JULY 21, 2011—JULY 26, 2011
When James, Lindsay, and Hazel left us, I was downtrodden, to say the least. As they departed, we were closing in on Damascus and the Virginia-Tennessee border. I should have been elated to leave behind the five-hundred twenty-five mile stretch of Virginia and to enter one of the last three states. But instead, I felt stuck.
When I met Brew at the next road crossing, he knew by my sullen look that something was wrong.
“You miss Hazel, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “But I also hate where we are right now.”
“You mean because it is still the almost-end?”
“Yeah. It’s as if we are in trail purgatory,” I replied. “I feel like I have given this trail everything, and I have made it a really long way, but I can sense that I am almost on empty and we are not anywhere close to the finish. I am hurting, and I am tired, and there is no end in sight.”
“At least you know that,” said Brew.
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” Brew said, “you know this trail inside and out. And so far you have paced yourself perfectly. Someone else might try to give too much at this point because they think they’re closer to the end than they really are. But you know every mountain, valley, and river between here and Springer, and I know that somewhere in your subconscious, you’ve kept enough strength in reserve to make it through the last five hundred miles.”
I heard what Brew was saying, but it didn’t help much. I was at a point on the trail where I really needed inspiration. Fortunately, I got what I needed when Maureen arrived.
Maureen was a life-long family friend, and she had been a small part of my first thru-hike in 2005 when I got off the trail in Hot Springs, North Carolina, to watch the NCAA men’s basketball tournament at her house. During that visit, she prepared a huge dinner for me and a warm bucket of water with Epsom salts so I could eat, watch the game, and soak my sore feet all at the same time.
Maureen knew about endurance and efficiency. She was one of the toughest women I knew. When she was my age, she participated in a number of endurance riding events on horseback, including multiple hundred-mile rides in the back-country. Now in her sixties, she lived on a farm and trained her four border collies to participate in sheepdog trials—another sport where precision is key and the slightest mistake has huge consequences.
Whether at a national trial or at home, Maureen usually had two or three dogs trailing at her feet and an SLR camera hanging from her neck. She is the most gifted photographer I know. The only problem is that she refuses to shoot humans.
Maureen would capture images of sheep, dogs, and horses all day long, but she typically insisted that we two-legged creatures were not worth the trouble. It had been a three-month struggle to convince her to be our wedding photographer. For me, it wasn’t just about having great photographs; it was about sharing such an intimate occasion with someone I knew and loved. Maureen finally agreed.
Not only did she take pictures at our outdoor wedding, but when a five-foot black snake crawled across the aisle just before the guests arrived, Maureen snatched it up by the head and slung it into the distant hedges.
Taking photos at our ceremony must not have been too unbearable, because two months after our nuptials, Maureen was also at Springer Mountain with her camera in hand as we set the women’s supported record.
Usually she would have hiked a mile or more to get on-trail shots, but this summer she was limited to the road crossings. With her hair growing slower than Brew’s beard, and a chest as flat as mine, we couldn’t help but be reminded that Maureen had faced a journey much longer and more difficult than our own.
When we found out late last summer that Maureen had a progressive form of breast cancer, it surprised everyone. She was one of the strongest, fiercest women I knew. In a sense, we all felt that she was invincible. But last autumn, for the first time ever, I saw her cry. I wanted to give her something to look forward to, so I told her, even before telling my own parents, that I wanted to set the overall record on the trail and I wanted her to be there at the end to take photos. She looked at me and scoffed. And in her shrill Southern accent, she said, “I don’t even know if I’ll be alive next summer.”
A few weeks into her treatment, Maureen and I went shopping together for only the second time. The first time had been when we were searching for my wedding dress; now we were looking for a wig. I watched as the thinning hair on her head was completely shaved off, and then helped her try on hairpieces of different lengths and colors. She ultimately decided she’d always wanted to be a redhead, so she chose a beautiful shoulder-length auburn coiffure. But that was the only day I ever saw her wear it. In the end, it didn’t really suit her to wear a wig—or to have reconstructive breast surgery. There had never been anything artificial about Maureen.
In the past nine months, she had experienced a double mastectomy and multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. Now, she was standing at the trailhead smiling, snapping pictures, and reminding me that when a task feels overwhelming, the only thing to do is take one step at a time. Maureen was an everyday hero. She was struggling and persevering because she had to, not because she wanted to. The grace and determination that she exhibited during her cancer treatment made me realize that I still had more to give, and it helped me to stop complaining. This endeavor was difficult, but I had chosen to be here and could stop at any time. Maureen’s resolve was unwavering and her battle was ongoing. Her presence on the trail was humbling and inspiring, and her story and example helped me through the almost-end.
