed many of the burdens that I carried with me to the Appalachian Trail.
I carry these and many other memories as I continue to move north:
The first park ranger I met in the Shenandoah National Park wore a Smoky Bear hat, but it looked like a child’s cap teetering on top of his 300-pound body. His many chins jiggled and mountains of flesh rippled under his uniform as he gave me the forms that would allow me to camp in the park.
I learned the true meaning of the verb – to Yogi. Derived from the Yogi Bear cartoons, it is hiker parlance for begging for food, i.e. “Grasshopper yogied the family at the picnic table and came away with four peanut butter sandwiches and a banana.”
The quiet evening at Manassas Gap Shelter quickly shifted into party mode when Lunchbox pulled out a five-liter water bag filled with red wine. Lunchbox, one of a few guys hiking in a kilt, and his lady friend Long Trail, were a half-day behind their friends Indy and Snags; it would have been rude not to help him lighten that 10-pound burden. One cup of wine quickly turned into several.
Mr. and Mrs. Black, eccentric and charming honeymooning southbounders, lived up to the reputation that preceded them. A smallish man, he carried 110 pounds of gear and her pack weighed more than 60. A former Marine honing his survivalist skills, Mr. Black was admittedly ADHD with a smattering of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (“a slightly dangerous combination,” he said.) He transformed campsites into comfort zones, building stone fire pits and wooden benches for “the missus” and worked to decorate his hiking stick with the skins of snakes he had killed and eaten and with feathers of turkeys and hawks.
Spud and Snake Hips, a 60-ish couple also staying Bears Den Hostel, helped me work through the calendar issues that we face as we work north hoping to make it to Mount Katahdin by mid-October. They were catching a train to Massachusetts and planned a New England section before jumping back to the Middle Atlantic states.
The Shenandoah National Forest was everything I had hoped it would be when I continued north after a Zero Day in Waynesboro, Virginia. The trail crosses Skyline Drive many times as it wanders toward West Virginia, and the forest is more open and welcoming to tourists who drive along the ridge, enjoy its beautiful vistas and perhaps take to the woods for a day hike.
This section of my hike was a bit lonely as many of my fellow thru-hikers had decided to “aqua blaze” and paddle the Shenandoah River down to Harper’s Ferry instead of hiking the 160 miles from Rockfish Gap. At times, I felt like a park bear, just another tourist attraction.
“Are you a thru-hiker,” a woman asked as she and her two pre-teen children crossed my path.
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You guys are like rock stars out here,” she said as her son, wide-eyed in wonder, stared up at me and clutched his trail maps. I laughed out loud and I answered the usual “what is it like” questions before we went our separate ways.
This part of the trail was a delightful break for hikers as we could now carry fewer supplies, resupply and have hot meals at the Wayside restaurants, and wash ourselves and our clothes at any of several campgrounds through the park. The hiking also was a tad easier with milder ups and downs and fewer rocks and obstacles.
I had planned a short stop at Big Meadows Wayside, but that turned into a two-hour stay as the lush green lawn was a wonderful place for a break. I bought a cheeseburger, fries and a soda and watched tourists come and go while I devoured the hot lunch at a picnic table. The burger, actually a double burger, was one of the best I had found on my hike, so I had a second one (I needed the fuel) and then two scoops of blueberry ice cream before dozing in the shade.
I had hoped to resupply at the Elkwallow Wayside on the Fourth of July and snag enough food (and maybe a burger or two and a blueberry milkshake) to get me to Harpers Ferry, but the storm that rocked me at Mary’s Rock the night before had knocked out the power at the Wayside and forced a change in plans.
Low on food, I was pondering my options when a Trail Angel came from nowhere and saved the day. He was a former thru-hiker just out looking for hikers to share the goodies that he had packed into the back of his car. He gave me bananas, Gatorade, granola bars, a bag of cashews, some cheese and a few Snickers bar; a family picnicking nearby made me four peanut butter sandwiches before wishing me well and sending me on my way.
I continue to marvel at the generosity of others and their willingness to help hikers.
Nature also has a very special way of taking care of things, and food is little more than an arm’s length away as berry-laden bushes often line the trail. Blackberries and raspberries were bursting forth and sweet juices stained my hands as I stopped to devour a luscious natural treat.
My mood and outlook about my hike to Maine improved as I walked, but I missed many of my fellow travelers who had decided to paddle instead of walk. It helps to share the journey and sort through issues and make sense of things; we support each other as we all wrestle with doubts and frustration and fatigue while plowing ahead on the long walk to Maine.
Happily, I again had pep in my step and pride in my stride (a campaign slogan from a Statehouse candidate a few decades ago.)
Gandhi and I (not that one, he’s dead) shared our worry about getting to Katahdin before Baxter State Park closes on October 15, and we discussed our options before deciding we would hike on and get as far North as we can and not worry about the deadline that looms a few months ahead. Our best would simply be good enough.
I am determined to not let the Monkey of Expectations crawl once again onto my back and to stop worrying about the calendar and not obsess over how many miles I need to cover before reaching my goal. Each of us came into the woods for different reasons and we brought our own expectations along; we all watched as our plans continue to evolve and our hikes play out in ways we did not expect.
Trail normalcy returned when Penguin walked into camp late one night. “Hey, Penguin, is that you? It’s Grasshopper!” “What’s happening, Grasshopper! Good to see you.”
We had met in the Great Smoky Mountains more than 750 miles south and our paths continued to cross as we moved ahead at different speeds. Torch also came into camp that night and we discovered that he had started a day after me, and I learned that some of the hikers I had met in Georgia were still on the trail.
Crossing the Shenandoah River and reaching Harper’s Ferry was a magical moment, though I was getting here six days later than I had once hoped. I arrived a stronger, though far lighter, man than the one who left Georgia so many weeks ago carrying 55 pounds of gear and the excess baggage that comes with a 60-year journey.
While it’s possible to leave many worries behind, it is also easy to bring them along and the solitude and grind of a wilderness adventure can also bring issues and worries into sharper focus. They can also weigh on your psyche more heavily because there are fewer demands and distractions that offer cover in the “real world.” The woods also offer a separate set of demands and issues and worries.
I will think about all of that some other time.
I am off to the Post Office and the outfitter, where I will buy a new pair of shoes because my Vasque Breeze boots are worn out after barely 750 miles. I am going to move into lighter “trail runners” that many hikers favor, and head north along somewhat flatter but still demanding trails.
Katahdin is still my goal, but I may decide to jump north to New Hampshire and hike the northernmost 500 miles of the trail before jumping back south to cover the middle section and finish my 2180 mile journey. My goal is still to hike the entire Appalachian Trail in one calendar year, and it really matters little whether it’s straight through or includes some skipping around.
We all hike our own hikes. And, like with the rest of our journeys, what truly matters is what’s in our own hearts, and minds and souls.
My journey still depends on God’s will and mine, and there are miles and miles to go before I sleep and my travels end.
There is an ice cream shop in Harper’s Ferry that is calling my name and sitting at this computer brings me no closer to Maine. It is time to eat more fuel because, God knows, I will burn it up as I move along through the summer’s heat and humidity.
On through West Virginia and Maryland and Pennsylvania – and perhaps sooner rather than later to the Presidential Range in New Hampshire and the grueling test of Maine.
Happy Trails. On I go!
-30-
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
The Wall, the Vortex and the Ice Cream Man
The Wall, the Vortex and the Ice Cream Man
Waynesboro, VA. June 28, 2011 -- Just outside Daleville, I hit the wall.
The re-supply and blog-posting there had been exhausting. Up very late writing; terrible sleep because I was in a bed indoors and not a tent; up early as usual, but at a computer, not a campsite. After a late start and five miles into what was supposed to be an easy 15-mile day, I crashed and burned.
I dozed at a shelter before slipping into my tent for a three-hour nap. It was a combination I knew well – the letdown after a writing project and a psychological payment due for my celebrating 700 miles when I still have so very far to go. I was physically tired from hiking very difficult and rocky trails and mentally whipped from living in the woods for so long
My body had been telling me something, and I promised myself at the beginning of the hike that I would listen to it when it talked. My body – and my mind – have been talking to me a lot for the past 200 miles. Some of it hasn’t been pretty.
Somewhere north of Damascus, the Virginia Blues grabbed me and the adventure of a lifetime became a full bore struggle. Routine climbs became agonizing and long hiking days became even longer.
But here I sit in Waynesboro, VA after a Zero Day, not hiking at all. With my first shower in 12 days and a shave, I am a happy man. I have been thrilled by an unexpected package at the post office, brownies and a terrific paperback from two tai chi buddies in Charleston. I have pigged out with friends at Ming Chinese Garden, where we enjoyed a marvelous buffet and a bottle or two of beer.
Pun not intended, however, I am not out of the woods yet. I have labored, but worked my way through it and, as I write, I am on the edge of the Shenandoah Valley and eager to start hiking some of the most beautiful ridges of the Appalachian Trail.
Physically, and mentally, I am ready to go walking again.
My feet hurt, but that’s normal because of the continued pounding and the jolting downhill hiking on roots and rocks. I lost the nail on the second toe of my right foot, but its successor seems to be holding up well.
My ankles are fine now, after a few days of pain. My right ankle was very sore and I worried about it on an 18-mile day, then it felt better the next day (16) and better still the day after (another 16) although my left ankle started bothering me a bit. It is easy to roll an ankle or take a nasty spill out here, and I worry about my feet, ankles and legs because injuries are, of course, a hike killer and I have come too far to be taken out by injury.
Long-distance hiking is as much mental as physical and that night a few miles north of Daleville at the Fullhardt Knob Shelter, I was a bit of a mess.
Another beautiful summer evening passed quickly as I chatted with another thru-hiker and some other folks on the trail for short hikes. Sleep consumed me again by 9 and I was out again until 6 a.m., when I awoke groggy, but ready to hike on.
Determined to make up for lost time, I forced myself to hike 20 miles that day – and I made it! I camped alone that night and hurried along the three miles down to Jennings Creek the next morning because of the Trail Magic that was supposed to be waiting. Word on the trail was that a veteran thru-hiker was entertaining at the creek, cooking burgers and hot dogs and offering beer and soft drinks to hikers headed to Maine
With little warning I was sucked into the vortex.
Pancakes were on the griddle when I walked into camp around 9, and hikers were getting up and stirring about, recovering from the excesses of the night before. Pancakes led to hamburgers. Hamburgers led to chili cheese dogs, and when one session of Trail Magic ended early in the afternoon, another party started, as another hiking veteran was bringing in more beer and hot dogs.
Hikers marvel at a vortex, when, despite the good intent to hike 20 miles, they get snagged for a Zero Day at shelters or towns, but the Trail Magic at Jennings Creek was the mother of all vortexes.
By mid-day 20 hikers were sucked in to share a Zero Day of relative indolence, sloth and gluttony. It was fantastic. We laughed, shared stories, talked about bears and snakes and Trail Angels and our feet and our blisters. Some slept, others played cards, but mostly we ate – and drank, deciding uphill hike facing us after Jennings Creek could easily wait another day.
The Aussies, Slider and Stroller, were there, and Slider was his usually entertaining self; Stroller permitted herself a single beer because she found out 500 miles back that they are expecting a baby on Christmas Day.
