Hiking Through: One Man's Journey to Peace and Freedom on the Appalachian Trail

by Paul V. Stutzman

  But this sad state is only temporary. The plug is, after all, man-made; everything man builds eventually deteriorates. I am no kin to Nostradamus, but my prediction is that someday all the great and small rivers of the world will flow freely as God intended. Nor am I an anarchist or a wacko environmentalist, but only a voice in the wilderness speaking for rivers wishing to flow freely.

  It was Wednesday. Our goal was to reach Fontana Village by noon Saturday. Sailor had a mail drop at the post office there, and I had a bounce box waiting for me. Before leaving Springer Mountain, I had mailed a box with extra food and supplies to this location. I would resupply from the box, and then mail (or “bounce”) it to a location approximately a week ahead of us. We wanted to arrive at the post office before closing on Saturday, so we pushed for extra miles, running on energy from our huge breakfast.

  We put nineteen miles behind us, our biggest day thus far. But the sun was setting, and we had not found a suitable camping spot. Finally, at Tellico Gap, we had no choice but to stealth camp, setting up in an area not meant for camping. On uneven ground, beside a series of power lines running through the gap, we settled in for the night.

  ———

  The following morning, we stopped at the Nantahala Outdoor Center, which houses an outfitter, a small grocery, a whitewater rafting center, and a cozy restaurant hanging over the river’s waters. Hamburgers at River’s End Restaurant are legendary, and with our burgers we downed several energy drinks, fortifying ourselves for the climb we knew was ahead.

  Cheoah Bald was eight miles away, a long, tough uphill climb. We stopped one mile short of the bald. Too tired to set up our tents, we braved the Sassafras Gap Shelter that night. Friendly people, a covered porch with a skylight, and only minor concerns about resident mice made my second shelter stay considerably better than the first.

  The next morning, Friday, it turned cold and windy. Six miles brought us to a small clearing at Stecoah Gap, where several men had set up a grill and offered hikers hot dogs, candy bars, chips, and beverages. The Good Samaritan this time was a former thru-hiker. Those additional calories helped us knock off the next twelve miles quickly, and we knew we’d meet our deadline. We were less than five miles from the Fontana post office and the comforts of the Fontana Lodge when we stopped for the night just past Walker Gap.

  I pitched Big Agnes in a clearing only three feet from a small stream. The little creek was so close I could almost filter water without leaving my tent. I settled in for the night, relaxing into the murmuring of the brook, the sound a balm for my tired body and spirit.

  I thought I could hear the soft voice of God in the music of the brook. Apostle, did you see Me today?

  “Yes, God, and thank You for springtime!” The valleys and mountains were bursting with new life. At higher elevations, buds were starting to appear. In the gaps, flowers waved as I walked by. The earthy smell of spring was everywhere.

  How about the butterfly? Did you see the butterfly?

  “Dear God, that was awesome! It stopped me in my tracks.”

  That morning, a beautiful butterfly had floated above my head, sailed ahead on the path, then circled back and fluttered around me. As I walked, it drifted along beside me for a while. I had watched it with amazement. “Yes, God, and today I remembered that other butterfly You sent my way.”

  Mary had loved butterflies, especially Monarchs. The Monarch is sometimes called the milkweed butterfly, because most of its life cycle takes place on milkweed plants. Every year, my wife drove out into the country, located a stand of milkweed, and searched for a caterpillar marked with bright yellow and black stripes. The chosen caterpillar would be housed in a mason jar topped with screen, furnished with twigs and plenty of milkweed leaves. Then the waiting and watching began.

  For about two weeks, the caterpillar did nothing but eat and eliminate. But then the excitement started. Mary never missed it, and she made certain we didn’t either. Her excited call would round up the family, and we’d watch that caterpillar start to spin. Hanging upside down from a twig or the bottom surface of the screen, the caterpillar spins until the exterior skeleton slips off and the chrysalis forms a jade green shell.

