AWOL on the Appalachian Trail Read online

  AWOL ON THE APPALACHIAN TRAIL

  DAVID MILLER

  Text copyright © 2010 David Miller

  All rights reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by AmazonEncore

  P.O. Box 400818

  Las Vegas, NV 89140

  ISBN: 978-1-935597-19-3

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Springer Mountain to Hiawassee

  2. Hiawassee to Fontana Dam

  3. Fontana Dam to Hot Springs

  4. Hot Springs to Damascus

  5. Damascus to Bland

  6. Bland to Daleville

  7. Daleville to Front Royal

  8. Front Royal to Pen-Mar Park

  9. Pennsylvania

  10. Delaware Water Gap to Kent

  11. Kent to West Hartford

  12. West Hartford to Gorham

  13. Gorham to Caratunk

  14. Caratunk to Katahdin

  Epilogue

  Afterword

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Introduction

  In the spring of 2003, a few thousand people strapped on backpacks and headed out into the mountains of north Georgia. Their destination: Maine, over two thousand miles away. Eighty percent of them didn’t make it.

  The path they follow is called the Appalachian Trail, commonly referred to as the AT. It starts on the summit of Springer Mountain in Georgia and ends on top of Mount Katahdin in Maine.

  Imagine drifting in a hot air balloon over the wooded hills of the Appalachian Mountain range, on a course that parallels the northeasterly slant of the eastern seacoast, low enough to peer down between the trees. You’ll see a well-worn trail threading its way through trees, over rocks, over mountains, and down valleys. The AT doesn’t skirt the mountaintops. Instead it takes a punitive path over every peak it can find. Few stretches of the trail form a straight line. In places, the trail curves wildly, seemingly with will, to buck off the hikers or ramp them over yet another hill. All this bobbing and weaving adds mileage. On foot the distance from Springer to Katahdin is 2,172 miles. Your balloon ride would be only thirteen hundred miles with significantly reduced risk of snakebite.

  The trail passes through fourteen states. The mountains of Georgia and North Carolina are steep and densely wooded, immediately challenging hikers’ resolve. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park, on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee, has more varieties of trees than there are in all of Europe. Virginia is less physically demanding than the first three states. Hikers celebrate upon reaching the town of Damascus, then move into Grayson Highlands, with open grassy ranges and wild ponies. By the middle of Virginia, hikers have walked off the enthusiasm they had at the start of their journey, and the end is still nowhere in sight. One quarter of the AT is in Virginia. The ten miles of trail in West Virginia are notable for passing through the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conference in Harpers Ferry.1 This is the emotional halfway point.

  In western Maryland the trail clips through Civil War battlefields. Pennsylvania and New Jersey are infamous for rocks. Hikers have days in which they hardly ever touch soil. The AT in New York finds a corridor of woods between the mainland and Long Island. The cultured New England states of Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Vermont contrast with the haggard look of hikers who have endured months on the trail. The White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire is one of the most scenic and hazardous sections of the trail. Sixteen miles of the trail are above tree line. The trail finishes fittingly with the longest ascent on the AT, a five-mile climb to the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine.

  The Appalachian Trail was conceived by Benton MacKaye in 1921. He envisioned an outdoor recreation area that city dwellers would use on weekends and vacations. For the most part, that is what the AT has become. The majority of people who set foot on the trail return to their homes at night.

  What Benton MacKaye did not anticipate was anyone touched with the desire to walk continuously from end to end. No one did until 1948, when World War II veteran Earl Shaffer lugged his army rucksack from Georgia to Maine. Shaffer’s accomplishment came to be known as a “thru-hike,” and everyone who does the feat is called a “thru-hiker.” This story is about the year I became one of them.

  A thru-hike is an extended nomadic camping trip. Follow the path through the woods all day. Stop, set up camp, eat, and sleep. Get up, pack your things, and start walking again. At times the AT is steep enough to require hauling yourself up with your hands, but you won’t need climbing skills or equipment. You carry your house (tent), your bed (sleeping bag), your stove, your food, and everything else you need until the next opportunity to resupply. If you need it, you have to carry it.

  AT backpackers carry enough food to last three to five days. The food needs to be lightweight and durable. “Cooking” is adding hot water to something light and durable to make it edible. Hikers cherish the opportunity to eat real food. Opportunities come when the trail crosses a road within walking or hitching distance of a town. Hikers fill their bellies, clean up, and sometimes get medical care. They restock their packs with store-bought supplies, or supplies they’ve arranged to have mailed and held for them at post offices. Drinking water comes primarily from streams and springs along the trail. Most hikers will treat the water chemically or with a filter.

  The towns know the hikers are coming, and hikers know every one of these towns: Hot Springs, North Carolina; Damascus, Virginia; Harpers Ferry, West Virginia; Duncannon, Pennsylvania; and Hanover, New Hampshire. Trail towns and the people who live near the trail are an integral part of the AT hiking experience.