Katie (a.k.a. Queen Ferdinand) from Maryland and Harmony, her friend from Alberta, were there, excited to be getting off the trail a week later for a night being entertained by Katie’s Mom. The Safety Tribe, a mixed bag of hikers (Sunkist, Sage and Hawk Run) I had known since April wandered in -- and stayed. So did Napalm, Dingleberry and Duct Tape as well as a couple of homeless men who seem to be wandering the trail somewhat aimlessly.
Someone counted 18 tents near there that night, but I know I was the first out the next morning, breaking camp at 6:30 for that dreaded climb and vowing to pay penance making it 18 miles to a campsite with a spring. It promised to be a sweaty day as impurities were eager to come rolling out in waves.
Trail Magic struck again as Katie, Harmony and I were about to leave Thunder Hill Shelter (Mile 762) after a 5 p.m. break when a voice from the trail asked, “Do any of you guys like ice cream?”
Our heads snapped around to see an elderly man wearing a daypack and carrying a cooler. “I have some Trail Magic here if you’d like,” he said, opening the cooler and bringing out a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream (my favorite, by the way,) two quarts of slushy lemonade, and two bags of Oreos (regular and vanilla.)
The Ice Cream Man explained that he had brought Trail Magic to Thunder Hill before, only to find it empty. We shared news of the vortex 14 miles south and eagerly devoured two bowls of ice cream each, grabbed a handful of cookies and fought off the frozen throat that comes with too much of a good thing.
I could have stayed, but I marched on, freed from the vortex and determined not to lose more time and momentum, although the late afternoon Trail Magic meant I would not catch up with friends. That burp in my schedule pushed me to find the solitude that had lured me into the woods but has been somehow hard to find. Camping alone, I set my own course for Waynesboro and beyond.
I decided to push myself hard and do the 80 miles in five days, meaning a 15-miles-a-day pace. Even by Virginia standards, that can be difficult because there are no easy miles on the Appalachian Trail and because there would be several long and steep climbs and then the downhill sections sure to bang away at ankles and knees.
Long hikes are done in chunks; time and distance are often measured by the miles to go before a re-supply town or the number of days needed to reach a certain destination. I had already forgotten or ignored one rule of thru-hiking – Hike Your Own Hike – and I was losing sight of another – It’s the Journey, Stupid, not the Destination.
Freed from the vortex of Trail magic, I found myself sucked into the vortex of doubt, dismay and frustration and I started pounding away at myself for my perceived lack of progress. I had forgotten the joy of the trail while being consumed with a pre-hike objective of making it to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia by the 4th of July.
Harpers Ferry is 1013 miles from Springer Mountain, Ga., the southern terminus of the A.T. and while Harpers Ferry is a bit short of halfway along the 2,180 mile Trail, it’s the ceremonial halfway point and hikers there around the 4th of July are on pace to make it to the northern end at Mount Katahdin in Maine.
Silly as it might sound, I began to grind away at figuring how many miles a day it would take for me to get there on time and, not being able to hike that far that fast, I started being disappointed in what I had been able to do
I was grinding away one afternoon, well into a 12-hour, 18-mile day and cursing myself for not getting to Harpers Ferry by the 4th of July when I had one of those ‘aha’ moments that changed everything.
Several thoughts converged:
“Patience, grasshopper.”
“Smile, damn it.”
“You are living in the woods on the adventure of a lifetime and beating yourself up because it will take a couple of extra days to hike a thousand miles – A THOUSAND MILES – so this adventure is a failure?”
I started laughing out loud and vowed to remember that I am here to have fun and am having an amazing wilderness experience that will change me forever and already has
My mood brightened, the pack felt lighter, and there was a new spring in my step. I was again a happy camper on a merry woodlands adventure.
I made it to Waynesboro at my pace and on my terms and checked into the YMCA on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Hikers can camp nearby and use all of the Y facilities, so I grabbed my first shower and shave in nearly two weeks and was clean and able to take a another look at how I had come to where I am.
The locker room has a set of zero-balance scales, and I was curious to see what nearly three months and 850 miles had done to me. I was close to 200 pounds when I started at Springer, 182 pounds at Damascus at Mile 464, and a shocking 170 at Woods Hole Hostel a couple of hundred miles ago.
The scales stayed steady at 175 pounds, and I can only wonder what might have registered had I not been able to get that Monkey of Expectations off my back.
My feet still hurt, but it’s mostly my toes. The knees are fine, and so are the ankles.
Now the head is screwed back on right, and I am eager to get back on the trail – hiking my own hike and enjoying my journey without obsessing on the destination and without playing foolish head games.
I also embark alone, although there will be plenty of company along the way. The late arrivals at the Y tonight included two buddies from Columbia, Reese and Oatmeal, who were back on the trail after an injury timeout and a trip home.
I will post this blog, stop for second breakfast and snag a ride back to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the start of the Shenandoahs.
Harpers Ferry is 160 miles away -- about 8 day of good walking-- but I will get there when I get there -- not before, and I will be a happy camper when I do.
Waynesboro, VA. June 28, 2011 -- Just outside Daleville, I hit the wall.
The re-supply and blog-posting there had been exhausting. Up very late writing; terrible sleep because I was in a bed indoors and not a tent; up early as usual, but at a computer, not a campsite. After a late start and five miles into what was supposed to be an easy 15-mile day, I crashed and burned.
I dozed at a shelter before slipping into my tent for a three-hour nap. It was a combination I knew well – the letdown after a writing project and a psychological payment due for my celebrating 700 miles when I still have so very far to go. I was physically tired from hiking very difficult and rocky trails and mentally whipped from living in the woods for so long
My body had been telling me something, and I promised myself at the beginning of the hike that I would listen to it when it talked. My body – and my mind – have been talking to me a lot for the past 200 miles. Some of it hasn’t been pretty.
Somewhere north of Damascus, the Virginia Blues grabbed me and the adventure of a lifetime became a full bore struggle. Routine climbs became agonizing and long hiking days became even longer.
But here I sit in Waynesboro, VA after a Zero Day, not hiking at all. With my first shower in 12 days and a shave, I am a happy man. I have been thrilled by an unexpected package at the post office, brownies and a terrific paperback from two tai chi buddies in Charleston. I have pigged out with friends at Ming Chinese Garden, where we enjoyed a marvelous buffet and a bottle or two of beer.
Pun not intended, however, I am not out of the woods yet. I have labored, but worked my way through it and, as I write, I am on the edge of the Shenandoah Valley and eager to start hiking some of the most beautiful ridges of the Appalachian Trail.
Physically, and mentally, I am ready to go walking again.
My feet hurt, but that’s normal because of the continued pounding and the jolting downhill hiking on roots and rocks. I lost the nail on the second toe of my right foot, but its successor seems to be holding up well.
My ankles are fine now, after a few days of pain. My right ankle was very sore and I worried about it on an 18-mile day, then it felt better the next day (16) and better still the day after (another 16) although my left ankle started bothering me a bit. It is easy to roll an ankle or take a nasty spill out here, and I worry about my feet, ankles and legs because injuries are, of course, a hike killer and I have come too far to be taken out by injury.
Long-distance hiking is as much mental as physical and that night a few miles north of Daleville at the Fullhardt Knob Shelter, I was a bit of a mess.
Another beautiful summer evening passed quickly as I chatted with another thru-hiker and some other folks on the trail for short hikes. Sleep consumed me again by 9 and I was out again until 6 a.m., when I awoke groggy, but ready to hike on.
Determined to make up for lost time, I forced myself to hike 20 miles that day – and I made it! I camped alone that night and hurried along the three miles down to Jennings Creek the next morning because of the Trail Magic that was supposed to be waiting. Word on the trail was that a veteran thru-hiker was entertaining at the creek, cooking burgers and hot dogs and offering beer and soft drinks to hikers headed to Maine
With little warning I was sucked into the vortex.
Pancakes were on the griddle when I walked into camp around 9, and hikers were getting up and stirring about, recovering from the excesses of the night before. Pancakes led to hamburgers. Hamburgers led to chili cheese dogs, and when one session of Trail Magic ended early in the afternoon, another party started, as another hiking veteran was bringing in more beer and hot dogs.
Hikers marvel at a vortex, when, despite the good intent to hike 20 miles, they get snagged for a Zero Day at shelters or towns, but the Trail Magic at Jennings Creek was the mother of all vortexes.
By mid-day 20 hikers were sucked in to share a Zero Day of relative indolence, sloth and gluttony. It was fantastic. We laughed, shared stories, talked about bears and snakes and Trail Angels and our feet and our blisters. Some slept, others played cards, but mostly we ate – and drank, deciding uphill hike facing us after Jennings Creek could easily wait another day.
The Aussies, Slider and Stroller, were there, and Slider was his usually entertaining self; Stroller permitted herself a single beer because she found out 500 miles back that they are expecting a baby on Christmas Day.
Katie (a.k.a. Queen Ferdinand) from Maryland and Harmony, her friend from Alberta, were there, excited to be getting off the trail a week later for a night being entertained by Katie’s Mom. The Safety Tribe, a mixed bag of hikers (Sunkist, Sage and Hawk Run) I had known since April wandered in -- and stayed. So did Napalm, Dingleberry and Duct Tape as well as a couple of homeless men who seem to be wandering the trail somewhat aimlessly.
Someone counted 18 tents near there that night, but I know I was the first out the next morning, breaking camp at 6:30 for that dreaded climb and vowing to pay penance making it 18 miles to a campsite with a spring. It promised to be a sweaty day as impurities were eager to come rolling out in waves.
Trail Magic struck again as Katie, Harmony and I were about to leave Thunder Hill Shelter (Mile 762) after a 5 p.m. break when a voice from the trail asked, “Do any of you guys like ice cream?”
Our heads snapped around to see an elderly man wearing a daypack and carrying a cooler. “I have some Trail Magic here if you’d like,” he said, opening the cooler and bringing out a gallon of Neapolitan ice cream (my favorite, by the way,) two quarts of slushy lemonade, and two bags of Oreos (regular and vanilla.)
The Ice Cream Man explained that he had brought Trail Magic to Thunder Hill before, only to find it empty. We shared news of the vortex 14 miles south and eagerly devoured two bowls of ice cream each, grabbed a handful of cookies and fought off the frozen throat that comes with too much of a good thing.
I could have stayed, but I marched on, freed from the vortex and determined not to lose more time and momentum, although the late afternoon Trail Magic meant I would not catch up with friends. That burp in my schedule pushed me to find the solitude that had lured me into the woods but has been somehow hard to find. Camping alone, I set my own course for Waynesboro and beyond.
I decided to push myself hard and do the 80 miles in five days, meaning a 15-miles-a-day pace. Even by Virginia standards, that can be difficult because there are no easy miles on the Appalachian Trail and because there would be several long and steep climbs and then the downhill sections sure to bang away at ankles and knees.
Long hikes are done in chunks; time and distance are often measured by the miles to go before a re-supply town or the number of days needed to reach a certain destination. I had already forgotten or ignored one rule of thru-hiking – Hike Your Own Hike – and I was losing sight of another – It’s the Journey, Stupid, not the Destination.