  For the next several weeks, the chrysalis hung immobile. If we went on vacation during that time, the jar of hope traveled in the front seat with us. As the butterfly developed inside, the green sheath slowly changed color and became thin and almost transparent. When the chrysalis finally started to move gently, Mary again gathered our family to watch the drama unfold. Soon a wrinkled, deformed butterfly emerged. For several hours, this sad-looking creature would hang on to its former home, slowly moving its wings up and down in an effort to dry and strengthen them.

  Then came the ceremony of release. To the front porch we all went, and with Mary’s encouraging words, “Fly, little butterfly,” the now-beautiful creature was set free.

  In the week before Mary left us, she spent both days and nights in her chair in the living room, enduring considerable pain, not wanting to move between the chair and bed. Finally, we convinced her to move to her bedroom. As I lifted her from the chair to a wheelchair, someone exclaimed, “Look out there!”

  Outside our glass door, a tree branch curved over the balcony, and a caterpillar inched along that branch, ten feet from the ground. In seventeen years of living in that house, we had never seen a caterpillar on that tree. None have been there since that day. This little messenger crept along the branch, then onto a smaller twig, inching closer to the sliding door. I wheeled Mary over so she could get a better view.

  I had no doubt God was showing us that Mary was going through her own metamorphosis. She would be set free to fly away, just like all the butterflies she had released into the sunshine.

  I settled Mary in her bed, then went back to find the caterpillar. But it had disappeared. Later, I related this little story to our pastor. He did not seem surprised; he said he had often seen God reveal Himself, especially at difficult times.

  ———

  Following Mary’s funeral, I gave some of the flower arrangements to the local nursing home and several friends. I still had a living room full of flowers, so I decided those would go to my sisters and Mary’s friends who had been so helpful during her illness.

  The day after the funeral, a friend of Mary’s brought me a twig with a chrysalis bound to it. I stuck the twig into a flower arrangement. One of my sisters had told me she had never seen a butterfly emerge, so I would give her this one to enjoy.

  That evening, I fell asleep in my chair in the living room. At two in the morning, an unfamiliar sound woke me. A mysterious fluttering whisper was coming from the assortment of plants and collectibles on the shelf above the kitchen cabinets. I stood dumbfounded as a Monarch butterfly emerged from the plants and danced around me in the living room. It had abandoned its chrysalis before I could deliver it to my sister. I watched in wonderment, not quite believing what I was seeing.

  Now it was my turn to grant freedom. The Monarch did not seem eager to leave, but was attracted to the light in the living room. I turned off that light, and turned on the kitchen light. Follow the light, little butterfly. It came to the kitchen. I shut off the kitchen light and flipped on the light in the foyer. The butterfly followed. I opened the front door and snapped off the foyer light while turning on the porch light. Go, little butterfly, fly away. You are free. The butterfly winged through the front door and disappeared.

  In my tent beside the brook, I remembered the unexpected caterpillar and the night visit of the Monarch butterfly. And before I realized it, I was talking aloud, talking with that voice of God in the brook. Correction, I was talking to the voice, because once I got started, I was on a roll and didn’t give much chance for reply.

  “Yes, God, I understood the symbolism that night. You set Mary free. So You were there all along? I often questioned whether You cared about what was happening to us. If You care, why did she suffer so, and die?”

  I didn’t want glib, churc
hy lines. I wanted answers.

  “Is there a reason for all this sickness and death? If You are in control of everything, why is the world in such a mess?”

  Was He listening? Was He there?

  “I need to know if You are firmly in command. I could make a case that You do not control events and everything happens at random. But if I can convince myself that You do have a plan, then maybe I could believe Mary died for a good reason.”

  If God cared but let us suffer anyway, then I was angry and would be a bit brash with Him.

  “How can You know how much pain we went through? Do You know what it’s like to lose a wife or a mom? Oh, yes, You lost a son once. But You were only apart for three days. Even I could bear just three days of separation.”

  An answer came back, cutting through my pent-up questions and frustration.

