Bare with me as I sprinkle a bit of vulgarity into this story. I was having a conversation with my sister and brother in law about three weeks before our departure for Amicalola Falls. “What’s something you really want to do before you start hiking?” she had asked me. With Scott sitting right there, I felt a pressing urge to have a little humor within my response. “I’d love to have some freaky sex with a freaky random girl!” I stated with a grin on my face. (Sorry mom) We continued on making snide remarks and questionable jokes about that statement for the next ten minutes or so. I can’t say I would have been upset had the opportunity presented itself, especially considering I was about to step into the realm of living like a vagabond for 6-7 months.
As the clock was ticking, with my start date inching closer and closer, I began to feel something I hadn’t felt in a few years. My heart had longed for love, to feel the searing intensity of it. To be completely swept up by cupids arrows, even if it was for only one night. I should confess, I wasn’t interested in an everlasting love. One that you might find within 10+ years of marriage where the situations have to be spiced up every now and again to catch your partner off guard. My heart had longed for the magic of touch, of a kiss, of a glance with hopeless romance in their gaze. The kind of intimacy where my partner could express flatulence and it would still give off the scent of roses within my nostrils. Now I’ll be the first to admit that such desire is incredibly corny! I could not believe I was feeling this way before I was about to set out on this experience, this adventure of a lifetime that would most likely change me as a person as well as provide a complete alteration in my perception of the world as I knew it. “What is wrong with me?” I couldn’t help to ask of myself.
As I trek my way into 400 miles, suddenly that urge of wanting to fall in love doesn’t seem so strange to me. The thousands of dualities on the trail have left me truthfully dumbfounded and speechless at times. The thought process ranges all over the place and no one day is the same as the last. “Today sucks, I just want to get to my campsite/shelter that’s still five miles away. Today is the best day of my life! I saw wildlife immediately after I received the best greasy cheeseburger from a beautiful trail angel!” The mindset flips with such fluidity that these moments of dopamine spikes are like a drug, a recipe to bring out the best in each hiker, to restore a bit of faith in humanity in her own right. This experience, this journey, this trail sheds an ethereal light on the world when you really lean into the experience. Tugging on the threads of the soul in such a way that it just doesn’t seem real!
I’d like to refer to a few experiences over the last ten days to help shed a little more light on what I’m trying to describe and why I find myself falling in love with this experience. It was Thursday, April 6th. I was getting back onto the trail, hiking out of hot springs after a couple days off to rest my body, as my iliotibial band was giving me some grief from just before traversing through the smokies. I had stayed at a wonderful hostel called the Happy Nomads with two incredible hosts whose trail names were Jumanji and Sunshine. Their abode was a lovely piece of land with three dogs, some chickens and I came to later find out that they’ll be expecting a child in September to add to their family. I should also add that the place was incredibly peaceful, allowing me the rest that I so longed for! As I hiked through that first day back on the trail, I had pushed my way through 14.8 miles stopping at Allen gap and setting up my tent under a rhododendron tree that provided sufficient cover from the rain. It was supposed to touch down the next morning. As I awoke sure enough it began to sprinkle and my positioning had appeared to pay off, allowing me enough time to break down camp without getting any of my equipment wet, throwing my rain poncho over my body as well as my pack to begin the day. I would come to find out that the rain would not let up for the next 33 hours or so.
Friday April 7th and Saturday April 8th were a bit of a rough stretch for me. As the rain had progressively gotten worse that day it became harder and harder to keep myself dry (although I must admit that the rain poncho was proving to be just about the best $40 I’d spent on trail). I came upon a fork in the trail on Friday with a sign reading “bad weather trail” and “exposed ridge line trail”. “Pshh how bad could it possibly be?” I thought to myself as my body veered over to the exposed ridge trail. Needless to say, there were moments high up on the exposed ridge where I had to throw my trekking poles down a 10 foot decline. Slowly side stepping a natural slab of stone where the surface had been completely saturated by the rain that day, I had to sit down on my butt and crab walk my way down to a patch of dirt that was about a foot wide. I had undertaken 12 miles that day, making my way into a shelter that was pretty full. However, the people in there were able to shift their stuff over enough allowing me to sleep in the shelter with them. I was able to embrace the comfort of warmth from their body heat as well as the fireplace they had somehow managed to bring to life.
