I’ve never been very athletic but I have always loved the outdoors and have been moderately active. When I set out for a thru-hike that very cold March morning in 2016, it was my first backpacking trip ever. I carried a 28lb pack which was over 25% of my bodyweight. Having lived in Florida for over 30 years, I was an established flatlander headed out to conquer mountains. Boy was I in for a surprise! The very first day I was hit by a snowstorm. I knew rain was in the forecast, but I wasn’t prepared to encounter snow so early on. Looking back I realize that I should have predicted it. The temperatures were dropping and the winds increasing. There was a smell of frost in the air. With the first flurries I donned my rain gear, put my water filter inside my jacket, hoping it wouldn’t freeze (it did,) and made my way to Hawk Mountain shelter where I would spend the night huddled up with twenty something strangers. The shelter capacity was for twelve people but in those conditions, we all made as much room as we could. The next morning I awoke more sore than I think I have ever been, but I told myself not to give it any thought as I made my way down a steep path to fill my water bottles at the nearby stream. As I hiked north that day the ice and snow began melting into slick mud which made walking even more difficult. At one point I was stepping down from a rock and my foot slid forward out from under me. I landed on my butt with my other knee behind me. I didn’t feel like I had hurt anything, so I laughed it off and kept going. Later that day I was beginning to feel my first twinges of knee pain. I made camp, setting my tent up along Justice Creek.
It was a beautiful evening and I was exactly where I wanted to be. The sound of the river as I ate my dinner, the first full meal I was able to keep down since starting the trail due to lack of appetite, made me nostalgic for the days of my childhood when my parents, my brother, and I would go hiking or camping in the mountains of western North Carolina. I found myself thinking about my father and wondering why he chose to abandon us just about five years before I made the decision to do this hike. I couldn’t help but reminisce about the many times we had stopped to have lunch on the rocks that lined a river while my brother and I would play in and out of the water. These were the good times. The times I like to remember most.
I’ve always felt a special connection to rivers. They have an energy that seems to match my own. When they are calm they lend themselves to introspection and a settling of the mind, but when they are wild they can lash out in any direction so as not to be tamed. They reflect the light from their rocky surfaces and form veins along the earth, giving life to the surrounding vegetation and to all the earth’s inhabitants. I was on the third day into my hike when I left Justice Creek that next morning. I had awoken to ice, not just on the outside of my tent, but also on my sleeping bag, where condensation had frozen on the inside and fallen on to me during the night. I got up, made some instant coffee, and was enthusiastic to get started with my day’s goal of hiking ten miles to a site along Lance Creek. The undulating hills leading into Woody Gap should have made for easier hiking that morning, but instead I was having sharp pain in my knee that made my progress slow. When I arrived at Woody Gap, the parking lot was full of people – trail Angels*, shuttle drivers, picnickers, and day hikers. An experienced hiker would have listened to her body and realized that this was a good point to take a break before heading on with a bad knee. But I didn’t like crowds, and I wasn’t used to being brought down by pain. I thought my body would just adapt and that pain was to be expected and endured on a hike such as this. So I kept going.
The next four miles were excruciating and humbling. I made way toward Preaching Rock and up over Big Cedar Mountain down to Lance Creek. I knew by this time that I had done something terrible to my knee. I walked at a crawling pace only to arrive just before sundown to a full camping area. I managed to find a spot up on a ridge to set up my tent. Too exhausted to eat, I laid down on my sleeping bag and called Kevin to let him know I was okay.
Kevin and I met in high school. By the time I turned fifteen I had already lived in twelve different states. My childhood could be broken up into segments of at least 32 different addresses that I lived at over the course of growing up. My father served in the navy and had a spirit for adventure. If I were to call any place home it wasn’t the place I was born, but instead it was the area I spent the most time in growing up. That would be several towns around the Asheville, NC area. I lived in that area about five nonconsecutive years. Something always called us back there. I think it was the mountains. I was well adapted to change by the time I met Kevin. I was also desperate to start making my own way in the world. I wanted stability. Kevin I fell in love and moved in together, forging our own path. At sixteen I had my high school diploma, a full time job, and was trying to save for an apartment. When Kevin and I moved in together we forged a commitment that we would love and support each other’s dreams. Kevin has never let me down even to this day. As I lie in my tent, telling him about my injury, he agreed I should rest for a day and went on to tell me how proud he was of me and how he had just finished editing the video of us hiking to the top of Springer Mountain together. He said I looked so happy and unable to stop smiling. I was. I truly was. And I loved him for wanting that for me.
I spent the next couple days camping above Lance Creek, resting my knee, before heading up to the top of Blood Mountain. As I made my way up its steep ascent I tried to push thoughts of pain out of my mind by telling myself I just needed to hike a few tough miles that day and then I would be able to rest again. The view at the top filled me with overwhelming emotion, compounded by the effort it had taken for me to get there. It was equally humbling. There was a young couple there that had come up for a day hike, an older gentleman and his shi tzu puppy, with red bows still tied neatly in her well-groomed fur, and an older woman, maybe in her sixties, with her two adult sons. All seemed only moderately tired from their hike. The reality of my situation was beginning to set in. If I couldn’t do something others might simply see as a day of recreation, how was I possibly going to handle the more difficult parts of the trail? I can’t say for sure that my injury happened that second day when I slipped on the ice or if it was from over use and being out of shape, or if it was a combination of these things, but I knew I did not want this to be over. Something inside me had been cracked open and I knew with all certainty that I had found a part of me that had been missing for a very long time. Those first few days on the trail I felt more alive and happy than I had felt in a very long time. By the time I had descended Blood Mountain, a was barely able to put any weight on my right leg, and was nearly using my trekking poles like crutches. I got a bunk at Mountain Crossings’ hostel and stayed three days before finally recognizing that I would need to put my hike on hold for a few weeks.
About five weeks after I first started my thru-hike I returned to the trail only to discover within a few short miles that my recovery would take more time and that I would not likely be completing a thru hike that year. Fast forward through the following 2 years and I was saddled with unexpected responsibilities, but stubbornly I continued planning for my next attempt. Now, three years later, I have the opportunity to try once again. I know that should I not complete a thru-hike, I would still have no regrets for that could only happen if I didn’t try at all.
I learned so much from that first experience. Most of all I learned how much I love backpacking and the trail community.
Update: Well guess what! It is August 2019 and I’ve purchased a van which I am converting to live in. I won’t be thru-hiking yet, but I do plan to travel and explore the trails, including sections of the AT, next summer. I’m super excited about it. I’ll be blogging my journey here and on YouTube.
*A trail angel is a person who provides random acts of kindness to long distance hikers. Often times this will be in the form of meals, lodging, or rides into town.