AWOL on the Appalachian Trail (36 page)
Read AWOL on the Appalachian Trail Online
Authors: David Miller
Thanks to all the hikers who were on the trai
l in 2003 who shared and defined my thru-hike experience. Many of my companions reviewed drafts of this book and refreshed my memory of the events. There are too many to list here; I hope I have fairly represented you in the book. Thanks to the ATC, all the other volunteer organizations, and the volunteers who--literally--make the trail.
During my hike I received help from numerous people, most notably Dan and Wilma Kesecker, who put me up while I recovered from injury. Dave Martinage (Arrow, Georgia-Maine 2002) helped with advice, encouragement, food, rides, and a place to stay. Richard Stowell (Bluejay Lafey) gave much-needed help when Juli visited. The Witchers were generous hosts. I appreciate all of the accommodations, often at significant discounts and many times for free, that I received. I am thankful to everyone, especially my coworkers, who gave me feedback, support, and encouragement while I was on the trail.
I thank ZipDrive and Leif,
TrailJournals.com
webmasters, for providing me with a means of organizing and posting my journal. I owe thanks to Suzy Leonard from the
Florida Today
newspaper for trusting me to report from the trail.
I am grateful for editorial input from John LaChance, Mike Perez, and my sister, Dee Bowman. Steve Wheeler created all the maps that appear in this book, helped with formatting the photographs, and collaborated with me on the cover design.
Thanks, Dad and Mom, for supporting me in every way possible, and Chris, who was with me in many of my early backpacking trips, and for insights into thru-hiking that helped me make the decision to go.
I thank my children, Jessie, Rene, and Lynn, for understanding my absence and for making me want to be a better person.
Last and most importantly, thanks to Juli for agreeing to the adventure, supporting me while I was hiking, and for doing the job of two parents. Juli influenced the content of this book more than any other person. She proofread and provided opinions on every aspect of the book.
David Miller is a software engineer and writer. His book
The A.T. Guide
, which is updated annually, is considered a leading guidebook for those wishing to hike the Appalachian Trail. The author, his wife, and their three children reside in Titusville, Florida.
1
The name was changed in 2005 to Appalachian Trail Conservancy. For a wealth of data about the AT, visit
www.AppalachianTrail.or
g
.
2
The Appalachian Trail is marked by stripes of white approximately six inches tall and two inches wide, usually painted on trees at eye level. In the absence of trees, blazes are painted on rocks
or signposts. Ideally, the blazes are spaced such that the next white blaze is visible from the current one.
3
Dan "Wingfoot" Bruce,
The Thru-Hiker's Handbook
(Conyers, GA: Center for Appalachian Trail Studies, 2003). Thru-hikers most often refer to it as "Wing
foot" instead of by title. Mr. Bruce has since retired. For a contemporary guidebook, visit:
www.theATguide.com
.
4
Iliotibial band friction syndrome: The iliotibial band is a tendon that runs along the outside of the thigh, connected to the hip and shin. The tendon glides across the outer surface of the knee
joint when the knee bends. On days when the knee is flexed more often than normal, the friction between the band and the joint causes inflammation. Stretching helps, but the real solution is prevention.
5
"Mail drop" is a box of supplies, mostly food, mailed ahead to post offices. Hotels, hostels, and outfitters also hold mail as a courtesy to hikers.
6
The superb Web site
www.TrailJournals.com
hosts Internet journals for hikers of all major trails.
7
Northbound and southbound hikers are most likely to meet in New England. The Bears are on an atypical, long hike started in the summer of 2002. They hiked through winter and are finishing in spr
ing.
8
PocketMail is a device similar to a PDA. I would compose journal entries or letters on the trail and send them when I reached a phone, via an acoustic coupler.
9
"Merlin" was the only trail name I ever suggested. I received a note from Mike late in my hike that read in part:
"Congratulations on your imminent completion of your
through-hike! I made it about 600 miles before stopping. Actually, I went up north and climbed Katahdin and was ready to start the 100-Mile Wilderness southbound (flip-flopping) when I decided I didn't trust one of my knees for such a long stretch with a lot of food, so I stopped for the year...Rain and Shine read your suggestion in the Brown Fork Shelter log, that I use 'Merlin' as my trail name, and I liked it (a lot, actuall), so 'Merlin' it is."
10
A "zero" is a day in which a thru-hiker does not hike. Hikers will use it as a noun or verb: "Yesterday was a zero" or "I'll zero tomorrow." I used the
term "nero" for a day in which I walked only a few miles.
11
"Vitamin I" is a trail term for ibuprofen.
12
The balsam woolly adelgid is responsible for fir devastation. See
http://www.nps.gov/grsm/pphtml/
subenvironmentalfactors28.html
.
13
Bear cables: A horizontal steel cable is strung between trees, supporting a vertical cable by a pulley. Hikers attach their food bags and pulley them up to a height of about fifteen feet. Bears
can't reach the food from the ground or by climbing a tree.
14
Another trail term, taken from the cartoon bear with a fondness for picnic food.