Often, when I arrived at a road crossing I would find Maureen and Brew bickering. Maureen gave both of us tough love, just like my mom would. It was great entertainment watching her chide my husband.
“You need to let me clean the inside of the car,” she would nag. “It is an absolute mess! If you don’t rinse out this cooler with soap and water, Jen is going to get a bacterial infection.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll do it,” Brew would reply.
“No, you don’t have time to do it. You need to let me help you.”
“But you don’t know where to look for things or what container to put them in.”
“Oh, and you do? Anything would be better than the state this car is in right now.”
Then Maureen looked over at me sitting in the camp chair.
“Oh my God, Momie! What is that you’re putting in your mouth?”
Maureen has called me Momie since I was born. To this day, I don’t know why, but just hearing the nickname makes me feel loved.
I’ll admit, I had started to include French fries and a milkshake as one of my daily snacks. I also continued drinking fruit smoothies; squirting honey in my mouth; and eating healthy sandwiches, Greek yogurt, and guacamole as much as possible. But I was still extremely nauseous, and fries and a milkshake were still somewhat appetizing, and they went down easily.
“You can’t set a record by eating French fries all the time! Here, I brought fruit and some hard-boiled eggs from my chickens.”
Then she handed me several zipper-lock bags from the cooler in her truck bed. “You need to eat some of this, too,” she said. I dug inside one of the bags and brought out a giant hunk of watermelon.
I filled my mouth with the sweet red flesh and let the juice run down my chin. It tasted delicious. I guess watermelon also worked pretty well as a trail snack. The only problem was I didn’t have time to isolate the seeds in my mouth and spit them out so I just swallowed them. Watermelon may be healthier, but I never had to worry about seeds when I ate French fries.
“Keep that and eat it,” said Maureen. “I’m going back to the farm tomorrow. I’ll bring you some more fresh fruit toward the end of the trail.”
When we reached the North Carolina border, things felt as if they had come full circle. I was in my home state, where I had grown up, and soon I reached the place where I’d first set foot on the Appalachian Trail.
Just north of Roan Mountain, I passed a rural county road near a cemetery and a church where on a day hike in 2004 I had seen my first white blaze. I passed by a familiar tree with a double blaze and laughed out loud. I remembered wondering eight years ago what on earth two off-set blazes could possibly mean. Now, I instinctively veered left, knowing the two white rectangles signified a sudden change of direction.
I loved walking over the top of Roan in the mid-morning mist and smelling the sweet scent of the Fraser fir and spruce trees that bordered the trail. This had been one of the portions of trail where I’d spent time training in the spring, and it was amazing how different it looked just two months later. The flame azalea and rhododendron no longer showcased their brilliant colors, but the green was deeper than I remembered and the scent of evergreen was stronger. I knew that I would smell this aroma again on Unaka Mountain and on the ridges of the Smokies—only two more high-elevation, Christmas-scented summits left.
When I reached the Nolichucky River, I was met by Brew and two of our best friends, Jeff and Heather. I could drive from our house to the Nolichucky River in less than an hour, so it was close enough for frequent section-hiking, and it was also convenient enough for Jeff and Heather to come and visit. They were two of our most ardent supporters, but they primarily supported us with prayer from their home because one month before we started the trail, Heather had given birth to their first child.
Because of their newborn they couldn’t hike with us, but Heather said she had constantly prayed for us during early-morning feedings. It was nice to think that somebody else was awake, let alone praying for me, when I awoke each morning in the dark. They brought their baby boy with them that evening, and I got to carry him over the bridge that spans the Nolichucky on the outskirts of Erwin.
I should have been happy to see our friends; I should have been proud to make it to Erwin. I envisioned my entry into this hamlet in eastern Tennessee as a triumphant parade. But instead, I felt more like the fussy, red-faced baby I held in my arms.
Brew had been teasing me for the past several weeks, telling me that I had regressed to a toddler-like state on the trail. It was true. I existed on Juicy Juice mixed with water for my electrolyte drink, and I drank from a bottle with a nipple-shaped top. One of my special treats was chocolate milk, and like a two-year-old in diapers, I went through dozens of wet wipes every day. I had reached a point where I preferred mushy food to anything solid, and if I started crying it was usually because I needed food or wanted a nap.