  Every hundred yards or so a tree or rock will be painted with a vertical bar of white—a “white blaze”—six inches tall and two inches wide, marking the AT. Hikers do get lost, but it is not common. More frequently, a hiker will take a break and resume hiking in the wrong direction, sometimes for miles. When you have a monumental number of miles to travel, repeating even a single mile is disheartening.

  The typical thru-hike takes six months with an average of twelve miles walked per day. Hikers must reach Katahdin by October 15 when the park containing the mountain closes for the winter, so they usually start in March or April. Most thru-hikers go it alone. About three out of four hikers are men, but the percentage of women is increasing. The majority of thru-hikers have recently graduated or retired.

  None of my peers could concisely articulate why they were doing a thru-hike. Most were motivated by a convergence of reasons. The time was right, they liked being outdoors, they were tired of their job (or their employer was tired of them), they wanted to lose weight, they had friends hiking, or they were inspired by another person’s thru-hiking experience. The outdoor experience gives you a chance to get away from it all, have time for introspection, and to go many days in a row wearing the same unlaundered clothes on your unwashed body.

  The exertion of carrying a pack up and down mountains day after day is incredibly fatiguing. You get hungry, you get rained on, your feet blister, and your legs ache. While hiking, you experience hardship, deprivation, drudgery, and pain, and the cooking stinks. The similarities to marriage don’t end there. Some people love it, and many are committed to seeing it through.

  Thru-hikers love to tell how steep the trail is and how much it rained because the difficulty of the endeavor is also part of the appeal. Many of the most gratifying experiences in life are those that are the most demanding. Seemingly in contradiction to the low probab
ility of a successful thru-hike is the fact that anyone can thru-hike. A six-year-old has done it, and many grandmothers have done it. The trail was completed by Orient, a guide dog, and his master, Bill Irwin, who thru-hiked in 1990.

  Back in late April of 2003, I wrote this brief description of myself before starting my hike:

  I am 41 years old, and I’ve worked since getting out of college as a computer programmer. I’m in decent shape for a person who’s been holed up in an office for so long. I’m married and have three little girls. Our fifteenth wedding anniversary will pass in my absence. Nothing is wrong with my life. My family is outstanding. I have what most people would consider to be a decent job. I’m not unhappy, and I’m not hiking to escape from anything. My life is precariously normal. I’ve been told that taking this trip at this time in my life is irresponsible, a charge I won’t contest. Maybe doing it later in life would make more sense. But my father had bypass surgery and my mom is fighting cancer. My opinion of “later” is jaded.

  I’m headed for Maine.

  Jessie’s Letter

  1

  Springer Mountain to Hiawassee

  My journey started with a walk that had my heart pounding and my legs burning. Sweat drenched my shirt and got in my eyes. Thirty minutes and I hadn’t gone anywhere. That was a year ago on a treadmill after being turned down for a leave of absence to hike the Appalachian Trail. I was determined to hike in a year, even if it meant going AWOL.

  For over a year of training on a treadmill, I never got blisters, never went uphill so steeply I could touch the ground ahead of me, and never got rained on. All of these things beset me within days of starting my hike.

  Computer programming was the job from which I walked away. My last assignment put me in the dark corner of a little-used building. On a good day, two or three people would pass by my desk. Other programmers seemed content to plug themselves into their machines—attached to the keyboard by their fingers—for nine hours a day. When a programmer had an issue, he would get on the phone to another programmer two cubes away. I could hear both ends of the conversation. They could have heard each other without the phone. I felt out of place. I struggled to stay awake, propped my eyes open with cups of coffee, and fantasized about winning the lottery.

  If I had been given a leave of absence the first time I asked, it might have tempered my enthusiasm. Getting turned down solidified my resolve. I pondered the future. Would I continue reporting to a cube until retirement, with a few vacation days sprinkled in? After putting in ten years with my current employer, I would start earning three weeks of vacation a year. Yippee!

  This is how it’s “done” in middle-class America. Shouldn’t I be thankful that life is as comfortable as it is? Most people are devastated if they lose their jobs. At the beginning of April in 2003, I broke the news to my boss. He said, “If you need to have a midlife crisis, couldn’t you just buy a Corvette?” I appreciated him for putting me at ease with his humor. I even considered taking “Corvette” for a trail name. He was supportive and did all he could to get me a leave. It just wasn’t part of corporate policy.

  As I tell my story, I will speak of other inspirations for my hike. In doing so I am not contradicting myself. My job dissatisfaction was just one factor in my decision to hike the AT. Most thru-hikers, when asked, will offer up a single motivation. In part it is the reason currently dominating his thoughts, in part it is the type of answer that is expected, and in part it is the type of answer that is easiest to give. It is not that simple. The reasons for a thru-hike are less tangible than many other big decisions in life. And the reasons evolve. Toward the end, possibly the most sustaining rationale to finish a thru-hike is the fact that you have started one.

  I chose to start late—April 25—to avoid the winter, although many nights during my first month on the trail were chilly for my native Floridian blood, dipping into the thirties. I planned to finish quickly, also to avoid cold weather, and to minimize time away from my family (my wife, Juli, and our three daughters). A “quick” thru-hike is four months or less. The typical AT thru-hike takes over five months.

