Tag: thru-hiker

The Constant Reminders

That's me, on Mt. Katahdin in Maine, the end of the Appalachian Trail
That’s me, on Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northern end of the Appalachian Trail.

My feet are the only constant reminders I have from hiking the Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine four years ago.

They are bigger now. I had worn a size 10 street shoe all my adult life; now I’m a size 11.  And they constantly remind me of the hike because I have almost no feeling the middle three toes of either foot.

I ran into trouble on the second day of my hike when I got lost coming down Blood Mountain in an ice storm, in single digit weather, and ended up with frost bite on several fingers and one of my ears.  Feeling returned to my fingers in a few months, but not to my toes.

I made another serious mistake with I tried to hike all the way to Maine, about 4.5 million steps give or take, with two pairs of boots.  The first pair began to break down after 800 miles* or so. I should have replaced them immediately, but I didn’t.  I kept going.  I ignored my feet, which also began to come apart from hiking in bad boots.

When my boots came apart I didn't replace them soon enough.
When my boots began breaking up I didn’t replace them soon enough.

At Snickers Gap, VA, mile 1003.5,  my friend John Dancy picked me up and took me to an REI store near  Washington where I bought a new pair.

But the damage was done, my feet were torn up.

For several weeks I got up at 5 a.m., ate, packed my equipment, and then spent half a hour doctoring and bandaging my feet. I would drain the blisters with a needle, pour alcohol on them, apply Neosporin, then gauze, then Moleskin.  Then I’d wrap them with stretch tape to hold everything in place.  By 6:30 I’d be on the move.

After my feet got well I took these photos to show my wife, Donna, that I was all better.

My blisters had healed with I took this photo, and I had stopped banding them.
LEFT FOOT: My blisters had healed and I had stopped bandaging them.
RIGHT FOOT
RIGHT FOOT: Dirty, but good as new.
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I lost several toenails, almost everyone did.

So was it worth it, the thru-hike in exchange for permanent numbness in six toes?

Absolutely .

NOTE: *It was 2,189.2 miles from Georgia to Maine.

Coming Monday:  The IRS Plumber

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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