Erwin was supposed to mark the conclusion of the almost-end and the beginning of the real-end. My increasing familiarity with the trail made the task seem that much harder. Suddenly it felt like every step I took pushed the finish line one step farther away. I thought about the never-ending climb up Big Bald that awaited me tomorrow, and I dreaded the unending PUDs between Camp Creek Bald and Hot Springs. I remembered how difficult the ascent up Snowbird Mountain was before entering Smoky Mountain National Park.
And then there was the park itself. At this point, I felt utterly weak with an eight-pound daypack resting on my shoulders. And in the Smokies I would have two thirty-mile stretches without a resupply. That meant more weight, slower miles, more calories burned, more calories needed, more sweating, more salt tablets, and more time away from Brew—the one person who could get me through anything.
I started to sniffle and tear up just like the two-month-old who was nestled against my sweaty synthetic T-shirt. Heather took her baby from me and then started soothing both of us.
“Jen, you are doing so great! You are only a week away from the finish. What’s wrong?”
“I thought I would feel closer to the end in Erwin, and I don’t,” I said dejectedly. “A day out here feels like an eternity. A week is incomprehensible! I have given so much, and I feel so empty. I don’t know if I have another seven days in me.”
I realized that I seemed melodramatic, and I felt bad crying when I was so excited to see our friends. But the fact remained that even if I was able to keep hiking sixteen hours a day, I still had one-hundred and twelve hours to go and over three-hundred thirty miles of trail before reaching Springer Mountain. And that was still a really long way!
Heather stood next to me, patting my head, telling me how well I was doing, and mentioning several of the things I had to look forward to when I finished. Usually that was Brew’s job. I looked around for my husband and saw him talking to Jeff near our friends’ Subaru. In the twilight I could see his red, watery eyes, and I could tell Jeff was providing a pep talk similar to the one that Heather was giving me.
One of the reasons we decided to start the record attempt at Katahdin was to maximize daylight hours through Maine and New Hampshire and to get through the most technical portion of trail at the beginning. The other main reason was that we knew the closer we got to Springer Mountain, the more support we could receive from friends and family. It was a good strategy. We were both leaning harder and harder on the people who came to visit us, and we appreciated their support more and more.
Jeff and Heather provided us with compassion and words of encouragement, then they prayed with us. And before they left, Heather brought out two trays of baked goods from her car and left them in our SUV. She also left us something even better—and there aren’t many things I consider better than my friend’s caramel brownies. But as Jeff and Heather turned on their headlights and pulled onto the two-lane road, Brew and I were not alone. Heather had left us her thirty-two-year-old marathon-running brother Hampton.
A few days ago Brew posed the question, “Do you think we would be in the same place on the trail if we had not asked so many people to come and help us?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Physically I’ve taken every step of this journey on my own, but emotionally I feel like our crew has carried me.”
“Who do you think has been the most helpful crew member?”
“Well, Rambler was awesome, and he brought us Dutch, who was maybe the best hiker. We needed Warren for his wisdom up North and Melissa for her enthusiasm. And New York Steve and Horton were both a huge help in the mid-Atlantic. So . . . I don’t know. They’ve all been valuable in different ways. It’s been a combination of people and gifts that’s allowed us to make it this far.”
At that moment, I was eating a slice of supreme pizza that Brew had brought me from a nearby town.
“I guess our crew has been a little like this pizza,” I said.
Brew asked me to explain.
“Well, you are the key ingredients—the crust and sauce and cheese. I know there’s no way I could’ve ever made it here without you. You’re irreplaceable, and you make this trip what it is, and our crew members are like the toppings. Some of them are like the protein because they provide physical strength; other people have been like vegetables that nurture me. But they all make it taste better.”
“You sound hungry,” said Brew. “I think you need to keep eating.”
If our pit-crew was a pizza, then Hampton was the bacon because he added a lot of flavor.
Hampton was a runner and a triathlete. When he heard about our record attempt in the spring, he became immediately enthused and volunteered to help. Now that we were in Erwin, he had taken time off from his job to join us.
I adored hiking with Hampton. He constantly told me how great I was doing even when I was hiking uphill at a crawl. He filled the time by telling me about all the practical jokes that he had played on his friends—including putting a donkey in one of his buddy’s basements and two turtles in a girlfriend’s bathtub. With Hampton, I spent most of my time laughing and gasping. I told him that one of the most notorious tricks on the A.T. is to put a large rock in someone’s pack when they’re not looking. Then, knowing his mischievous nature, I warned him that if I found a rock in my daypack, I would punch him in the gut.