  My family drives with me to the start of the trail at Amicalola Falls, and we stay in the wonderful rustic resort located there. I leave my wife and kids in the room and head up the infamously rigorous eight-mile approach trail in a misty morning rain. To my surprise, the hike is not challenging. I feel fresh, and the exertion is overwhelmed by my excitement. New growth on the forest floor, coupled with the dampness, gives the trail a tropical feel. I use the timer on my camera to get a photo of myself walking out into the fog on the trail as it slices through a field of one-foot-tall umbrella-shaped plants.

  Resisting the urge to burst down the trail, I focus on self-preservation. I’ve heard a thru-hike will take five million steps, and I naively reason that I can land softly on every one and keep making painless steps all the way to Katahdin.

  On top of Springer Mountain I pick out a small rock, intending to deliver it to Mount Katahdin in Maine. There is a log book, with forty-five thru-hikers signed in on March 1, but today I make the first entry. I’ve walked the approach trail without seeing anyone.

  I pass my first white blaze.2 On the way down from Springer, I feel a twitch on the outside of my right knee. I lift my foot and shake it, trying to loosen the feeling of contracted thigh muscles. The feeling is still there, faint and foreboding. Nine-tenths of a mile down from the top of Springer, my family waits for me at Big Stamp Gap. I return with them for another night in the lodge. Tomorrow they will return me to the gap, where we will say our goodbyes, and I’ll start my hike in earnest.

  Back at the lodge, we walk tourist trails near the top of Amicalola Falls. My knee has stiffened, and on every downward step I feel an unmistakable, undeniable twinge of pain. Worry and guilt cast a shadow over the last night with my family. This knee problem could be the end of my hike. I should’ve done more to prepare myself. I think of all the people that I’ve told about my adventure. I quit my job. I promised to write updates for my hometown newspaper. I feel foolish. I’ll be one of the statistics, one of the hikers that other hikers half-mock for quitting before getting out of Georgia. Juli agrees to delay her trip home until I’ve passed my first bailout point.

  Juli and the girls return me to Big Stamp Gap. My girls are beautiful. Every night I go to their rooms to look at them sleeping. I walk away from them now with plans for them to visit me only once on the trail. It will be the longest I’ve been separated from them, and it is incredibly difficult. I feel a knot forming in my throat, and tears drop on the trail. I hope no other hiker sees me.

  The trail is picturesque, moderate, and varied. There are pines, rhododendrons, stream crossings, and just a few rocky areas. It is all a novelty to me. I try to put into words all that I see. I take pictures of everything. I stop to photograph mica glittering at my feet, unusually formed trees, and the trail submerged by a diverted stream. I pass the day quickly, my senses overloaded with the sights, smells, and sounds of the trail, my head swimming with emotion.

  Peter, the first thru-hiker I meet, sits on the side of the trail. He’s young, thin, pale, and quiet. I guess he is just out of college, probably from a northern state. We talk little. We are both tentative about socializing, and besides, I feel certain I will meet up with him again soon enough.

  I come upon the short side trail to Gooch Gap Shelter sooner than I expect. I’ve caught up with section hikers looking at Wingfoot, the same guidebook that I have, also questioning if the structure one hundred yards away is really what we think it is.3 I can see the shelter looks full. Gear is hung from the roof, and I can hear the indistinct hum of conversation. I’m not ready to walk into a shelter full of hikers. I want more time alone to get comfortable with my new world.

  Further on, I check out another rickety shelter. This must be the old Gooch Gap Shelter that is to be disassembled. Sleeping bags cover the floor, but there are no hikers in them; they must be getting water. Happy to have misse
d them, I hike on. At Gooch Gap there is a gravel road crossing and a camping area full of noisy Boy Scouts and their irritated leaders. My day is getting long—much longer than expected—and now the trail is headed uphill. I was supposed to be coddling my knee. Is that an ache I feel?

  On the shoulder of Ramrock Mountain, I finally find an inviting campsite. I am efficient at getting my tarp up and dinner made. Using Wingfoot, I figure I’ve walked 17.6 miles my first full day on the trail, with a late (10:30) start and a worrisome knee. I’m not ready to berate myself for the long day. It just happened. Walking longer than intended would become routine for me on the AT. If there was a full shelter, an imperfect campsite, or an undesirable crowd, my solution was always to keep walking. The lack of knee pain is inexplicable good fortune. But I’m still not out of the woods, figuratively and literally.

  I am on my way—really doing it—hiking the Appalachian Trail. My equipment all has the fresh, crisp, clean look and the new vinyl smell it had in the sporting goods store. I am still clean, shaven, and relatively unworn. The air is crisp and clear, branches are barren, and the forest is budding with the newness of spring. All is in harmony.

  Near midnight I wake to relieve myself. I stumble out to a perfectly clear night. There are more stars than sky, beaming through the leafless branches. I am thrilled to be in this place, my adventure under way.