Freed from the vortex of Trail magic, I found myself sucked into the vortex of doubt, dismay and frustration and I started pounding away at myself for my perceived lack of progress. I had forgotten the joy of the trail while being consumed with a pre-hike objective of making it to Harpers Ferry, West Virginia by the 4th of July.
Harpers Ferry is 1013 miles from Springer Mountain, Ga., the southern terminus of the A.T. and while Harpers Ferry is a bit short of halfway along the 2,180 mile Trail, it’s the ceremonial halfway point and hikers there around the 4th of July are on pace to make it to the northern end at Mount Katahdin in Maine.
Silly as it might sound, I began to grind away at figuring how many miles a day it would take for me to get there on time and, not being able to hike that far that fast, I started being disappointed in what I had been able to do
I was grinding away one afternoon, well into a 12-hour, 18-mile day and cursing myself for not getting to Harpers Ferry by the 4th of July when I had one of those ‘aha’ moments that changed everything.
Several thoughts converged:
“Patience, grasshopper.”
“Smile, damn it.”
“You are living in the woods on the adventure of a lifetime and beating yourself up because it will take a couple of extra days to hike a thousand miles – A THOUSAND MILES – so this adventure is a failure?”
I started laughing out loud and vowed to remember that I am here to have fun and am having an amazing wilderness experience that will change me forever and already has
My mood brightened, the pack felt lighter, and there was a new spring in my step. I was again a happy camper on a merry woodlands adventure.
I made it to Waynesboro at my pace and on my terms and checked into the YMCA on a sunny Sunday afternoon. Hikers can camp nearby and use all of the Y facilities, so I grabbed my first shower and shave in nearly two weeks and was clean and able to take a another look at how I had come to where I am.
The locker room has a set of zero-balance scales, and I was curious to see what nearly three months and 850 miles had done to me. I was close to 200 pounds when I started at Springer, 182 pounds at Damascus at Mile 464, and a shocking 170 at Woods Hole Hostel a couple of hundred miles ago.
The scales stayed steady at 175 pounds, and I can only wonder what might have registered had I not been able to get that Monkey of Expectations off my back.
My feet still hurt, but it’s mostly my toes. The knees are fine, and so are the ankles.
Now the head is screwed back on right, and I am eager to get back on the trail – hiking my own hike and enjoying my journey without obsessing on the destination and without playing foolish head games.
I also embark alone, although there will be plenty of company along the way. The late arrivals at the Y tonight included two buddies from Columbia, Reese and Oatmeal, who were back on the trail after an injury timeout and a trip home.
I will post this blog, stop for second breakfast and snag a ride back to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the start of the Shenandoahs.
Harpers Ferry is 160 miles away -- about 8 day of good walking-- but I will get there when I get there -- not before, and I will be a happy camper when I do.
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Damascus to Daleville: Blue Skies and Boulders
Damascus to Daleville. Blue skies and boulders.
June 15, 2011
The large dark bear loped along the ridge above the trail, never knowing that the two hikers below were transfixed watching him go about his morning business.
We watched, stalking him as we quietly moved along our trail as the bear moved casually across the ridge and stopped to sniff at this or that. For five minutes he stayed in sight before scrambling over a fallen tree and heading the other way as the hikers shared an excited “wow” and went our way to the north,
This was just another majestic day on the Appalachian Trail. It started with a magical sunrise at my campsite overlooking an idyllic Virginia valley from atop Tinker Cliffs a few miles back.
I had camped alone on the cliffs the night before to celebrate the 700 miles on the Appalachian Trail and, quite honestly, feeling a bit proud of myself.
I am humbled by the entire adventure.
Seven hundred miles is a long way, and most hikers who make it this far end up going the distance – 2180 miles to Maine. That’s a very long walk.
This is a magnificent country, one filled with amazing people who hike its trails and who give strangers a lift, sensing we are travelers who appreciate the kindness and mean no harm. This remarkable country is filled with incredible wildlife like this morning’s bear and the other wonders I have seen on my journey: the rattlers and other snakes, the deer, turtles, the birds and the butterflies.
The forest creatures have begun taking hikers for granted -- perhaps it's the smell or we just fade into the trees like they do. They frolic in thee trees and race by without a glance.
Butterflies seem to always find me at the perfect time. Sometimes when I need to strength to make the next climb, sometime to ease a doubt that might come through my head. Sometimes, they seem to just want to say hello.
The road from Damascus to Daleville has been 240 miles of heat, bright sunshine and cloudless blue skies, and the trail has taken me through long lush meadows and farm fields, across stark and open highlands strewn with large boulders, and through demanding ups and downs across harsh and jagged rock slides and scrambling over downed trees.
It is hard hiking, tough on the knees and ankles, and I stop here in Daleville to recover a bit before the push to the halfway point on the 4th of July. I pause to give thanks before pressing on.
Angels and More Angels
The battered black pickup truck turned around up the road and pulled alongside my friend and me on a lonely backcountry Virginia road, hoping for a ride to the grocery at Newport, about eight miles away.
“We’re going to Newport. Ya’ll get in the back,” said Thelma Jean the Trail Angel. I told her I’d kiss her if I weren’t so wet and smelly; him too, I nodded at the driver, Buddy. They both just grinned that happy Southern grin.
“They is beers in the cooler back there if ya’ll is thirsty,” she said. “Mountain Dew, too.” There may be a better cold beer than that one; I don’t know it.
Two days later, I was trying to catch a ride to the Catawba post office before closing when Trail Angel Laurie gave me a lift, waited for me to do my business inside, and then drove me five miles back to the trail.
And yesterday I sat in the gravel parking lot at Catawba, having a quick lunch at Mile 700 before the 3.7-mile hike up to McAfee Knob. Trail Angel Mike, a Presbyterian minister, eagerly quizzed me about trail life before he told me to put my stuff in his truck and let him drive me to the store and buy me trail treats.
None of these angels seemed to mind how bad I smelled; or perhaps they were just too polite to mention it.
From the Messenger to Daleville
I wrote last from about the rain at Mount Rogers and the southbound Messenger who joined a group of us northbound thru-hikers also seeking shelter from the storm. The Messenger headed on south, and I headed north toward Maine, though I called calling Mepkin Abbey a week or so later to check in with him. We swapped voice mails.
North took me into the wonderful Grayson Highlands State Park where the forests gave way to panoramic views and the solitude of the Appalachian Trail evaporated with the clouds and was quickly replaced by the hubbub of a popular state park on Memorial Day weekend.
Family sounds echoed across the fields as day-tripping groups came to explore. Mothers screamed at their youngsters to “don’t go over there” and that gave the highlands the feel of a Wal-Mart or Disney World more than a wilderness playground.
We northbound thru-hikers became part of their wilderness adventure as they greeted us with fascination and wariness – you’re really walking to Maine? There was no shortage of awe and wide eyes and a little bit of head shaking.
I stopped at a gate to let a troop of scouts go by and paused to thank the adult leaders for taking young people into the woods. The group stopped to let me buy when the leader asked me how far I had hiked. With a burst of enthusiasm, I happily announced, “I have hiked almost 500 miles!”
More than one camper’s eye bulged at that and then the first one grinned and raised his palm. “High 5!" I received an enthusiastic hand slap and some ‘woo-hoos” from every young hiker I passed.
The joy of the highlands and passing the 500-mile mark from Springer was quickly tempered by physical horrors, as I caught a nasty bug that had made its rounds through the hiker community, and my body, reliable so far, became my worst enemy.
I was still able to do long miles, but the heat got to me and water became scarce along the trail. I was sweating far more water and fluids than I could take in, and, coupled with a very nasty intestinal disorder, I became a very unhappy camper. The 200-pounder who confidently strode onto the trail in early April was now a gaunt shell, looking more like a POW than a thru-hiker.
No pun intended, it passed.
Hiking By the Numbers
What damage does backpacking for 700 miles from Georgia to Virginia do to the body of an otherwise healthy 60-year-old man?
When I began, I weighed about 205 pounds and was carrying a 55-pound pack, fully loaded with gear and food for several days on the trail. Between me and my pack, my legs were carrying 260 pounds up and down the steep Georgia mountains.
When I reached the Woods Hole Hostel near Pearisburg, VA, I weighed 170 and, fully loaded, my pack now weighs about 35 pounds. That’s about 205 total, or 55 pounds less than I was struggling with during the early days of the hike.
I have no idea what my vital signs might be, but I have added some weight to my body since Pearisburg. That 170 weight came after a few terrible difficult days of gastronomic distress and I have gotten steadily stronger as the days go by.
A Day in the Life
I write this at 7 a.m. Last night, three of us went to a country cooking all-you-can-eat buffet. Cheap, but there was a lot of it. Soon I will have a hot breakfast here at the Howard Johnson’s Express, and then the trail beckons once more from just up the road. So it begins again.
My hiking days typically start at 6:05, when my internal clock nudges me to get moving. The tent comes down, the sleeping pad is put away with the bedding and the clothing are packed away while I either prepare a breakfast of hot oatmeal or keep it simple and have a granola or power bar.
I am on the trail by 7:15 most mornings and plan to go for three hours before a morning break and a snack and then another three hours of walking before stopping for lunch. I eat at both stops and if the day has gone well, I have covered about 10 miles or more before lunch. My daily goal is 115 miles, but that can vary because of water, weather, or the sometimes-complicated logistics of getting from Point A to Point B.
I try to camp by 6 p.m., pitch my tent, make a hot dinner and do camp chores before settling on my sleeping pad away from the bugs and reading, writing or just reviewing the day. My world is Spartan and simple and amazing.
The sun drops by 9 and I drop off soon after, another day starting just a few hours later when the sun calls me again to get up and start walking.
I learn daily lessons about hiking and every day seems somehow easier than the day before.
The climbs and grades have gotten easier as I have learned to regulate my breathing and pace myself so that I can keep moving and not stop again and again to gasp for breath. I recover more quickly after a difficult stretch.
Hiking that has been drudgery has become wonderful fun. It’s not effortless by any means, but I have enjoyed walks up and down Virginia hills and found a good cadence and rhythm that moves me along at a good clip and I negotiate the rocks and roots and obstacles by instinct, placing my feet where they need to be without obsessing and feeling each and every step.
I have added music to my hike this time, bringing an iPod with me on the trail as my only creature comfort from the other world. Sometimes it is Steely Dan, sometimes the Beatles or bob Dylan or gospel or new age, but the music helps drive the hike sometimes and adds the right mood when times are tough.
But the sounds of the forest are always more interesting than the music I own and I pick my spots for music carefully and remember why I am here. Why is that? Oh year, I remember. I am here because the Appalachian Trail is here and I am walking to Katahdin.
But first there is a hot breakfast and perhaps another shower before I put the 40 pounds of stuff on my back again and hit the trail, following the endless white blazes that guide me -- first to Harpers Ferry W.VA by the 4th of July – and then to Maine by October.
Happy Trails!
June 15, 2011
The large dark bear loped along the ridge above the trail, never knowing that the two hikers below were transfixed watching him go about his morning business.
