I spent an inordinate amount of time on the trail thinking about eating. It was now Tuesday, our fourth day of hiking, and our bear canister held enough food to get us to the Above the Clouds hostel the next evening. Sassafras Mountain now stood between me and the Twix bar I had begun dreaming about.
Today, we had more meandering and mild ups and downs crisscrossing a stream for much of the way. This section and others like it are why people often refer to the Appalachian Trail as the “green tunnel.” Being so near a stream, bright green foliage lay on both sides of the trail keeping the ground perpetually damp and muddy. Rhododendrons grew to such heights as to make us feel like we were walking through a tropical jungle.
Soon, the trail gave way to nearly flat straightaways under tall pines, and we were awed anew by the changing landscape. “Thank you, trail!” We repeatedly uttered.
Our legs were strong, the ground was smooth, and I didn’t have to keep such a watchful eye out for roots or rocks on which to turn my ankle or stab the thick calloused pads of my big toes. Instead, I watched the forest go by, sometimes my sister up ahead of me, sometimes behind. In some sections, the pathway was even wide enough for us to walk beside each other, chatting and singing.
“I feel like we’re hiking faster today,” I said. My sister agreed. “I wonder when all the young dudes will catch up to us.”
“I’m kind of excited they haven’t yet,” I was feeling young and spry and unbeatable, and it felt like a bit of a game to try to stay far ahead of them.
“Who, of the hikers we’ve met, do you think will make it to Maine?” Walkie asked, “they say about 25% of people actually finish.”
2,194 miles over one of the oldest mountain ranges on earth. Every person on the trail has a different reason to be there, and the goal is the walking itself, or maybe the goal is to figure out what you came out here for, what you hoped to find, and none of it will be what you planned for anyway. Like moving to a new city, starting a new job, getting married, or having children, you don’t know what it will be like ‘til you’re waist deep in it. The main thing you know is that you want to go, and that’s it. And that’s enough.
It was such a hard thing to guess who would go all the way to Maine as we hoped they all would make it as far as they wanted to and leave when and if they felt ready and had done enough. We both agreed that Graceful Emma would hike until she found a more interesting blue blaze—hiker-speak for taking a new route and stepping off the trail. We couldn’t say why. Only that she seemed very calm and at peace inside. She wasn’t here with something to prove or anyone to prove it to.
New York, on the other hand, we thought would go all the way to Maine. Whatever had brought her here had left her quiet and determined. She didn’t seem like someone who would be easily vanquished or distracted.
As we came upon a brief incline, I stopped to look off to our left where tombstones were peeking out from the underbrush. “Oh my gosh,” I grabbed Walkie’s arm.
We crept off the trail stepping gently amidst tangled vines and thorns, and just as I touched one of the granite headstones, it became a rotted out old tree stump. “Oh!” I cried startled. I looked up at my sister.
She looked up quickly from the tree stump to meet my eyes steadily, “I know,” she said, “they looked like tombstones to me, too.”
It was so strange the way those tombstones had transformed themselves into tree stumps before our eyes. It had been an illusion created by morning mist, but somehow, my sister and I had shared this hallucination. There was nothing to do but keep walking as both our minds turned inwards and silent.
A little while later, we began to hear the unmistakable sound of those excited young people behind us, and we knew they were gaining. Soon, they were upon us, catching up just as we reached the short turn-off to Long Creek Falls. Knowing these eager young travelers were trying for another over-ten-mile day up and over Sassafras, we turned off to Long Creek Falls with them. Shortly up ahead, my sister and I would be taking our own excursion off-trail to the Hickory Flats Cemetery for lunch, at which point the young folks’ path would lead them further up the trail forever.
At the falls, they frolicked in the freezing water while my sister and I foraged in our belt pockets for sunflower seeds, raisins, and pistachios. Had we been years younger, those waters would have found us, too, but I was content to watch them play, and thought it must be lovely to be twenty years old on the Appalachian Trail.
Shortly thereafter, we wished them well on their journey to Maine. “Goodbye, all the young dudes,” I whispered to my sister as we climbed over wet boulders and back out to the trail.
We reached Hickory Flats Cemetery not long afterwards, and like folks used to do during the Victorian era, we picnicked with those who had gone on before us, had already hiked their hikes, lived and dreamed, raised families, and passed from the earth. In the peaceful graveyard, we walked through the stones, reading them, and wondering who they had been.