As Saturday had begun, the rain was persistent. I had awoken and felt how damp my shoes were and thought it a good idea to place them in the fire pit just far enough away from the flames so they would not melt. As I took my eye off them for about 2 minutes, the flames began to grow within the pit and my left shoe became a smoldering smoking mess. I couldn’t believe I had made such a costly mistake. There was a hole in the top toe portion and the laces were mangled to the point that when I pulled on them they snapped. Luckily the shoe lace holes were still in manageable condition, so I found some spare string in my pack and re-laced the brittle footwear. The arduous trekking through persistent rain lasted about 5 hours on Saturday, April 8th. At around 4:00 it finally let up and to my relief it stayed that way for the remainder of my hike, as well as through the night after I set up my tent to sleep. I pushed through about 15 miles that day and my will had been tested to the max. As I came to devils fork gap and stepped over a two sided, three step staircase, I found a plastic grocery bag hanging up on the other side of the fence. In the bag contained a water, a bag of trail mix, a bag of assorted nuts, 4 bags of Welch’s gummies and the best damn Snickers bar I ever tasted! After sifting through the food I found something I did not expect however. Two flat but rounded stones that were beautifully painted with different designs on each. They both had the words “Life is Beautiful in N. Carolina” with the initials of the artist whom I would love to meet someday and express my gratitude, tagging along the biggest hug I can provide. For that person may never know how much that plastic bag changed my mentality after a couple of terribly cold, wet and miserable days!
Sunday, April 9th was Easter. I couldn’t help, after the past couple days that I had just gone through, to miss my family deeply. As I peeled back my sleeping bag I noticed a bit of light peering into my tent. The SUN! I mustered up the energy I could, laced up my mangled shoes and slowly sauntered for about 3 miles to Sam’s Gap where trail angels had awaited. A man who had just finished his experience hiking the AT, whose trail name was Tyvek Shaman, and his wife whose name I regretfully forgot, were welcoming the hikers with Easter eggs on the side of the road and Dunkin’ Donuts in the back of their car. I stuffed my face with 4 donuts and 2 cups of coffee. As I sat and conversed with these amazing people, the moment crystallized into purity as we spoke of the magic on the AT and of the world around us in every day happenings: When you’re angry and running late for a meeting but by happenstance you meet your soul mate. Had you been on time you would have missed your chance. When you hurt your leg and feel as though you’re falling behind on the trail, losing the group you had been hiking with, only to meet some of the most beautiful people you could have conjured up like a genie in a bottle. We labeled these little moments as the magical idiosyncrasies that make the world go round.
An hour had raced by as I had become engulfed in our conversation. A fitting topic for Easter Sunday. In that window, an older gentleman had made his way through to also take part in the trail magic. He told us his name and I had overheard him speaking about how he missed his family so, saddened by the holiday and lack of presence from those he loved. I had forgotten about the past two miserable days I just had, the fact that my shoes were basically flip flops at this point. I pulled the two beautifully crafted stones from my pocket and held them in my hand as a choice. “Pick one” I said to the older gentleman. He took one of the stones and you could see the light restored in his eyes, his mood seemed to have lifted. I thanked Tyvek Shaman and his wife, they left me with a full belly, spirits lifted, and the first hug I had in over a month.
With this feeling of falling in love, also comes a point of profound protection. How does one hold onto the magic that has changed their life? How does one take all that he has learned from this experience and offer it up to the rest of the world? With the blissful sensation of love also comes the daunting fear of losing what you’ve grown so fond of. The truth is, just like a love that is pure, you cannot grab it by the reigns and act like you have control over it. You can let the flame burn, you can add fuel to it, you can allow it to warm you to your core. Once the flame dies out, it’s important to be grateful for all that it gave you, not to admonish it for its absence.
I had been listening to a Lex Friedman podcast with his guest Paul Rosolie yesterday, Saturday, April 15th. As I was making my way down from Hump Mountain at mile marker 389 and decided to sit upon a rock that was overlooking the town that I was heading into. I sat there for a good 15-20 minutes just listening to the two converse, peering out over the beautiful land that lay below. I couldn’t help but be moved by something Paul had said about the beauty of the wild. Just then a massive feathered creature took flight, no more than ten feet from me. It moved me in such a way that I wanted to end this blog with a quote from him.
“I needed adventure: not a vacation, not a distraction, but true, meaningful adventure.”
-Paul Rosolie
Eating Elephants 
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