We watched, stalking him as we quietly moved along our trail as the bear moved casually across the ridge and stopped to sniff at this or that. For five minutes he stayed in sight before scrambling over a fallen tree and heading the other way as the hikers shared an excited “wow” and went our way to the north,
This was just another majestic day on the Appalachian Trail. It started with a magical sunrise at my campsite overlooking an idyllic Virginia valley from atop Tinker Cliffs a few miles back.
I had camped alone on the cliffs the night before to celebrate the 700 miles on the Appalachian Trail and, quite honestly, feeling a bit proud of myself.
I am humbled by the entire adventure.
Seven hundred miles is a long way, and most hikers who make it this far end up going the distance – 2180 miles to Maine. That’s a very long walk.
This is a magnificent country, one filled with amazing people who hike its trails and who give strangers a lift, sensing we are travelers who appreciate the kindness and mean no harm. This remarkable country is filled with incredible wildlife like this morning’s bear and the other wonders I have seen on my journey: the rattlers and other snakes, the deer, turtles, the birds and the butterflies.
The forest creatures have begun taking hikers for granted -- perhaps it's the smell or we just fade into the trees like they do. They frolic in thee trees and race by without a glance.
Butterflies seem to always find me at the perfect time. Sometimes when I need to strength to make the next climb, sometime to ease a doubt that might come through my head. Sometimes, they seem to just want to say hello.
The road from Damascus to Daleville has been 240 miles of heat, bright sunshine and cloudless blue skies, and the trail has taken me through long lush meadows and farm fields, across stark and open highlands strewn with large boulders, and through demanding ups and downs across harsh and jagged rock slides and scrambling over downed trees.
It is hard hiking, tough on the knees and ankles, and I stop here in Daleville to recover a bit before the push to the halfway point on the 4th of July. I pause to give thanks before pressing on.
Angels and More Angels
The battered black pickup truck turned around up the road and pulled alongside my friend and me on a lonely backcountry Virginia road, hoping for a ride to the grocery at Newport, about eight miles away.
“We’re going to Newport. Ya’ll get in the back,” said Thelma Jean the Trail Angel. I told her I’d kiss her if I weren’t so wet and smelly; him too, I nodded at the driver, Buddy. They both just grinned that happy Southern grin.
“They is beers in the cooler back there if ya’ll is thirsty,” she said. “Mountain Dew, too.” There may be a better cold beer than that one; I don’t know it.
Two days later, I was trying to catch a ride to the Catawba post office before closing when Trail Angel Laurie gave me a lift, waited for me to do my business inside, and then drove me five miles back to the trail.
And yesterday I sat in the gravel parking lot at Catawba, having a quick lunch at Mile 700 before the 3.7-mile hike up to McAfee Knob. Trail Angel Mike, a Presbyterian minister, eagerly quizzed me about trail life before he told me to put my stuff in his truck and let him drive me to the store and buy me trail treats.
None of these angels seemed to mind how bad I smelled; or perhaps they were just too polite to mention it.
From the Messenger to Daleville
I wrote last from about the rain at Mount Rogers and the southbound Messenger who joined a group of us northbound thru-hikers also seeking shelter from the storm. The Messenger headed on south, and I headed north toward Maine, though I called calling Mepkin Abbey a week or so later to check in with him. We swapped voice mails.
North took me into the wonderful Grayson Highlands State Park where the forests gave way to panoramic views and the solitude of the Appalachian Trail evaporated with the clouds and was quickly replaced by the hubbub of a popular state park on Memorial Day weekend.
Family sounds echoed across the fields as day-tripping groups came to explore. Mothers screamed at their youngsters to “don’t go over there” and that gave the highlands the feel of a Wal-Mart or Disney World more than a wilderness playground.
We northbound thru-hikers became part of their wilderness adventure as they greeted us with fascination and wariness – you’re really walking to Maine? There was no shortage of awe and wide eyes and a little bit of head shaking.
I stopped at a gate to let a troop of scouts go by and paused to thank the adult leaders for taking young people into the woods. The group stopped to let me buy when the leader asked me how far I had hiked. With a burst of enthusiasm, I happily announced, “I have hiked almost 500 miles!”
More than one camper’s eye bulged at that and then the first one grinned and raised his palm. “High 5!" I received an enthusiastic hand slap and some ‘woo-hoos” from every young hiker I passed.
The joy of the highlands and passing the 500-mile mark from Springer was quickly tempered by physical horrors, as I caught a nasty bug that had made its rounds through the hiker community, and my body, reliable so far, became my worst enemy.
I was still able to do long miles, but the heat got to me and water became scarce along the trail. I was sweating far more water and fluids than I could take in, and, coupled with a very nasty intestinal disorder, I became a very unhappy camper. The 200-pounder who confidently strode onto the trail in early April was now a gaunt shell, looking more like a POW than a thru-hiker.
No pun intended, it passed.
Hiking By the Numbers
What damage does backpacking for 700 miles from Georgia to Virginia do to the body of an otherwise healthy 60-year-old man?
When I began, I weighed about 205 pounds and was carrying a 55-pound pack, fully loaded with gear and food for several days on the trail. Between me and my pack, my legs were carrying 260 pounds up and down the steep Georgia mountains.
When I reached the Woods Hole Hostel near Pearisburg, VA, I weighed 170 and, fully loaded, my pack now weighs about 35 pounds. That’s about 205 total, or 55 pounds less than I was struggling with during the early days of the hike.
I have no idea what my vital signs might be, but I have added some weight to my body since Pearisburg. That 170 weight came after a few terrible difficult days of gastronomic distress and I have gotten steadily stronger as the days go by.
A Day in the Life
I write this at 7 a.m. Last night, three of us went to a country cooking all-you-can-eat buffet. Cheap, but there was a lot of it. Soon I will have a hot breakfast here at the Howard Johnson’s Express, and then the trail beckons once more from just up the road. So it begins again.
My hiking days typically start at 6:05, when my internal clock nudges me to get moving. The tent comes down, the sleeping pad is put away with the bedding and the clothing are packed away while I either prepare a breakfast of hot oatmeal or keep it simple and have a granola or power bar.
I am on the trail by 7:15 most mornings and plan to go for three hours before a morning break and a snack and then another three hours of walking before stopping for lunch. I eat at both stops and if the day has gone well, I have covered about 10 miles or more before lunch. My daily goal is 115 miles, but that can vary because of water, weather, or the sometimes-complicated logistics of getting from Point A to Point B.
I try to camp by 6 p.m., pitch my tent, make a hot dinner and do camp chores before settling on my sleeping pad away from the bugs and reading, writing or just reviewing the day. My world is Spartan and simple and amazing.
The sun drops by 9 and I drop off soon after, another day starting just a few hours later when the sun calls me again to get up and start walking.
I learn daily lessons about hiking and every day seems somehow easier than the day before.
The climbs and grades have gotten easier as I have learned to regulate my breathing and pace myself so that I can keep moving and not stop again and again to gasp for breath. I recover more quickly after a difficult stretch.
Hiking that has been drudgery has become wonderful fun. It’s not effortless by any means, but I have enjoyed walks up and down Virginia hills and found a good cadence and rhythm that moves me along at a good clip and I negotiate the rocks and roots and obstacles by instinct, placing my feet where they need to be without obsessing and feeling each and every step.
I have added music to my hike this time, bringing an iPod with me on the trail as my only creature comfort from the other world. Sometimes it is Steely Dan, sometimes the Beatles or bob Dylan or gospel or new age, but the music helps drive the hike sometimes and adds the right mood when times are tough.
But the sounds of the forest are always more interesting than the music I own and I pick my spots for music carefully and remember why I am here. Why is that? Oh year, I remember. I am here because the Appalachian Trail is here and I am walking to Katahdin.
But first there is a hot breakfast and perhaps another shower before I put the 40 pounds of stuff on my back again and hit the trail, following the endless white blazes that guide me -- first to Harpers Ferry W.VA by the 4th of July – and then to Maine by October.
Happy Trails!
Monday, June 6, 2011
Trail Miracle at Mt. Rogers
Thomas Knob Shelter, VA, May 27, 2011.
We arrived at about the same time from different places, both drenched and a bit whipped by a hard few miles in a late afternoon storm.
He was coming south – Atkins, VA to Damascus; I was headed to Maine. We grabbed the last two spots in a crowded shelter. I was cold and famished, shivering and perhaps in low-grade hypothermia, and wasn’t interested in anything beyond dry clothes and a warm sleeping bag.
I asked Strider for food – anything -- Scooter gave me three small Snickers bars and the chocolate gave me the jolt I needed jolt to get organized, hang wet gear and make my space in the crowded shelter, eat and get rid of the chills.
It was the end of a 14-mile day, and I had spent the last 90 minutes asking God if He was trying to tell me something with all the rain. I had talked to Him about the weather off and on during my weeks on the Appalachian Trail, and I was weary of yet another day of rain.
“What’s with all of this rain? What are you trying to tell,” I asked out loud as I slogged through mud and skidded on wet rocks and roots, looking for the shelter in the fog. “Is there a message here somewhere?”
“Patience, Grasshopper,” I can almost hear His smiling voice,” and trust in the Lord thy God!”
Indeed.
Five of us were nearly 500 miles from Springer Mountain Georgia, Caveman was stretched out and reading on one side of the shelter, his dog Dirtbag, snoring softly at his side. Strider and Scooter were working on their dinners, and Penguin lay across the far end of the shelter, hoping to sleep off a bad cold.
We talked trail conditions shared what we had seen that day. The southbounder said brought news from the north as he had been camping with thru-hikers and had heard about some the others he would meet along the way. He had camped with the Wolfpack: Fish, Lemon, and BearBait, a group I had hiked with in the Great Smoky Mountains.
We told him our trail names. “Why does the name Grasshopper sound familiar,” he asked himself.
What’s your name, Strider asked? Some section hikers have them, some don’t.
I am the Messenger,” the southbounder said.
The trail name was not familiar, but meeting a “messenger” certainly gave me a jolt.
I was still thinking about my long wet conversation with God and grousing that I would sure rather be in my tent than crammed in a shelter with five or six other hikers as rain pounded the roof. I remembered that the southbounder also had been disappointed at being forced inside because he couldn’t pitch a tent in a steady downpour.
Something else seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it; so I asked,
“I have a feeling that I know you from somewhere,” I said. I had been in the woods for more than six weeks at the time and had long since misplaced the daily reality of home. “Do you mind if I ask where you are from?”
“Charleston, SC.”
“Me, too.”
“Mount Pleasant, actually,” he said.
“I lived on Rutledge Avenue. Downtown.”
Strider is between us, looking one way and then the other as his two neighbors look for the common ground. The Messenger sees the connection and senses that we are supposed to be having this conversation, as unlikely as that seems.
“I work at Mepkin Abbey,” he said. Strider starts laughing out loud, and I choke on a peanut.
“I volunteer there. I work with Vivian in native plants.”
Even Caveman’s dog Dirtbag, train name Dink, knew this was a trail encounter of cosmic proportion.
“Were you at Ursula’s retirement party? He asked. “Nope. Did Angel get her job? “Yes.” “Cool.”
Mepkin Abbey has become a spiritual home for me. The monastery is on the Cooper River an hour from Charleston. Its grounds and gardens are as majestically beautiful as any of God’s mountains and valleys that we have seen between Georgia to Virginia. It is as holy a place as I have ever seen, lovingly cared for by the score of Trappist monks who live, work, pray and meditate there.