  You are missing the point, my dear Apostle.

  A storm warned me of its rapid approach. Lightning crackled around the campsite and thunder rumbled and echoed through the mountains. The sound of raindrops drowned out my conversation with the brook. Another thunder clap seemed to shake the very ground under our campsite. God had apparently moved from the gentle brook to the powerful storm.

  “Wow, God! You can talk loudly!” I said at last—when I could speak again.

  You’re a funny one, aren’t you, Apostle?

  “Created in Your own image, I believe. Perhaps I am missing the point, but that’s why I’m out here. Sure wish I’d always hear You this clearly. Oh, and thanks for the butterfly today. I’ll look for You tomorrow on the trail.”

  Several storms rolled over us during the night, but by six o’clock the next morning the rain had stopped and we were on the trail, headed for Fontana Dam. I had called ahead to the Hike Inn, a hostel near the dam, to check on available space. They were full; many hikers were out on the trail for the weekend.

  Plan B was to stay at Fontana Lodge in the Fontana Village Resort. Just when we had become stinking, honest-to-goodness woodsmen, a resort was tossed our way to soften us up again. The village, a few miles off the trail, also offered a small grocery, an outfitter, and a post office. Fontana Dam was built during World War II, when the war effort demanded more electricity; the cottages in the village housed up to five thousand workers during construction of the dam. Now those cottages are vacation rentals and time-shares.

  The rain brought fresh signs of new growth. Everywhere, vegetation was changing. One small sentinel of spring met me, a morel mushroom, standing alone in the middle of my path. Climbing hills and scouring woods in search of those tasty morsels is one of my favorite springtime rituals. I had to force myself to keep hiking.

  The morning’s hike would be an easy one, just two and a half miles downhill to the dam, then another two miles off the trail and into the village. Our path soon brought us to a parking area close to the dam. Fontana Dam marks the southern boundary of Great Smoky Mountains National Park, so we were required to fill out a park permit at the visitor center. It was a simple form, requiring only basic information and no fee.

  A car pulled into the parking area and unloaded a hiker. We discovered the driver was the owner of the Hike Inn, returning one of her guests to the trail. She apologized for not having a room for us, but offered to drive us the remaining two miles to the village, dropping us off in front of the Fontana Lodge. We checked in and found a beautiful lodge, a comfortable room, an exceptional restaurant, and a Coke machine. Oh, yes, life was good.

  At the post office, Sailor picked up a food box from his wife, and I resupplied from my bounce box, taking things I judged necessary for the next hundred miles and sending the remainder ahead to Hot Springs, North Carolina. After a stop at a laundromat, we went back to our room for what would become the food box ritual. Sailor’s wife always sent far more food than he could possibly carry, so he dumped out the box, took his choice first, and then granted Marathon Man and me the extra fruit and candy.

  At the Mountview Bistro in the lodge, we met another group of hikers, and in the usual exchange of information we learned that our path across the dam was closed. The Appalachian Trail follows a roadway that crosses over the top of the dam, but a defect had been discovered, construction crews were set up to repair it, and the dam was closed to all traffic. A defect in this concrete monstrosity? At 480 feet, this was the highest dam east of the Rockies, and backed up thirty miles of water to create the lake. A defect could not be reassuring to folks living downstream.

  I was intrigued, though, by another option. If we were brave enough, we could try to sneak across the dam. A three-hundred-dollar fine was meant to discourage anyone from ignoring the “Closed” signs, but several hikers who had crossed and were subsequently caught assured us their fines had been only one hundred dollars.

  I wanted to attempt the crossing. If caught, I would just consider the penalty a fee for my travel, like a toll booth on an interstate. But Marathon Man stubbornly refused to go across that dam. Maybe it was because the fine also came with a night in jail.

  The next morning, we took a shuttle to the trailhead at the northern end of the dam. It was decision time.