15
I would maintain the habit of treating water for the duration of my hike. I used either a pump-filtering device called First Need or drops called Aqua Mira.
16
"Ron" and "Wall Street" were not their real or trail names.
17
I would finish the trail in 146 days. I hiked on 128 days, averaging about seventeen miles per day, and took eighteen zero days.
18
Cimarron had to leave the trail a short time later with a bad knee. This would be the last time I saw him on the trail. In 2004 he resumed his hike and sent me a postcard in September of that ye
ar:
"Well I finally finished doing the AT on Sept. 7. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I was the oldest (82) person on the trail. It was a perfect day when I went up the Big-K. Hope it makes me a better person."
19
Miss Janet even wrote me after my trip to apologize for the inconvenience, exhibiting the good will that has made her extremely popular among thru-hikers.
20
The information turned out to be inaccurate. She is in remission.
21
Jess Carr,
Murder on the Appalachian Trail
(Radford, VA: Com.
22
Or so I thought at the time. Popsicle actually did continue, and she completed her thru-hike. She concocted the story about getting off the trail in case there was any attempt at retribution. The
story worked; I did not learn about Popsicle's ruse until the final draft of this writing.
23
W. Somerset Maugham,
The Razor's Edge
(New York: Penguin Books, 1984).
24
In 1980 Rosie Ruiz "won" the Boston Marathon by jumping out from among the spectators near the end of the race. She finished the New York Marathon by taking the subway.
25
Towpath details from the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal National Historic Park Web site:
http://www.nps.gov/choh/
.
26
Dharma Bum is an often-used trail name taken from the title of Jack Kerouac's 1958 novel.
27
I mulled over trail names during the year I was preparing to start my hike. "Awol" was always my frontrunner, so I was devastated when I saw someone else start a 2003 journal on
www.TrailJournals.com
using the trail name "AWOL." I kicked myself for procrastinating on the start of my own journal. A few weeks later, the hiker decided to abandon the name. This seemed to confirm that "Awol" was meant to be my trail name. Skittles is the hiker who had changed his mind about using "AWOL."
28
Hopeful was rejuvenated after a few days off and got a ride back to the point where he left the trail. He would go on to complete the trail in its entirety.
29
Lion King's excellent documentary is available through
www.walkingwithfreedom.com
.
30
We got a ride from avid hiker Bluejay Lafey. Bluejay had been reading my Internet journal, and we exchanged e-mails. In planning my visit, I asked Bluejay about the region, and he not only offered
us a ride, he bought us breakfast, too. He says doing trail magic is his way of banking karma for when he does his hiking.
31
I suspect that IT band friction syndrome is a common, but undiagnosed, overuse ailment among hikers. Anyone planning to backpack should learn about this injury and how to prevent and alleviate the
problem by gradually increasing the number of miles walked, and by using tretching exercises that target the tendon.
32
Elizabeth Gilbert,
The Last American Man
(New York: Penguin Publishing, 2002). Eustace has lived all of his adult life in the woods, without modern conveniences. He hiked the Ap
palachian Trail and made a transcontinental horseback ride from the Atlantic to the Pacific. He lectures about the merits of living off the land.
33
Calling my bearing on the trail "north" has always been a generalization, and the generalization is less accurate the further I travel up the East Coast. My direction is nearly northeas
t. Even my compass gets confused this far up the coast. Magnetic declination: In North America, the earth's magnetic field pulls a compass to a point more near the top center of Canada than the North Pole. On Springer, a compass points four degrees too far west; on Katahdin it is off by more than seventeen degrees.
34
Peter Matthiessen,
The Snow Leopard
(New York: Penguin Books, 1978).
35
A "cairn" in the Whites is a conical stack of stone, usually as tall as a man. In the absence of trees, this is the most effective way to mark the trail. White blazes are hard to spot o
n the rocks here since there is frequent fog, rain, and snow.
36
Gene Daniell and Steven D. Smith,
White Mountain Guide
(Boston, MA: Appalachian Mountain Club Books, 2003). Mount Washington is 6,288 feet high, second only to Clingmans Dome on
the AT. The term "small" is relative to the world's highest peaks. Mount Denali (aka McKinley, 20,320 feet) is the highest peak on the North American continent. There have been roughly the same number of deaths on Denali and Washington.
37
Ibid., 4.
38
The 100-Mile Wilder
ness is the most remote stretch of the AT, spanning from Monson, Maine, to the southern boundary of Baxter State Park.
39
On January 9, 2005, in Florida, well over a year after completing my hike, I drove across the southern part of the state, just above Lake Okeechobee. There was little traffic on two-lane Highway 98
, miles from any town. I stopped in the middle of the road to talk to a hiker walking alongside it. In a lifetime of living in Florida, I had never seen a backpacker while driving. I asked if he was on the Florida Trail. He said yes and added that the Florida Trail is part of the Eastern Continental Trail, which he had started in Canada two years ago. Finally, recognition kicked in for both of us. It was Crash Test Dummy.