On a rainy evening, when we were hiking straight uphill toward Blackstaff Cliffs, Hampton and I had to focus more on our breathing than on our conversation. And after a particularly steep incline, we came to a place where the trail started to level out.
“You did it!” Hampton said. “You made it to the top. And let me just say, it was a treat watching your calf muscles on that last climb. I’ve never seen calf muscles like that on a girl!”
It was true. My calf muscles were scary-big. They were wider than my thigh with insane definition and a faint blue vein popping out in the middle. They could easily have given any Tour de France participant muscle envy (and that was without any EPO). However, my strong calves were also tired calves.
“Hampton, that was a false summit,” I said. “We’re not even halfway there yet.”
“Oh,” said Hampton. I was pretty sure I could feel his gaze return to my freakish leg muscles as we continued to climb.
Our uphill ascent was complicated by a steady rain. The path followed an old roadbed where off-road vehicles had left huge muddy ruts in the trail. As the rain intensified, the tread got softer. Now we were sliding out of our steps, losing ground and trying not to lose our shoes in the ankle-deep sludge.
I felt very present in that moment. My skin was wet, my legs were tired and covered in mud, my breathing was labored, and a thick veil of fog made it seem like we were gaining little ground on this sloppy ascent.
Then from behind me, Hampton asked, “So you wanna hear my version of the girl who got away?”
I looked back at him, a little surprised.
“You mean, relationship stories?”
“Yeah, relationships that I royally screwed up.”
I loved hiking with Hampton. The next hour and a half was like listening to a sitcom. I heard about all the drama, all the mistakes, and all the awkward details that made me so glad I didn’t have to date anymore.
We treaded lightly in the rain over the exposed rocks of Black-staff Cliffs but instead of thinking about how one false step could end my record attempt, I listened to Hampton comically ramble on about bad timing, poor communication, and a lack of initiative. And despite his self-deprecating anecdotes, I made a mental list of all my girlfriends I could set him up with. Surely he had gotten it all out of his system by now. Right?
When we reached Hot Springs, we said good-bye to Hampton and hello to more friends who’d made the short trip from Ashe-ville to cheer us on. I walked over the bridge that spans the French Broad River—the same river that comes within a mile of our front door in Asheville—listening to cheers and giving folks high fives.
Everything about this quasi-homecoming felt natural and wonderful, except when my friends tried to encourage me by telling me how close I was to the finish line.
We humans seem to struggle with ways to comfort one another in the face of adversity. I remember when Maureen found out that she had cancer. I told her, “Everything will be okay. You’re one of the toughest women I know, so if anyone can defeat this illness, it’s you.” After my comment, I saw Maureen start to tear up and sit in silence.
I didn’t realize until later how ignorant I’d been. Maureen had a progressive form of breast cancer. Things were not going to be okay—not for a long time. And I had just managed to make my good friend feel even worse.
Similarly, I did not want to hear from anyone else that I was “close to the finish.” The people who were saying that were well meaning, but they hadn’t thru-hiked the A.T. or a single fforty-six-mile day in their entire lives. It didn’t matter where I was located on the trail; every step was going to be hard until I reached Springer Mountain. It was only when I arrived at the end that things would finally be okay.
Past Hot Springs, I tried not to think about the remaining miles. Instead, I enjoyed a beautiful, quiet afternoon. I traveled through the dense hardwood forest, lost in thought and soaking in the peace and tranquillity of the woods.
The thin stretch of worn dirt that leads from downtown Hot Springs to the top of Snowbird Mountain is one of my favorite sections of the Appalachian Trail. The combination of shade and wind inside the rhododendron tunnels almost felt like an air conditioner—even on a late July afternoon. There is a hidden spring on this stretch, and I knew exactly where to find it. I dipped my bottle into the obscure pool and then brought it to my lips. The water tasted pure and sweet—better than anything that could ever come from a faucet.
I can always tell when I am getting close to Max Patch because I pass through a thick rhododendron tunnel that makes me feel like a gladiator walking through the underground passageways before entering the open air of the Colosseum. Max Patch is nature’s arena. It is a wide grassy bald that sits close to the North Carolina-Tennessee border, and it provides 360-degree views of tall, rounded mountains with ever-changing shades of green, blue, and purple.