My special time on a retreat last summer and my time around the monks put me on a path that reconnected me with The Lord and changed the direction of my life.
The Messenger’s real name is David, and he is the medical caregiver, the Infirmarian” at the monastery who takes care of the aging community of monks. He and I had not met, but we knew that night in the shelter that God’s afternoon rain had again put us in the same place at the same time.
“The last time I was there, I was at Father Leonard’s funeral,” I said. Fr. Leonard was the first African-American to be ordained in Charleston (1951) and the first to perform mass there. I was quoting from the eulogy where the Abbot recalled a conversation with the 92-year-old Leonard a week earlier. “You are a good man, Leonard,” he said.
“I hope someone else tells me that real soon,” Leonard replied.
The Messenger said, “the Abbot was talking about my son at the end of the eulogy.”
The Messenger said he had been told one of the volunteers was hiking the trail, but he didn’t know who or when they had started. His section hike as put together quickly as his wife suggested his week in the woods as a good birthday gift.
“Father Christian (who is 96) told me I should not go hiking,” the Messenger said advising him that, “you might run into a bevy of beautiful women and be tempted.”
The Messenger remembered the three nuns who came to visit Br. Vincent last summer and because friends to me during my five day retreat that week. We shared other quick monastery stories and I got the latest about Vincent and brothers Joseph, Robert, Stephen and others before we quietly let the shelter return to less spiritual and more practical and immediate matters. The others knew that their hiking friend Grasshopper had just had a trail encounter of epic proportions.
Strider, who has heard me talk about the Abbey many times over many miles, just smiled, knowing that God had worked a miracle with the afternoon storm that brought Grasshopper the message he had been asking God about.
The rain stopped during the night and the Messenger and I took our time getting back on the trail the following day. There was much ground we wanted to cover about the monastery and our dreams for it, sharing our common love of the peaceful and godly place and the depth of its meaning in our lives.
The Messenger gave me news from this spiritual home and passed along a 5x7 group photo of the brothers, the order of the Psalms they read each week at each of their services through the day and other Mepkin materials so I could “follow along” from the trail. He saw the Mepkin Abbey hat I sometimes wear and knows that the cross I wear on a boot lace around my neck came from there.
The days of rain were giving way to blue skies that morning. I told the Messenger that I may come to Mepkin this fall for a 30-day retreat and that I would love to write a history of the Mepkin Abbey and record oral histories and take photographs of the remarkable men who live there.
My last visit there came on the day of Fr. Leonard’s funeral as that week I came to volunteer on a Thursday instead of my usual Tuesday. I did not know the man, but I was moved by the funeral mass that honored him and brought together members of his monastic family and nieces and nephews from Charleston and around the country.
Fr. Leonard lay peacefully in a small wooden box on the floor in front of the stone Mepkin Abbey altar. His family brought an African-American, “black funeral” feel to the simple and beautiful church.
The brothers are buried on the bluff between the church and their private quarters and the brothers and family gently carried his body to the open grave outside.
Abbot Stan knelt and draped a white cloth across his brother’s face, and
brothers used white cords to lift his earthly remains from the open wooden box and lower him into the grace. The Abbot explained that according to monastic tradition brothers are buried without caskets and the monks, friends and family would use shovels to fill the grave and commit Leonard’s body to the soil.
The Abbot said he understood that family might not be comfortable with that tradition and he offered them red roses to drop into the grace as a loving goodbye.
The Messenger, David, and I talked all about Fr. Leonard’s funeral – and the story about his little boy that the Abbot shared in his eulogy.
David’s two-year-old son Nathaniel, was very sick last fall and faced possible heart problems if the illness became any worse. David and Fr. Leonard were very close and David came to the old priest one afternoon to tell him that was leaving work early that day because Nathaniel needed him and he feared for his health.
Fr. Leonard told him not to worry.
“I talked to God and the boy is going to be just fine,” he told David. “I am going to be leaving soon.”
Fr. Leonard started to fast that afternoon. He died two days later. I believe that David was with him when he breathed his last.
Grasshopper and the Messenger reflected briefly on the miracle that brought them together at an Appalachian Trail shelter so very far from home. They hugged and hoisted their packs – one headed south to Damascus, one headed north to Maine.
What was my message from God?
Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord thy God.
I have now been reconnected with Mepkin Abbey and have a new friend in Charleston who shares my love of backpacking and the monastery. I have shared a miracle and awed by it.
And I have a message from God that I am on the right path – both with the Appalachian Trail and on my quest to become closer to Him.
-30-
We arrived at about the same time from different places, both drenched and a bit whipped by a hard few miles in a late afternoon storm.
He was coming south – Atkins, VA to Damascus; I was headed to Maine. We grabbed the last two spots in a crowded shelter. I was cold and famished, shivering and perhaps in low-grade hypothermia, and wasn’t interested in anything beyond dry clothes and a warm sleeping bag.
I asked Strider for food – anything -- Scooter gave me three small Snickers bars and the chocolate gave me the jolt I needed jolt to get organized, hang wet gear and make my space in the crowded shelter, eat and get rid of the chills.
It was the end of a 14-mile day, and I had spent the last 90 minutes asking God if He was trying to tell me something with all the rain. I had talked to Him about the weather off and on during my weeks on the Appalachian Trail, and I was weary of yet another day of rain.
“What’s with all of this rain? What are you trying to tell,” I asked out loud as I slogged through mud and skidded on wet rocks and roots, looking for the shelter in the fog. “Is there a message here somewhere?”
“Patience, Grasshopper,” I can almost hear His smiling voice,” and trust in the Lord thy God!”
Indeed.
Five of us were nearly 500 miles from Springer Mountain Georgia, Caveman was stretched out and reading on one side of the shelter, his dog Dirtbag, snoring softly at his side. Strider and Scooter were working on their dinners, and Penguin lay across the far end of the shelter, hoping to sleep off a bad cold.
We talked trail conditions shared what we had seen that day. The southbounder said brought news from the north as he had been camping with thru-hikers and had heard about some the others he would meet along the way. He had camped with the Wolfpack: Fish, Lemon, and BearBait, a group I had hiked with in the Great Smoky Mountains.
We told him our trail names. “Why does the name Grasshopper sound familiar,” he asked himself.
What’s your name, Strider asked? Some section hikers have them, some don’t.
I am the Messenger,” the southbounder said.
The trail name was not familiar, but meeting a “messenger” certainly gave me a jolt.
I was still thinking about my long wet conversation with God and grousing that I would sure rather be in my tent than crammed in a shelter with five or six other hikers as rain pounded the roof. I remembered that the southbounder also had been disappointed at being forced inside because he couldn’t pitch a tent in a steady downpour.
Something else seemed familiar, but I couldn’t place it; so I asked,
“I have a feeling that I know you from somewhere,” I said. I had been in the woods for more than six weeks at the time and had long since misplaced the daily reality of home. “Do you mind if I ask where you are from?”
“Charleston, SC.”
“Me, too.”
“Mount Pleasant, actually,” he said.
“I lived on Rutledge Avenue. Downtown.”
Strider is between us, looking one way and then the other as his two neighbors look for the common ground. The Messenger sees the connection and senses that we are supposed to be having this conversation, as unlikely as that seems.
“I work at Mepkin Abbey,” he said. Strider starts laughing out loud, and I choke on a peanut.
“I volunteer there. I work with Vivian in native plants.”
Even Caveman’s dog Dirtbag, train name Dink, knew this was a trail encounter of cosmic proportion.
“Were you at Ursula’s retirement party? He asked. “Nope. Did Angel get her job? “Yes.” “Cool.”
Mepkin Abbey has become a spiritual home for me. The monastery is on the Cooper River an hour from Charleston. Its grounds and gardens are as majestically beautiful as any of God’s mountains and valleys that we have seen between Georgia to Virginia. It is as holy a place as I have ever seen, lovingly cared for by the score of Trappist monks who live, work, pray and meditate there.
My special time on a retreat last summer and my time around the monks put me on a path that reconnected me with The Lord and changed the direction of my life.
The Messenger’s real name is David, and he is the medical caregiver, the Infirmarian” at the monastery who takes care of the aging community of monks. He and I had not met, but we knew that night in the shelter that God’s afternoon rain had again put us in the same place at the same time.
“The last time I was there, I was at Father Leonard’s funeral,” I said. Fr. Leonard was the first African-American to be ordained in Charleston (1951) and the first to perform mass there. I was quoting from the eulogy where the Abbot recalled a conversation with the 92-year-old Leonard a week earlier. “You are a good man, Leonard,” he said.
“I hope someone else tells me that real soon,” Leonard replied.
The Messenger said, “the Abbot was talking about my son at the end of the eulogy.”
The Messenger said he had been told one of the volunteers was hiking the trail, but he didn’t know who or when they had started. His section hike as put together quickly as his wife suggested his week in the woods as a good birthday gift.
“Father Christian (who is 96) told me I should not go hiking,” the Messenger said advising him that, “you might run into a bevy of beautiful women and be tempted.”
The Messenger remembered the three nuns who came to visit Br. Vincent last summer and because friends to me during my five day retreat that week. We shared other quick monastery stories and I got the latest about Vincent and brothers Joseph, Robert, Stephen and others before we quietly let the shelter return to less spiritual and more practical and immediate matters. The others knew that their hiking friend Grasshopper had just had a trail encounter of epic proportions.
Strider, who has heard me talk about the Abbey many times over many miles, just smiled, knowing that God had worked a miracle with the afternoon storm that brought Grasshopper the message he had been asking God about.
The rain stopped during the night and the Messenger and I took our time getting back on the trail the following day. There was much ground we wanted to cover about the monastery and our dreams for it, sharing our common love of the peaceful and godly place and the depth of its meaning in our lives.
The Messenger gave me news from this spiritual home and passed along a 5x7 group photo of the brothers, the order of the Psalms they read each week at each of their services through the day and other Mepkin materials so I could “follow along” from the trail. He saw the Mepkin Abbey hat I sometimes wear and knows that the cross I wear on a boot lace around my neck came from there.
The days of rain were giving way to blue skies that morning. I told the Messenger that I may come to Mepkin this fall for a 30-day retreat and that I would love to write a history of the Mepkin Abbey and record oral histories and take photographs of the remarkable men who live there.
My last visit there came on the day of Fr. Leonard’s funeral as that week I came to volunteer on a Thursday instead of my usual Tuesday. I did not know the man, but I was moved by the funeral mass that honored him and brought together members of his monastic family and nieces and nephews from Charleston and around the country.
Fr. Leonard lay peacefully in a small wooden box on the floor in front of the stone Mepkin Abbey altar. His family brought an African-American, “black funeral” feel to the simple and beautiful church.
The brothers are buried on the bluff between the church and their private quarters and the brothers and family gently carried his body to the open grave outside.
Abbot Stan knelt and draped a white cloth across his brother’s face, and
brothers used white cords to lift his earthly remains from the open wooden box and lower him into the grace. The Abbot explained that according to monastic tradition brothers are buried without caskets and the monks, friends and family would use shovels to fill the grave and commit Leonard’s body to the soil.