Here, we also assessed our dismal food situation, spilling the contents of our half-full bear canister out onto the picnic table under the gazebo of this outdoor church. We still had plenty to eat in truth, but it didn’t seem enough. My hiker hunger found me counting and recounting the number of burrito shells we had left and carefully dividing up the few pieces of cheese we still possessed.
They say the trail provides, and sometimes this lore proves mysteriously true. It mostly amounts to the kindness of strangers and of community, as coolers of water, for instance, do not appear magically on a rock in the woods all by themselves, but it is the particular timing of such moments that feeds the enduring legend of trail magic.
Two bikers rumbled across the little country road and into the small gravel field which lay before the church. They climbed off their bikes to enjoy a good stretch of their legs before moving on down the road. Introducing ourselves, we found them cheerful and talkative. John and Jim were brothers who traveled these roads together whenever they had the opportunity. Having hiked sections of the trail themselves years before, they eagerly began sharing stories. John had once crossed the “knife’s edge” of Mount Katahdin, on his hands and knees the whole way with a thousand-foot drop on either side.
I had not heard about the “knife’s edge,” and thought we’d better get to Mount Katahdin a bit sooner than planned. I didn’t want 20 more years to obsess over it. But the brothers explained that the “knife’s edge” lay on the opposite side of Katahdin and wasn’t officially part of the Appalachian Trail.
They were on their respective ways home now, and just before setting off again on their bikes, they offered us some of their remaining treats—six chocolate bars. We furtively stowed these away like treasures, as they drove off.
I declared to my sister that this was my favorite day of hiking thus far and that maybe we should just keep going once we reached Hawk Mountain Shelter. “Maybe we could even make it over Sassafras Mountain tonight, or at least get closer to it,” I told Walkie. That way, in the morning we could go up and over it first thing, when our legs were strong and our energy was at its peak.
Another straggling hiker approached as we hoisted our packs back on, hunching over to yank down and tighten our shoulder straps. He introduced himself as Greg, and he was also headed to Maine and pausing for lunch in the cemetery.
“So, what’s the deal with this place?” He asked leaning back in the grass and smiling. We told him about the outdoor church, the cemetery, and the joys of having found toilet paper in the privy nearby. He didn’t know where he was staying that night, didn’t know where the next water source was, didn’t have any idea how many miles he’d hiked that day.
“I kind of think the point of being out here is to not give a fuck,” he said, the jolliest f-bomb that was ever dropped in these woods. “Where are you two headed?”
“We’re kind of going where the wind takes us today, but we might end up at Hawk Mountain Shelter,” I said. My sister and I had agreed before setting out on this journey not to reveal too much about ourselves or our plans to strangers, but my vagueness had other purposes, too. I wanted to leave our options open for further adventuring today.
Greg wanted to know about how far Hawk Mountain campsite and shelter were, and my sister proceeded to tell him about both of those and all the water sources between here and those potential stopping points, pulling out her phone and showing him the FarOut app she used to guide our way.
He seemed amazed at the app, just as I had been. Somehow, no internet signal to be found, we could use this FarOut to ascertain our present location on the trail, assess coming elevations, estimate mileage, and read commentary by hikers who had recently passed this way.
“Came on April 12. Water source was dry.”
“Windy in the gap. A petulant whiny sigh breezed past my ear. Don’t stay there.”
We left Greg reclining in the sunshine and strolled back to the trail. For the rest of the day, he would catch up to us, pass us, fall behind, and pass us again, which made for additional companionship and gave us the idea that we were becoming better hikers than we’d perhaps imagined.
I brought up the idea again, of going further down the trail than we had planned originally, perhaps inching nearer to Sassafras without going over it, maybe even finding a stealth campsite in the woods. Walkie considered this, and there were aspects of this substitute plan that she liked. She agreed it would make our next morning’s hike easier, but doubted we could count on the sudden appearance of stealth sites along the trail. Most of the final section so far had found us winding along steep hillsides filled with spindly trees and no flat areas for setting up a tent. Still, we thought we might see how our legs were doing when we reached Hawk Mountain Shelter and reassess our options upon arriving there.
We gathered more ramps as we neared Hawk Mountain Shelter, and after some convincing, Greg decided to pick some as well. It was the most perfect day of hiking we’d had, and I wanted it to go on and on; I wanted to walk all day and into the night, my sister and me, our headlamps lighting up the edges of the trail, walking in the mist, in the moonlight, up a mountain and back down. Or camp in a stealth spot a few miles in, away from the crowd, writing and talking into the night.
Rocks & Roots 