Tag: Appalachian Trail

The Ring

I had only been on the Appalachian Trail for 28 days, attempting to hike from Georgia to Maine, when I decided to go home and see a doctor.  

I thought I had a hernia.  Turns out, I was right.

Dr. Christopher Kenney, a surgeon, told me I had two choices: undergo an operation the following week and delay my hike a total of seven weeks or put on a girdle and go to Maine.  I put on a girdle, a six-inch wide elastic band around my gut, and returned to the trail on March 21, 2015, seven days behind.

That's me with the Hiking Vikings on June 11, 2019
That’s me with the Hiking Vikings on June 11, 2015, near New Hanover, N.H.

Friends I had been hiking with, including the Hiking Vikings, were long gone, more than 100 miles ahead of me.  But Viking got shin splints and he and his hiking partner, Sharon McCray, had to slow down. From entries they made in trail journals at various shelters I could see that I was reeling them in — I gained four days in the first two weeks.

And then Nate got well and I was barely able to keep up.  I was still two and a half days behind when I got a text from Sharon, on April 12, asking for a favor. Nate had left it hanging on a nail at Pickle Branch Shelter. She asked me to check when I passed by and get the ring if it was still there.  I said I would and, much to my surprise, it was.

Meantime, Nate had asked Sharon to marry him, and she had said Yes! They sent me a video of that moment, made at McAfee Knob, the most iconic overlook on entire A.T.

I texted Sharon and asked if the ring I had found was “a ring” or “the ring.” She replied that it was “a ring” but, she said, it had a story.

I was still two days behind when the trail entered the Shenandoah National Park, in northern Virginia.  The Shenandoah is easy trail compared to the rest of the A.T. so I laid my ears back and went all out to catch them. In four days I hiked 106 miles and, after dark on a cold, rainy, Saturday night,  April 25, five weeks after I returned to the trail, I caught them at Tom Floyd Shelter.

I returned the ring, and Nate told me the story.

He said he believed in asking a woman’s father for his blessing before asking his daughter for her hand in marriage. But Sharon’s father was dead. So, Nate said, he talked to Sharon’s father in his thoughts, and asked for his blessing.

The Vikings were married on a hill top 10 days after they completed their hike.
The Hiking Vikings were married  10 days after they completed their hike.

That’s when he found the ring, almost completely covered in dirt, barely visible. It was, to him, her father’s answer: “Yes.”

Postscript: Nate and Sharon completed their hike of the A.T. on July 12, 2015, and were married 10 days later.  The Ring is Nate’s wedding band.   They now have three boys.

I completed my hike on July 14, 2015, and underwent surgery on Aug. 10.

Coming Monday: The Unlucky Forger

Hiking Backwards

Three years ago I hiked the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain in Georgia through 14 states to Mt. Katahdin in Maine — 2,189.2 miles.

And that doesn’t include the miles I hiked backwards.

Backwards?

Oh, yes, three times. Getting turned around and hiking backwards is a lot easier to do than you might think.

The most common way hikers get turned around is coming out of a shelter in the morning after a big breakfast of, say, pop tarts.

Shelter name
Standing Indian Shelter is 70 yards from the trail.

Shelters are often located on a side trail one or two tenths of a mile off the A.T.  Hikers get up, pack up, eat up, hike back to the trail and, sometimes, turn the wrong way.

But that’s not how I did it.

The first time I got turned around it was because I missed a turn, the same turn, twice. The date of this mishap is interesting. It was Friday, the 13th of March, a cold, windy, rainy, miserable day. An especially bad day to have to spend almost two extra hours on the trail. But it could have been worse, would have been worse had it not been for two gravestones.

This is what I wrote in my blog:

“I missed a left-hand turn at a T–intersection. And kept walking downhill on a nice, even trail.”

Th A.T. is marked with white blazes.

“Didn’t I notice the absence of the white blazes that mark the AT?”

“Well, yes. But, sometimes, the blazes are really close together and, sometimes, it seemed to me, they could be a quarter a mile or more apart. So I kept going.  I was trapped by one of my own rules: ‘In for a dime, in for a dollar.'”

I didn’t give up until I got to the bottom of the hill and saw an orange sign with black letters that said: “No trespassing.” 

I turn around, climbed back up the hill, missed the turn again, and headed right back where I came from.

March 13
Graves of Union soldiers William and David Shelton.

I kept walking until I came up on gravestones I remembered passing earlier that same morning. Kind of hard to forget gravestones, with plastic flowers, standing alone in the middle of nowhere.

***

Another time it really wasn’t my fault.

I came down a slope and the trail seemed to disappear. Did it go left? Right? Straight ahead? Your guess would have been as good as mine.

I walked a little way this way, a little way that way, looking for a white blaze marking the trail. You’ve heard the expression, haven’t you, about somebody not knowing up from down? Well, before long I didn’t know north from south. And when I finally found a white blaze I took off — heading back the way I had come.

Once you’re turned around you could hike half way back to Georgia without realizing it. Remember, you’re hiking through a forest. And — I don’t know whether you know this or not — but one bunch of trees looks pretty much like another bunch of trees.

Mother Nature and her son, Between.
Mother Nature and her son, Between.

Lucky for me in 15 minutes or so I ran into two German hikers I knew, Mother Nature and her 18-year-old son, Between.

Between was in front and I asked him, “Why are you hiking south?”

He replied, “I’m not hiking south.”

***

I don’t know how my third southbound misadventure started but I’ll never forget how it ended.

I was hiking along when I saw a privy right beside the trail. I was surprised. I thought, “Well, what do you know. Another trailside privy. That’s only the second one I’ve seen since I left Georgia. I used one this morning just like that one”.

Oh, NO!  Oh, yes. It was the same one.

NOTE 1

Why didn’t I use a compass, and just keep going north?  Because the trail to Maine doesn’t always go north.   The A.T. winds around a lot, often for no reason I could discern. Sometimes you have to walk south to go north. That’s why a compass can’t tell you, for drop dead certain, which way you’re headed.

NOTE 2

The Shelton’s, an uncle and his nephew,  lived in Madison County, North Carolina, but joined the Union army during the Civil War.  When they came home during the war to attend a family gathering they were ambushed and killed by Confederate solders.

NOTE 3

Earlier this year I wrote about trying get a permit to hike the John Muir Trail, which I think is the most beautiful trail in America. See The Hike Of A Lifetime Lottery. Viking, Nine!, Iceman and I lost, for 42 days in a row.  But no matter. Iceman and I are going anyway.  We’re just going to show up, stand in line for however long it takes, and get what they call a “walk up” permit.

Got in some practice last week.  Viking, a new friend named Grit, and I hiked a 103-mile section of the A.T. in Virginia. It went well. Didn’t hike backwards a single time.

Coming Monday: This Is Why I Don’t Like You