I could not see the pines overhead, could not hear any animals stirring in the woods, but I knew they were there, and I was one of them, a wandering mammal looking for warmth. On another day, I would have doubted my sense of direction, my lack of clear ability in the woods often found me walking just inches behind my sister, but something about having reached the top of Amicalola Falls the day before found me trusting my ability to find the trail to the lodge in the dark.
Cloaked in night, I followed my feet and reckoned, like James Taylor, that they knew where they wanted me to go. A blind-folded mystic I wandered, trusting the woods, the night, and the snow to guide me to the security of the lodge which I knew lay hidden somewhere nearby. I did not feel alone in the looming shadow, with the squish of my sneakers on the forest floor, damp from snow flurries that clung for moments before melting.
I called ahead, as one does when hiking through the woods in the snowy darkness when you’ve abandoned your baby sister to sleep unprotected in an isolated campsite. Striding through the darkness, I spoke with Debbie, who answered the phone and flatly told me the restaurant there was closed until morning, but I could come in and sit in the lobby. Not missing a step, I continued onwards, begging her for any opportunity at all to drink something warm. Begrudgingly, she offered that she’d just made herself a fresh pot that I could share. Snow dust sparkled in the glow of my headlamp.
When I finally reached those steps to the lodge, I thought “this is where I’m going to get it.” With the promise of safety in sight, this is where I would be attacked by a stray dog bursting from the forest, or a momma bear awakening from hibernation.
My sister and I had once been stalked by a dog whose barks came closer and closer to us through the woods until we thought he would erupt from the tree line behind my sister and to her right.
“If he comes out,” I said quietly to Walkie as we stared at our feet, “I will take off running, and he’ll chase me. Then, you get away.”
She didn’t answer, concentrating on the sound of those howls approaching. I glanced quickly at her, wondering if she’d heard me, and saw that she’d unsheathed her knife and was clutching it tightly in her small hand. I stared down the length of my hiking poles to where they ended in pointed metal stakes. My sister wasn’t going to let me face anything alone, so if the attack came, we would face it together.
This time, my sister wasn’t here with her knife, and I hadn’t brought my trekking poles. But the woods to either side of me were quiet and still.
In the warm lobby of Amicalola Falls State Park Lodge, I gathered two cups of steaming coffee and sipped one, while staring at the long map of the entire Appalachian Trail which ran up the wall. Pondering those many miles, I wondered what it would feel like to be a thru-hiker rather than a section-hiker.
My sister and I would only be in the woods for eight days and would traverse 47 miles of the trail, before returning to our normal lives. But staring at the map, I was dreaming of the wide rolling fields of endless Virginia, of rocky Pennsylvania, and the 100 Mile Wilderness of Maine. For the first time this trek, I felt a longing to do the whole trail, all at once. What if, after 47 miles, we reached my sister’s car at Hogpen Gap and just…kept walking? All the way to Mount Katahdin.
Sipping my coffee, caffeine raising my brain from stupor, and my ethereal night-hike melting away, I thought of my sister asleep, alone in a tent a half mile away, and thought maybe decisions like these were how people died in the woods.
I hoped Walkie was alive and stirring, possibly wondering where the hell I’d gotten to, and set out once again to deliver our glorious coffee and drink it together. I strode quickly, sweating despite the cold, trying to block out the fearsome images that pervaded my mind.
She was fine, I told myself as I wandered back the way I though I’d come, looking for familiar landmarks in the dark. Unbidden, I pictured a crumpled tent laying empty in a desolate campsite, trekking poles strewn about, and my sister missing.
My heart pounded swiftly until I finally reached our campsite. I thought I could make out our tent in the darkness, a silent boulder set against an immersive black night. Creeping softly, small white stones shifting under my sneakers, I stopped to listen just outside, holding my breath and standing still as a deer. I exhaled when I heard my sister softly breathing through the thin nylon wall of the tent. I owed it to our parents and brothers not to make impulsive decisions that would put either one of us in danger. Still, it was good coffee.
Rocks & Roots 