June 2, 2008
Assignment: Write a “how to” regarding “…in a mountain refuge”
A Long Walk Found
It had been a long day’s slog along the final miles of the northernmost reach of the Appalachian Trail. I was actually approaching the end of an experience that had started as a joke when asked by my old friend Phil, “What are you going to do when you are retired? Sit at home drinking wine and growing old and fat?” That had produced the smart-assed answer from out of no where, “ Actually, I think I will walk the entire Apalachian Trail, all 2200 miles of it.” Oh yes, that shut him up, with me, but then I found that he had gone around telling everyone about my commitment. Just like him to actually believe something I had said after consuming a bottle of wine.
However, that comment that was originally made in jest, took on a life of its own and became a quest. I mean, how hard could it be if old ladies and children can do it, certainly I should be able to. And I’m just reaching my prime. I forgot of course that like all prime meat I had been aged and hung and was now slightly past my “sell by” date! Anyway, I threw myself into preparation…well, first I spent a lot of time on the internet reading about the experiences of others, my normal way of physical exertion.
The Appalachian Trail follows the ridge line of the mountains of the same name that extends from just north of Atlanta, Georgia, my home town, to the top of Katahdin Mountain in Northern Maine, just south of the Canadian border. The Trail is clearly marked with cabins and shelters spread periodically along its length, each approximately one days hike apart. Occasionally, the trail goes through a small town where the hikers can either reprovision or enter, or of course exit, the Trail.
After spending a bit of time with my research and practice walks to the supermarket 6 blocks from my house rather than driving my car as the usual practice, I began to put together the kit I would need to support me along the way. Ah, the good old American way to solve something, go buy stuff. I visited every camping outfitter and sporting goods store in the region. It finally gave me the chance to purchase that handheld GPS unit accurate to within a meter every where on the face of the earth that I had always lusted after but never needed. And soon, all the things I just absolutely had to have to ensure my success overflowed from my office and into the spare bedroom. There was the thermal, space age fabric sleeping bag originally created for the Astronauts and their trip to the moon; the magical pop-up pup tent that collapsed down to the size of a cowboy hat, with the hat also added to the pile for sun control you know; nutrition in a tube; lightweight plastic canteen, butane fire starter; socks that stay warm in the wet and dry in an 30 minutes; leather, ankle high hiking boots with rubber ribbed soles and breathable inner lining, gore-tex waterproof windbreaker with zip-in-out warmth panels. Steadily, I amassed all the accoutrements of the typical American over-equipped, old boy, scout.
Most important of all was finding the right, the best, the perfect pack frame to carry all this gear in yet make it seem as if I were carrying around a bag of feathers. Finally, in realization of the vision, I found it — with a carbon fiber space frame stronger than steel but almost lighter than air, covered with 1800 count nylon rip-stop, puncture proof, water proof fabric and a four-point padded adjustable harness to balance out the burden across my back.
Meanwhile, it had slowly begun to hit my rational awareness that if all this stuff would not fit into my office, how was I ever going to carry it on the trail? Weight of course, is the enemy of all long distance walkers. An additional problem for me was that the longest distance I had walked during my years in the automobile city of Atlanta was from the farthest reaches of the parking lot when I had gone to a Baseball game during the playoffs when the stadium is sold out and everyone but me comes early to get a parking place and so was relegated to a dirt field a mile away by the time I waltzed in. But I digress, and I guess that’s what I did all winter and spring, digressed into details when I should have been starting out walking.
To travel the entire length of the Trail takes about 7 months of steady walking. It is optimal to follow spring northward, reaching the higher mountains of the middle US during the heat of summer and concluding the northernmost portion during late fall before the cold weather returns. Most folks start out therefore in March or early April, guaranteeing that they reach Katahdan Mountain, the highest peak on the East Coast by early October at the latest. But in my dithering and over preparation, I did not manage to get away until May 1st. “I’ll be fine,” I thought. “I walk faster than most people and I’ll catch up and be on schedule.” That’s me, ever the idiot optimist.
The first days out on the Trail went well and I felt surprisingly good. Spring was in its fullness in the southern mountain meadows of Georgia and Tennessee. I was awed by the hillsides covered in wild flowers and the pastels shades of rhododendron. After the first few weeks, I had learned that most of the things I had purchased that I felt were so important was just dead weight on my back. As I got to the various towns, I began to mail back home packages of the useless items including much of my cold weather gear which in the hot months to come, I could not see myself lugging all the way north when it could be retrieved as needed when I got up there.
And so I progressed, mostly, and actually enjoyed the life and the people I met. There where shin splints which slowed me in North Carolina and the twisted ankle which stopped me for three days in Virginia. I took a couple “vacations” from what was now my new job to visit friends in Maryland and the detour to Cooperstown for a visit to the Baseball Hall of Fame when I passed through New York and up the Hudson River in September. October got me through Connecticut and Massachusetts and into Vermont. But now, it was late November and in Northern Maine as I neared completion of my goal with the final day’s hike up Katahdin Mountain
The weather had been amazingly cooperative throughout the year. There had been relatively little rain and a welcome lack of oppressively hot days which slow you down. On these last legs of the trip, and literally my last legs as the daily pounding had taken its toll, my weather luck had run out. Luckily, I had met my package of cold weather gore-tex gear and sleeping bag in Vermont and it had been key to my surviving these last weeks of freezing nights and brisk days.
I began the day from the base of Katahdin Mountain, one of the coldest spots in the continental US, and looked up the trail and toward the cabin which is the final destination, now obscured behind a layer of clouds, where my quest would be completed. One last day’s walk, and I will have done it. About half way up the mountain, the clouds and fog had closed in and I was having some difficulty seeing the trail ahead of me. By late afternoon, snow was falling, wiping out the track all together, and I began to fear that after all this way, I would be forced to turn around. At this most crucial point, I realized that the complete trail and exact position of the cabin was programmed in my GPS device. Up to this point I had only used it to map my progress each day, I had not needed it for guidance as the trail is so well marked. It showed that I was not that far from the end point. Following its directions, step by step, I kept going forward and up. Visibility was almost zero as darkness began to fall with the snow. But then, by dumb luck and my trusty GPS, there it was, welcoming smoke curling up from the chimney. I had stumbled to my goal and simultaneously found a mountain refuge.