The Abbot said he understood that family might not be comfortable with that tradition and he offered them red roses to drop into the grace as a loving goodbye.
The Messenger, David, and I talked all about Fr. Leonard’s funeral – and the story about his little boy that the Abbot shared in his eulogy.
David’s two-year-old son Nathaniel, was very sick last fall and faced possible heart problems if the illness became any worse. David and Fr. Leonard were very close and David came to the old priest one afternoon to tell him that was leaving work early that day because Nathaniel needed him and he feared for his health.
Fr. Leonard told him not to worry.
“I talked to God and the boy is going to be just fine,” he told David. “I am going to be leaving soon.”
Fr. Leonard started to fast that afternoon. He died two days later. I believe that David was with him when he breathed his last.
Grasshopper and the Messenger reflected briefly on the miracle that brought them together at an Appalachian Trail shelter so very far from home. They hugged and hoisted their packs – one headed south to Damascus, one headed north to Maine.
What was my message from God?
Patience, Grasshopper. And trust in the Lord thy God.
I have now been reconnected with Mepkin Abbey and have a new friend in Charleston who shares my love of backpacking and the monastery. I have shared a miracle and awed by it.
And I have a message from God that I am on the right path – both with the Appalachian Trail and on my quest to become closer to Him.
-30-
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
AT Part Two - My Road to Damascus
My Road to Damascus
And on we go. Our tribe of disparate souls moves steadily north, a community sharing the good with the bad and brought together by a common desire to get to Mount Katahdin in Maine or as far as our wills, our bodies, and our wallets will take us.
Welcome to Virginia! I am in my fourth state, as the Appalachian Trail left Georgia, and wiggled along the border of North Carolina and Tennessee, and, at Mile 464, into Damascus.
The Road to Damascus has been fraught with peril and adventure, although some of the most beautiful spots of this part of my hike were hidden by brutal weather that gave me some of the most difficult hiking I have faced in my 30-plus years of backpacking.
This 200-mile section of my hike – from Hot Springs, NC to Damascus, VA -- has also brought me great new friends and traveling companions, amazing and challenging trails and wonderful campsites. I have stayed in a shelter only a few times and spent most nights in a tent. Strangely, I find it impossible to sleep in a bed and find comfort only in my sleeping bag and my one-man Hubba tent. Go figure.
I leave refreshed and far lighter than when I arrived. I celebrated getting to Damascus with a new pack shipped from home, making a modest investment that dramatically enhances my chance of getting to Katahdin. Thanks to my friends and technical advisers at The Backpacker in Columbia for their help with this amazing trip. Billy and Adam and the others have been generous with their advice and counsel, and I could not have been as prepared as I have been without their expertise. Thanks, guys!!
Early in the hike, I carried more than 50 pounds, but have consistently downsized and sent stuff home. Fully loaded, my new gear weighs 34 pounds and the new Osprey pack will be great in the summer weather ahead. I will drop even more weight by shipping home winter clothes and switching to a lighter summer sleeping bag.
So many memories:
o Chow Hound and Chuck Wagon, a married couple from Vermont, knew that I was running low on food as we neared Erwin, TN and resupply. They shared some snacks with me beside the trail late one morning and that afternoon, I rounded a curve to find a surprise. Sitting nicely on a tree limb hanging over the path was a bag of trail mix with a message: “Grasshopper. Eat Me!"
o Twice I have run across Cimarron, an 88-year-old hiker, who continues his effort to be the oldest hiker to complete a thru-hike from Georgia to Maine. In a world filled with youngsters, it’s good to feel so much younger than someone else on the trail.
o I accidentally left my trail guidebook at a biker bar after a burger and two beers one afternoon in Hampton, TN. I had returned to the trail and after a six-mile hike over Pond Mountain to a road crossing the next day, I hitched back to the bar, retrieved my book, ate another burger and drank only Pepsi before hitching back to the trail and another six miles of walking.
o I keep running across Oatmeal and Reese, two guys from Columbia, showing how small the world really is. They are headed back to South Carolina so Oatmeal can recover from shin splints.
o About 15 miles south of Damascus, there is a lovely meadow designed to be accessible for those in wheelchairs or otherwise physically challenged.” A wide and graded path wends through lush green grass and offers wonderful views of the mountains. I was lucky to be there when the sky was a brilliant blue.
o Trail Angels from a local Baptist Church brightened one afternoon with a trail side box filled with ice cold colas and cookies. What a wonderful and refreshing surprise.
o Milkweed Puff, 50, from Iowa, gave me an idea for a new adventure for next year. Last year he canoed the length of the Mississippi River. How cool is that? It took him 121 days. He is also a martial artist and we worked a bit of tai chi together. Regrettably, he left the trail in Damascus and is headed to Kansas.
o I have been hiking with Buckeye, a 69-year-old retired science teacher and track coach from Ohio who completed a thru-hike in 1999 and has the mentality and body type of a long distance runner. He stunned me the other day by referring to me as “wiry.” We had breakfast before he left the trail for home -- he had wanted to hike four states and did what he set out to do.
o My weather delays made me fall behind my young friend Strider, but he was in Damascus when I arrived and we will leave together today.
o I went to the medical clinic in Damascus to use their scales and weighed a surprising 182 pounds, which is maybe 20 pounds lighter than when I started.
But The Story of this section of my merry woodlands adventure has been the weather.
Beauty Spot Clearing was the most terrifying. The fog rolled in as I neared the bald summit 12 miles into my day. First came thunder and lightning and torrential rains -- and then hail. There was nowhere to hide, but I threw aside my hiking staff and huddled beside a tree; I shivered and I prayed.
Other hikers said lightning struck a few hundred feet from me, but I didn’t see it as my head was down and my eyes were shut.
Water filled my boots and I was soaked to the bone.
The nearest camp site was more than a mile away, and I trudged along as soon as the weather broke. I had hoped to make it over Unaka Mountain and wrap up a 17-mile day but I was shipped by the weather and grabbed the first flat spot I could find.
I woke in a panic in the dead of night, clawing at my tent as though fighting to find a way out of a coffin. It was 4 a.m.; I made it out but could not see for the fog or cloud that covered my campsite and the mountain.
Rattled, I struggled the next day, carrying wet gear and a wounded psyche. I hiked another 12 miles before stopping near an appropriately-named Greasy Creek Gap campsite, and pitched my tent at a wet and muddy spot. I was wet and miserable.
This was the lowest point of my Appalachian Trail adventure. That was 80 miles ago, but the memories are fresh and will last.
But I rallied. I prayed and decided that the demons of doubt were testing me and the devil was trying his best to get into my head. I would rely on my faith in God and my faith in myself.
I headed north to climb Roan Mountain as the rain continued a slow drizzle and I gained about 2300 feet of elevation in a three-mile hike to the Roan High Gap Shelter, the highest shelter on the entire AT. It was a cold place, but dry, though a bit grim.
I had looked forward to this part of the trail for weeks before I entered the woods because of pictures I had seen of the rhododendron fields and high altitude meadows.
No chance.
The next day's 16-mile hike over the mountain and the up and over the bald mountains was ridiculously hard, though a hostel, a hot shower, clean clothes and marvelous food awaited me at the end of the day.
Fog cut visibility to a few hundred feet and cold winds shipped rain across the open spaces. There were endless climbs leading to a long downhill trek over slippery roots and rocks and a muddy trail.
I had made it this far through a three-day weather crisis with continuous prayer and variations of a hymn of praise asking for the Lord's help -- "Holy, Holy, Holy. Lord God Almighty. Help me climb this mountain, and bless me as I go. Or, "Bless me as I hike this trail, I praise Thee as I go."
The doubts and panic and despair from the Beauty Spot Clearing hailstorm and my nightmares vanished.
My trail journey continues the spiritual quest that I began last summer at Mepkin Abbey. That retreat started me backpacking for the soul, and the spiritual theme of this thru-hike is: “Following The Cross and White Blazes.” I read, reflect and work on my relationship with God and Jesus Christ. I am reading the New Testament and Proverbs over the next miles and have learned much from another small book -- More Than a Carpenter, which provides proven historical documentation to Jesus' life, ministry, death and resurrection and the accounts in the New Testament.
Coincidentally, as I neared Damascus, I read an account of Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus. An enemy of early Christians, he was "blinded by the light" in an encounter with the risen Jesus, who rebuked him for his plans to arrest Christians in Damascus. Three days later, Jesus sent Ananias to Saul to heal his blindness, and Saul became Paul the Apostle, a leading disciple and Christian leader.
Looking back to Beauty Spot Gap through that lens, the lightning that flashed and terrified me brought me back to my religious reflection.
My spiritual work has served me well.
This story is being finished in the Washington County, VA public library, but written the very old-fashioned way -- with a pen and in a notebook as I camp alone downstream from Laurel Falls.
I stop now for ice cream before headed back to the trail for the next adventure. Bless me as I go.
-30-
And on we go. Our tribe of disparate souls moves steadily north, a community sharing the good with the bad and brought together by a common desire to get to Mount Katahdin in Maine or as far as our wills, our bodies, and our wallets will take us.
Welcome to Virginia! I am in my fourth state, as the Appalachian Trail left Georgia, and wiggled along the border of North Carolina and Tennessee, and, at Mile 464, into Damascus.
The Road to Damascus has been fraught with peril and adventure, although some of the most beautiful spots of this part of my hike were hidden by brutal weather that gave me some of the most difficult hiking I have faced in my 30-plus years of backpacking.
This 200-mile section of my hike – from Hot Springs, NC to Damascus, VA -- has also brought me great new friends and traveling companions, amazing and challenging trails and wonderful campsites. I have stayed in a shelter only a few times and spent most nights in a tent. Strangely, I find it impossible to sleep in a bed and find comfort only in my sleeping bag and my one-man Hubba tent. Go figure.
I leave refreshed and far lighter than when I arrived. I celebrated getting to Damascus with a new pack shipped from home, making a modest investment that dramatically enhances my chance of getting to Katahdin. Thanks to my friends and technical advisers at The Backpacker in Columbia for their help with this amazing trip. Billy and Adam and the others have been generous with their advice and counsel, and I could not have been as prepared as I have been without their expertise. Thanks, guys!!
Early in the hike, I carried more than 50 pounds, but have consistently downsized and sent stuff home. Fully loaded, my new gear weighs 34 pounds and the new Osprey pack will be great in the summer weather ahead. I will drop even more weight by shipping home winter clothes and switching to a lighter summer sleeping bag.