  If the Appalachian Trail is closed for any reason, the marked alternate route is considered the official AT. Since the trail across Fontana Dam was now inaccessible, a two-mile, blue-blazed trail circled the concrete wall, connecting to the AT once again on the northern side. That blue-blazed detour trail left the AT back at the parking area on the southern end of the dam, where we had hitched a ride to the lodge yesterday. Many of the other hikers who had stayed in the village just took the shuttle to the northern end, picked up the AT there, and avoided the two-mile detour. If I started hiking at this northern point, I could no longer claim to be a purist hiker.

  I could not cheat. I asked the van driver to take me back to the parking area by the marina, where we had left the trail yesterday, and I would pick up the blue-blazed detour there. My Appalachian hike would be two miles longer than the official miles listed in the handbook.

  Sailor and Marathon Man detoured with me. Sailor was also still a purist hiker, and Marathon Man knew that his plans would take him off the trail in a few days, so his choice was to keep our company a bit longer. We left the parking lot, and a few steps down the trail we came to the Fontana Dam Shelter. The hiking community knows this place as the Fontana Hilton; it’s one of the more modern shelters on the trail, with two levels that sleep twenty-four, a smooth wooden floor, running water, and nearby restrooms. We stopped to read the register and catch up on trail happenings.

  Two miles later, we rejoined the AT at the northern end of the dam, where a welcome sign ushered us into the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. My outfitter back in Ohio had predicted cold nights and possible snow in the Smokies; but even with his warnings, I had no idea what we were heading into.

  Our Great Smoky sojourn began with Shuckstack Mountain, a four-mile climb. For the next seventy miles, we would be hiking high in the mountains, at elevations between four and six thousand feet. Three miles beyond Shuckstack, we walked into a spring scene that etched itself into my memory.

  At Doe Knob, large patches of white wildflowers covered the forest floor. The white, fringed phacelias were small and delicate, but so plentiful that the pools of blossoms looked almost like a covering of snow. The air was getting colder, and as we approached the area of the flower-snow, small round ice pellets began to fall, bouncing like hail. Little white balls bounced up and down in the field of fringed blossoms, everywhere a movement of white. The entire expanse of tiny flowers seemed to dance in excitement, waving and welcoming us to the Smokies.

  By four o’clock, we had put thirteen uphill miles behind us and were tired and cold and ready to end the day. In the Smoky Mountains, the risk of bear encounters is considerably higher, and all hikers are required to overnight in shelters. Most reserve spots in advance, but thru-hikers cannot know exactly when they will reach any given point, so each shelter holds four spots for the first thru-hik
ers who arrive. If the shelter is full, park regulations do permit hikers to set up camp outside, as long as tents are within protection of the building.

  We were only a short distance from Mollie’s Ridge Shelter, and we met a ridge runner who advised us to spend the night there. We learned from him that a large number of hikers were out, weather conditions were deteriorating, and shelters would fill up early in the afternoon.

  Someone had put a canvas covering on the front of this building, offering some protection from the cold wind. We three quickly claimed our spots inside, and I ventured out into the cold one more time to filter water at a nearby spring, one liter for my meal that night and one for my pack the next day. Hikers trickled in throughout the evening. Those arriving later had to pitch their tents outside in the cold.

  That night, I silently thanked my salesman at the outfitter for selling me a five-degree sleeping bag. Even wrapped in the warm sleeping bag, I again wore every article of clothing I had with me, trying to keep the cold at bay.

  Extreme cold the next morning prompted a quick start. It was snowing hard, and we needed to keep moving just to stay warm. I had gloves, but they were little protection against the cold. I warmed one hand under my coat, against my body, while holding both hiking poles in the other. Then I’d switch hands, trying to keep my fingers thawed. I grabbed the water hose coming from my pack for a drink of water, but there was nothing. My drinking water had frozen. Finally, I resorted to eating the shining ice crystals covering the trees and foliage all around me.

  The first cold climb of the day was a short bump over Devils Tater Patch. Stones resembling potatoes protrude from the ground everywhere, giving this area its name.