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.
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