So many memories:
o Chow Hound and Chuck Wagon, a married couple from Vermont, knew that I was running low on food as we neared Erwin, TN and resupply. They shared some snacks with me beside the trail late one morning and that afternoon, I rounded a curve to find a surprise. Sitting nicely on a tree limb hanging over the path was a bag of trail mix with a message: “Grasshopper. Eat Me!"
o Twice I have run across Cimarron, an 88-year-old hiker, who continues his effort to be the oldest hiker to complete a thru-hike from Georgia to Maine. In a world filled with youngsters, it’s good to feel so much younger than someone else on the trail.
o I accidentally left my trail guidebook at a biker bar after a burger and two beers one afternoon in Hampton, TN. I had returned to the trail and after a six-mile hike over Pond Mountain to a road crossing the next day, I hitched back to the bar, retrieved my book, ate another burger and drank only Pepsi before hitching back to the trail and another six miles of walking.
o I keep running across Oatmeal and Reese, two guys from Columbia, showing how small the world really is. They are headed back to South Carolina so Oatmeal can recover from shin splints.
o About 15 miles south of Damascus, there is a lovely meadow designed to be accessible for those in wheelchairs or otherwise physically challenged.” A wide and graded path wends through lush green grass and offers wonderful views of the mountains. I was lucky to be there when the sky was a brilliant blue.
o Trail Angels from a local Baptist Church brightened one afternoon with a trail side box filled with ice cold colas and cookies. What a wonderful and refreshing surprise.
o Milkweed Puff, 50, from Iowa, gave me an idea for a new adventure for next year. Last year he canoed the length of the Mississippi River. How cool is that? It took him 121 days. He is also a martial artist and we worked a bit of tai chi together. Regrettably, he left the trail in Damascus and is headed to Kansas.
o I have been hiking with Buckeye, a 69-year-old retired science teacher and track coach from Ohio who completed a thru-hike in 1999 and has the mentality and body type of a long distance runner. He stunned me the other day by referring to me as “wiry.” We had breakfast before he left the trail for home -- he had wanted to hike four states and did what he set out to do.
o My weather delays made me fall behind my young friend Strider, but he was in Damascus when I arrived and we will leave together today.
o I went to the medical clinic in Damascus to use their scales and weighed a surprising 182 pounds, which is maybe 20 pounds lighter than when I started.
But The Story of this section of my merry woodlands adventure has been the weather.
Beauty Spot Clearing was the most terrifying. The fog rolled in as I neared the bald summit 12 miles into my day. First came thunder and lightning and torrential rains -- and then hail. There was nowhere to hide, but I threw aside my hiking staff and huddled beside a tree; I shivered and I prayed.
Other hikers said lightning struck a few hundred feet from me, but I didn’t see it as my head was down and my eyes were shut.
Water filled my boots and I was soaked to the bone.
The nearest camp site was more than a mile away, and I trudged along as soon as the weather broke. I had hoped to make it over Unaka Mountain and wrap up a 17-mile day but I was shipped by the weather and grabbed the first flat spot I could find.
I woke in a panic in the dead of night, clawing at my tent as though fighting to find a way out of a coffin. It was 4 a.m.; I made it out but could not see for the fog or cloud that covered my campsite and the mountain.
Rattled, I struggled the next day, carrying wet gear and a wounded psyche. I hiked another 12 miles before stopping near an appropriately-named Greasy Creek Gap campsite, and pitched my tent at a wet and muddy spot. I was wet and miserable.
This was the lowest point of my Appalachian Trail adventure. That was 80 miles ago, but the memories are fresh and will last.
But I rallied. I prayed and decided that the demons of doubt were testing me and the devil was trying his best to get into my head. I would rely on my faith in God and my faith in myself.
I headed north to climb Roan Mountain as the rain continued a slow drizzle and I gained about 2300 feet of elevation in a three-mile hike to the Roan High Gap Shelter, the highest shelter on the entire AT. It was a cold place, but dry, though a bit grim.
I had looked forward to this part of the trail for weeks before I entered the woods because of pictures I had seen of the rhododendron fields and high altitude meadows.
No chance.
The next day's 16-mile hike over the mountain and the up and over the bald mountains was ridiculously hard, though a hostel, a hot shower, clean clothes and marvelous food awaited me at the end of the day.
Fog cut visibility to a few hundred feet and cold winds shipped rain across the open spaces. There were endless climbs leading to a long downhill trek over slippery roots and rocks and a muddy trail.
I had made it this far through a three-day weather crisis with continuous prayer and variations of a hymn of praise asking for the Lord's help -- "Holy, Holy, Holy. Lord God Almighty. Help me climb this mountain, and bless me as I go. Or, "Bless me as I hike this trail, I praise Thee as I go."
The doubts and panic and despair from the Beauty Spot Clearing hailstorm and my nightmares vanished.
My trail journey continues the spiritual quest that I began last summer at Mepkin Abbey. That retreat started me backpacking for the soul, and the spiritual theme of this thru-hike is: “Following The Cross and White Blazes.” I read, reflect and work on my relationship with God and Jesus Christ. I am reading the New Testament and Proverbs over the next miles and have learned much from another small book -- More Than a Carpenter, which provides proven historical documentation to Jesus' life, ministry, death and resurrection and the accounts in the New Testament.
Coincidentally, as I neared Damascus, I read an account of Saul of Tarsus on the Road to Damascus. An enemy of early Christians, he was "blinded by the light" in an encounter with the risen Jesus, who rebuked him for his plans to arrest Christians in Damascus. Three days later, Jesus sent Ananias to Saul to heal his blindness, and Saul became Paul the Apostle, a leading disciple and Christian leader.
Looking back to Beauty Spot Gap through that lens, the lightning that flashed and terrified me brought me back to my religious reflection.
My spiritual work has served me well.
This story is being finished in the Washington County, VA public library, but written the very old-fashioned way -- with a pen and in a notebook as I camp alone downstream from Laurel Falls.
I stop now for ice cream before headed back to the trail for the next adventure. Bless me as I go.
-30-
AT Prequel - Soul Searching at a Monastery
Hangin’ with the Brothers: a walk on the mild side
The quarter moon was still high and the stars were bright as I hurried through the darkness to join the monks for Vigils.Four days into a five-day retreat at Mepkin Abbey, I had promised myself to rise with the brothers and join them for Psalms and Readings to start the day. The alarm chirping at 3 a.m. made me question the pledge, but I pulled on a shirt, blue jeans and sandals and made it to the church on time.
A nun from Cleveland and I were the only guests that Thursday morning as the brothers trickled in, also rubbing away the sleep. Sitting in this darkened solemn place in the dead of night, I smiled as I thought, “What in the name of God am I doing here?”
We worshipped by the light of a dozen candles, chanting Psalms and quietly signing hymns of praise to welcome the day, ask God for forgiveness for our sins and for strength for the day ahead. I hoped the power and intensity of their faith might lift my own prayers higher and, perhaps, I might find some of what they have found.
Vigils ended at 4:20 and I returned to my cabin. I reset the alarm and fell quickly to sleep, rising a half hour later refreshed and energized to hurry back through the starlight for 5:30 Morning Prayer. I wanted to keep with the brothers’ schedule and join every service on this, my last full day on retreat.
The brothers of Mepkin Abbey nurture and maintain a natural paradise on the banks of the Cooper River as stewards of the land to the glory of God.
Mepkin is a quiet community where two-dozen men share a life of obedience, prayer and meditation, hard physical labor and spiritual reflection. They have dedicated their lives to God and to the monastic traditions of an order that began in 1098.
Monks are known for their hospitality, and they welcome people of faith for spiritual and personal reflection and renewal and share the monastic life, if only for a few days.
I am not a Catholic, and I am no monk.
Like others of faith, I came to this Roman Catholic monastery to get away and nourish my spirit. Prayer, it is said, is talking to God; meditation is listening to Him. There may be no better place to come and look closely into your heart, your beliefs, your soul, and your connection to God.
I have used God’s gift of writing skill to “render unto Caesar” during my secular life; I share my story of soul-searching at Mepkin to “render unto God” and to tell others who search for their own answers about a wonderful place to look. Writing is therapy that helps me re-live my spiritual journey and find deeper meaning with each rewrite as I continue to search and grow.
The Brothers, the Sisters, and Me.
I was anxious but excited on the 45-minute drive from Charleston to the abbey, feeling much as I would at the start of a backpacking adventure into the wild. You never know what is going to happen when you step into a forest for a wilderness hike; you know that you will not be the same when you come out.
It was hot and still that Monday afternoon, and the friend who phoned seemed alarmed to hear that I was 10 minutes away from a monastery. “You’re going where? To do what?”
He was calmed when I explained that I just needed to unplug, and compared it to a wilderness camping trip. But I had tough questions for myself -- and for God. Why had my journey become stumbles and disappointments, financial setbacks and family crises? Why the pain of three job layoffs, lost love and lost friends? Would seven years of famine turn into a few years of feast?
I also came to praise God for His many blessings and to open myself to His will. Despite the hurdles, fears and doubt, I am happy, healthy, and optimistic. I am keeping my head up and above water, although tiring from years of treading water and swimming against a tide.
A week with the brothers would surely be refreshing, but I was walking into unfamiliar territory and was uncertain about the week ahead.
My anxiety soon faded when Brother Robert made me laugh.
He was pushing a cart through the guest dining room as I walked in from the heat. “We have new kinds of cheese this week!” he grinned, excited to be sharing such wonderful news. I laughed along with the women who had walked in with me.
We knew these monks are vegetarian, but we all expected more for supper than a plate of provolone, Swiss, and cheddar slices and three different kinds of breads. We also knew the rule of silence at meals, but we whispered and giggled like children as we pondered the cheese and the week ahead. My three new friends are nuns, and I figured if nuns could break the silence, I could, too.
Two of the Sisters really are sisters. Sister Carole joined the order of the Humility of Mary when she graduated from high school 55 years ago; her sister, Sister Praxades, became an Ursuline nun a few years later. They came to Mepkin with their Ursuline Sister Patricia Marie to visit her longtime friend Brother Vincent.
We walked together to Vespers and were assigned seats, as this was our first time in the church for services. The three sisters would sit together in choir spaces on one side of the church for the week, and I sat on the other. The monks took their places along both walls, some seated, some standing and facing the altar in prayerful wait for the service to begin.
Over the week we would put names with faces and individual personalities would emerge.
Father Joe used smiles and gestures to show me the Psalms and order of service; he was a helpful and patient guide as I learned my way through the liturgy.
The men of Mepkin are gentle, friendly, and kind. Their personalities peek through with nods, smiles and perhaps a wink, but they also are engaging and affable hosts and welcome conversation when talk is appropriate.
Brother Vincent is bearded, rail thin and very tall – his 6-5 height exaggerated by the hooded black stole that hangs over his white robes from shoulder down to his knees. He waved happily as he drove past me with the Three Sisters headed to the farm after Vespers, on a private tour of the grounds.
At 72, he is a happy man who says he is still fascinated by Greta Garbo, and, like many of his brothers, enjoys the New York Times that comes to the Abbey each day.
When I compared my retreat to a backpacking trip for the soul, and he replied that it “sounds like a good title for a book,” somehow knowing that he was talking with a writer who would share Mepkin’s tale.
The monks sometime read aloud to the community at lunch, Brother Vincent said, and they had shared Bill Bryson’s hilarious, sometimes profane, but always entertaining and iconic backpacking classic, A Walk in the Woods, about his Appalachian Trail hike.
Kevin, a young man considering a life commitment here, was eager to meet with the Sisters after services and hoped one of them was Ursuline. He had gone to an Ursuline high school on Long Island, and shared a funny story about one the nuns who taught him.