This mountain is where Brew and I shared one of our first dates. It’s where I went with Maureen for a photo shoot a few months before she found out she was sick. It’s also a place where I had many treasured memories from summiting the southern bald alone.
As I walked through the tall grass toward the summit, I saw Brew sitting at the top, waiting for me. He had hiked in a half mile, which was more ground than he was supposed to cover with his recovering ACL, but I didn’t blame him for disregarding the doctor’s orders. The healing properties of this bald outweighed the risk of injury.
We were fortunate enough to be the only two people there. When I reached the top, I rested for a few moments in my husband’s arms. When we let go, I lifted my hands to the sky and let my hiking sticks dangle from the straps around my wrists. Then I turned in a slow circle to take it all in. The sun was kissing my face. The breeze was tickling my skin and filling my nostrils with the sweet scent of mountain air. It was a moment of dichotomy. I felt weak and strong, depleted yet filled, heavy but light, all at the same time.
Brew and I held hands as we walked side by side to the next road crossing.
“What are you thinking about?” asked Brew.
“Ancient Greek,” I replied.
“Oh yeah?” asked Brew in a surprised tone.
“Mmm-hmm,” I replied. “In my Greek class in college, we learned a lot of vocabulary. I’ve forgotten most of it, but one word that I still remember is arete. I guess it’s really more of an esoteric concept than a vocab word.”
“What does it mean?”
“From what I remember, it is the idea of reaching the fullest potential possible.”
“So you think you are reaching your fullest potential on the trail?”
“Well, I hope so. I think so. But actually, I was thinking about arete on a bigger scale. Just now being on top of Max Patch with you, and walking down hand and hand, I sort of feel like life is at its fullest potential right now.”
As I continued my walk that afternoon between Max Patch and Snowbird, it became clear to me that there was one other problem with friends telling me how close I was to the finish, another big reason why I didn’t want to talk about the end of the hike; this was the only time in my entire life I could think of when I was giving all of myself to realize a dream.
Reaching for a life-long goal was rare enough, but actually being able to grab onto it seemed too good to be true. I was currently in a half-aware haze of turning my aspirations into a reality. It was a difficult and tangled but also beautiful and liberating place to be. And now I wondered, and even feared, what it would be like to wake up.
On the last mile leading to Snowbird Mountain, I hiked in the dusk longer than usual before pulling out my headlight. The sun had fallen from the sky, but my sense of the trail was so keen that I felt like I could anticipate the roots and rocks lining the path and could dance on top of them even in the dim twilight.
I was leaping from one obstacle to another when I heard a noise up ahead. Based on the volume and the type of rustling, I knew it was a bear. When I raised my chin, I saw not one but two cubs, and they were with their mother. Together, all three ran down the trail and around a turn to keep their distance. The problem was that I was headed in the same direction. As I neared the turn, I let out a loud cough. It worked. I heard the bears trample into the nearby forest.
I kept hiking without changing my pace. As soon as I rounded the bend, I looked downhill and saw one cub hugging the bark of a nearby oak tree, and the other peeking out from behind his mother. Even though she was within twenty yards, I didn’t feel threatened.
I had seen lots of bears this summer—over thirty, in fact. Many of those sightings had been a mother with her cubs, and never once did a bear act aggressively. I also never felt as if the animals perceived me as a threat. I always tried to act natural, keep my distance, and maintain the same hiking pace. In doing that, it seemed that the bears viewed me and treated me like another wild animal. And that’s exactly how I felt.
One aspect of the record attempt that I really loved was that I didn’t have to leave the trail. The only times I did were to make a few late-night hotel runs. But even then, I always left in the dark and returned in the dark, so every waking hour for the past six weeks had been spent in the wilderness. I had never so fully immersed myself in nature. I had transitioned from a human seeking comfort to an animal migrating through the forest.
When I summited Snowbird, I could still make out the dark blue ridgeline of the Smoky Mountains as it contrasted against a deep gray sky. Brew and I shared another freeze-dried dinner and another night in our intimate two-person tent. I never reflected much before falling asleep on this trip—I was unconscious too quickly to do that. But as I settled into my sleeping bag that night, I was struck by the fact that more than forty days after we’d started, I was still doing what I loved, on a trail that I loved, with the man that I loved. And, yes, it was the hardest thing I’d ever done in my entire life. But it also felt like the best thing.