The personality of this holy place is as obvious as Brother Joseph’s smile as he pedals by on a bicycle headed to the farm, or as quiet as Brother Stephen’s love of hot peppers. It is as patient as Father Guerric’s instructions to volunteers who are helping him with native plants. When I told him how much I enjoyed the labyrinth, he quickly and happily tried to recruit me to work there.
The Abbey’s personality also stays as subtle and hidden as the tiny cabin in the trees near the farm and far from the gardens and public spaces.
This very private place has a table, a chair, and a lamp; various key thoughts and meditation points are pinned to the walls. If needed, a cot hangs against the wall. This room was built and used by Brother Luke, who died a few years back. His Bible, his Rosary, and his spirit remain.
The monks say that their prayers are not just for their monastic community, but the prayers also flow down the Cooper River to wash across the South Carolina Lowcountry and beyond.
Mepkin is a historic 3000-acre rice plantation owned by Henry Laurens, a patriot and Founding Father, in the 1700s and by industrialist and publisher Henry Luce in the 1900s. The Luce family gave Mepkin to the monks in 1949.
A large white cross marks their small family cemetery on the top terrace of the Clare Boothe Luce gardens that sweep from the bluff to the river. The oaks, native grasses and wildflowers are breathtakingly beautiful in late summer and are surely even more magnificent when the azaleas and spring shrubs bloom.
The Tower of the Seven Spirits sets the tone and marks time in this timeless place.
Its bells sound a call to prayer and “give voice” to those who have lived here and are buried here – native-Americans, African-Americans who worked the lands, the Luce and Laurens families, and friends of the Abbey, and the monks. The bells give voice to the monastic community “in glory” and for the monks now here and those yet to come.
The abbey will welcome as many as 12 guests on retreat, but there were only six of us there that week in August.
Folks on retreat bring their own expectations and plan their own time. They are welcome to share any, all, or none of the monastic services.
Guests are given a room with a bed, a desk, and a chair in a cabin on the grounds and they share a dining room next to the monks, eating what the monks eat when the monks eat. Silence is to be observed during meals, and shorts and tank tops are not permitted in church where knees and shoulders must be covered.
The brothers live and worship on the monastic green. Their private spaces curve along the river with the layout designed to take advantage of prevailing breezes and accommodate their routines and prayerful schedule. They work the grounds and operate a nursery, mushroom farm, and gift shop.
The brothers rise at 3 each day and gather for Vigils at 3:20, then an hour of study, followed by Morning Prayer at 5:30 and breakfast of a hard-boiled egg, cereal, and toast at 6. The brothers spend an hour in meditation then share 7:30 Mass before being assigned their tasks for the day.
The Main Meal comes after Midday Prayers at noon, and guests follow the monks through the food line, eager to fill plates or bowls – sometimes stewed squash and potatoes and salad; sometimes cheese and bread, and perhaps a slice of cake or pie.
A short service in the dining room after lunch gives way to a short siesta, an afternoon of work, and then a supper that’s often a cheese or peanut butter sandwich at 5 p.m., Vespers at 6, and final prayers at 7:30 before retiring at 8 p.m.
After Vespers that Monday night, Brother Vincent and the Three Sisters drove around the property and I went first to the gardens and then the labyrinth to collect my thoughts and adjust to this very solemn and somewhat forbidding new place.
Backpacking for the Soul
The stars grew brighter and the moon rose as I wandered barefoot through the labyrinth, the idyllic path that wends to a prayer circle at the center of a lush meadow. The labyrinth is perfect for 15 minutes of walking meditation and then 20 minutes of thoughtful breathing and tai chi. I prayed for guidance as I thought about how I would spend the week and what I hoped to accomplish.
A week in a monastery was a more evolution than great leap, as my life had already become a slow slide toward monasticism, solitude, and simplicity.
I traveled light. Packing simple clothes, a Bible, a few books about the life of Christ and spirituality, a notebook and a pen, I quickly fell into the rhythms of the Abbey.
Adjusting to their schedule, I joined the monks in many of their services and ate what they ate when they ate. While they worked the farm or handled chores, I went to the river or gardens to look around inside myself and do some hard work on my mental health and my spiritual growth, to sit and read and think and walk. And write.
This is surely a holy place, a place of such peace and natural harmony that a chameleon wandered idly across my shoulder as if to visit and a grasshopper calmly paused in my path to be petted before leaping lazily into the grass.
This was backpacking for my soul, a journey more challenging than any wilderness adventure. It meant toting a heavy spiritual pack through difficult terrain, one with psychological and spiritual forests, valleys, but also with joyful vistas, insights, and discovery.
I was a very long way from my religious roots in Greenville, where we lived in the shadow of Bob Jones fundamentalism and where street preachers praised Jesus and shouted Scripture for all who would listen.
Raised an Episcopalian, I was an altar boy, sang in the choir, played church basketball, and was active in youth groups. I spent hours learning to worship while kneeling on the cold hard floors of the Christ School chapel, where boarding school life also taught me hard work, discipline, and sacrifice.
I raised children and was “active” in the church with scouting and sports, but I also continued my spiritual search because religion, or church, did not bring me to inner peace and harmony.
But I was still angry with God for taking my father and older brother from my mother and me during a terrible 18 months nearly 40 years ago. No doubt He had plans for them and both are with Jesus; but my mother never really got over the loss of her husband and firstborn, and I could have surely used their friendship and counsel through the years.
But God gave his only Son, so who was I to complain.
Then I began a return to God and to Jesus Christ.
With a few quiet words of emotional support, friends led me to pray with them at work, and my life seemed to improve the more I opened it up to God and worked on my soul. When I collapsed at work one day, the doctor blamed low iron, but I think, now, that God was sending me a message.
Another message came when a friend took me to church, with the caution that the pastor was a charismatic and the service might be unusual for me. She faced a health crisis and was praying for a healing miracle. The pastor rejoiced in the “new wine” of the Holy Spirit and preached of signs and wonders. This was my first experience with people “in the Spirit” and speaking in tongues.
I cannot explain the energy that coursed through me as I prayed that night for her to be healed, but it knocked me from my comfort zone and put me on my knees.
The pastor and his flock were convinced I was being filled with the Holy Spirit and had a very strong connection to God. They urged me to help them cast out devils and heal the sick at a food bank in the parking lot of a Moncks Corner shopping center.
The spirit was very strong on an amazing morning that staggered me with its power and filled many people with joy and religious fervor. Our prayers did not give my friend a healing miracle, but they raised her spirits and gave her hope. God heard our prayers and guided the doctors who repaired her ailing body and cared for her.
At the time, I believed that the energy surge we shared felt like a heavy dose of chi, the universal life forces that I have studied and worked toward during years of tai chi and martial arts training. Now I think that my friend and her pastor might have been right – God was trying to get my attention and it is time for me to listen.
My spiritual path has gone through the martial arts, and I have worked to learn the explosive kicking, punching, and ancient fighting drills of karate and kung fu as well as the gentle rhythms and movements of tai chi.
Those disciplines are much the same but so very different, the yin and the yang of martial arts. The hours of grueling drills and routines also teach breathing, stretching, focus, and concentration and you relax deeper and deeper into stances and movements that strengthen your body and connection to the earth and align your joints to “open the gates” to universal forces of life and energy.
Workouts and tai chi sometime lead me to this place of inner calm where action flows without thought, where chi flows freely, and where peaceful breath and gentle movements find a graceful harmony and allow for an empty mind.
Those are the currents that brought me to Mepkin Abbey, a place where East would meet West on my spiritual journey, where the lessons taught for centuries by monks in China would meet the ancient disciplines of the Catholic monks in South Carolina.
Asked what monks do, the monk replied, “We fall and we get up; we fall and we get up; we fall and we get up.” The Abbey, like the dojo, teaches humility.
Yin and yang. Holiness and wholeness
My retreat on the banks of the Cooper River brought me much closer to God and to Jesus Christ. My time with the brothers of Mepkin will continue to help ease my burdens as I keep working toward peace, balance, and harmony with them and with myself.
That Eastern path led me to 10 hours or more of training at the dojo each week, so my body was very tired when I came to the Abbey and I looked forward to taking the week off from workouts and classes. Though it was tempting to just nap in the gardens, I planned my days to work on my spirit and soul while resting my body.
I came to Mepkin on a continuing quest for peace and harmony in a world where “who we are” is judged by “what we do” or “what we have” and where our validation too often comes from what we think that other people think. I came looking for context and meaning while looking for work – again.
Job searches can be agonizing and dispiriting.
Your professional life is reduced to entries in a computer that are reviewed by a cold and faceless process that decides whether you are worthy of an interview. Hope leads to disappointment, and sometimes to despair. You might hear that you were not selected (but thanks, anyway); more often, there’s no response.
I cannot (and probably would not) change the fact that I will be 60 in January, but I know age can be crippling to a job seeker during difficult economic times. I also kept pointing the finger of blame inside, and questioned my faith in myself and in God’s plan.
The yin/yang symbol on the cover drew me to “Urgings of the Heart,” a book on spirituality and Christianity that brought Eastern and Western principles together.
“Urgings” guided me into imaginative contemplation and helped me take myself into the life and times of Jesus for a journey of self-awareness to deal with the shadows and, through meditation, to learn from Biblical lessons and teachings.
It took me into the shadows and steered me onto a path to awareness, forgiveness, and acceptance.
The shadows are where the voices inside grow louder and louder as the noise and clutter of everyday routines fade away. The shadows are the places inside that we try to ignore, the parts of ourselves that frighten us, the areas that convince us that we should not love ourselves and we deserve our failures, pain, and unhappiness.
This is where we judge our lives and the lives of others, or where we obsess on past slights, failures or mistakes. This is where we doubt ourselves, question our faith and fear for the future.
“Urgings” teaches how to embrace the shadows as parts that enrich us, and to welcome them as critical to who we are. This self-awareness leads to self-acceptance and to a place of peace where our conflicting but complementary parts work together in harmony and where we keep the faith that all things work in God’s will.
With work and prayer and faith in God and ourselves, wholeness will lead to holiness, the place where we embrace God’s love, accept our flaws, and find the peace and courage to live like Jesus and to love like Jesus.
Lightning did not strike during my week at the Abbey. There were some flashes of inspiration and “ah-ha” moments, but I know that the hard work of my spiritual journey and growth will last as long as I breathe, whether at the Abbey or wherever life takes me next.
I am closer to comfort with my shadows and continue to work at the dojo and at the Abbey. I balance life by spending as much time at the monastery as I do in martial arts training, and I spend one day a week working at the nursery, cutting lawns or potting plants, and sharing a noon meal and prayers with my new friends, the men of Mepkin.
I told my friend Sister Carole about my walk in the labyrinth when I asked God whether I should come here for retreat. An explosion of butterflies flew from the wildflowers and circled, giving me a mystical answer that I already knew. She smiled, “Butterflies are a sign of the resurrection.”
The Three Sisters have returned home to Ohio and Nebraska, but they continue to pray for me and believe that I am being called to join the brothers and follow the religious path that has been the center of their lives.
I will settle for inner peace and harmony. The butterflies are my symbol for renewal, and God willing, I will get there. I do not believe my path goes through Brother Luke’s cabin in the woods at Mepkin Abbey, but, then, I never thought I would find myself chanting Psalms with the monks in the middle of a lovely Carolina night.
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