On our last hike, after two days of hearing about how nice his house was and what a great cook his wife was, Brew and I stopped one late afternoon near Canopus Lake to visit Steve’s house and test all of his amenities.
Everything was just as wonderful as he had described it. But something struck me while sitting in the hot tub, sipping a daiquiri made with fresh local strawberries. This felt too good, too easy, to be taking place on a trail record.
This time around, when New York Steve first arrived to help us, the weather was bright and sunny, and we traveled down the trail laughing and talking, reminiscing about old times and common friends.
However, the closer we got to his home near Canopus Lake and the messier the weather became, the less I saw of New York Steve and my crew. After each road crossing, he and the rest of them disappeared. I would continue hiking in the wet, foggy conditions—and Brew and Melissa would travel with New York Steve to his house to sit in his hot tub, take showers, watch TV, and drink daiquiris.
I knew that they needed and deserved this breather. Brew and Melissa had been with me for almost three weeks now. They’d suff-fered bug bites, sleepless nights, cramped cars, confusing roads, a hectic schedule, and one highly irrational hiker. So in a way, New York Steve was helping me by helping my crew.
But until this point, there had been a sense of solidarity. Brew and Melissa didn’t rest until I rested. They didn’t shower until I showered and when I was on the trail, they were either waiting for me, muling for me, or running errands for me. Now that we were in New York, the crew was taking mini-vacations, and it was driving me crazy.
I knew on this hike that I didn’t have time to go to New York Steve’s house. I knew that my job was to stay on the trail and hike, to listen to the pyrotechnic explosions, and to count the number of pot-filled campgrounds that I passed—but part of me really wanted to sit in a hot tub.
I could have dealt much better with my support crew’s alternate reality if I didn’t have to hear so much about it. Brew had the good sense to keep his mouth shut, but Melissa and Steve, the only two people who were hiking with me, did not hesitate to talk about their off-trail experiences.
It is hard to express the dichotomy of my emotions. I kept telling myself that I was happy for them. They were helping me, and I wanted them to have some type of reward. Melissa even asked my permission before accepting New York Steve’s invitation to spend consecutive nights at his house. And I gave her permission—I truly wanted her to enjoy a night, or several nights, off the trail. But when she came back in the morning and gave me the full report, I also wanted to smack her across the face.
My feelings were intensified while hiking in the rain toward Bear Mountain State Park. I had traveled this section in 2008 with New York Steve, and it had been one of my best memories from the entire summer. But this time, I was hiking alone, chilled from the sweat trapped inside my rain jacket, and tripping constantly on the slick rocks that littered the trail. The sound of fireworks was now complemented by actual mock-warfare taking place near the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. And all that external noise exacerbated my internal dilemma. I was in the midst of an emotional battle, and I wasn’t quite sure who was winning.
I think the reason I was so bothered by my crew’s off-trail excursions was because everything was still so hard for me. My shin splints felt better, but they still hurt. And while I had not suffered any stomach problems since leaving Vermont, I still felt weak all day. I no longer had to deal with the gnarly terrain of northern New England, but I had forgotten about the constant PUDS (pointless ups and downs) of New York. Things had dramatically and measurably improved. So why did every day on the trail still seem like it was the hardest day of my life?
Then it dawned on me: this was as good as it was going to get.
There was no five-mile handicap in bad weather. I didn’t have any wiggle room on days when I felt especially tired. I was going to have to maximize every minute between here and Georgia. As it stood now, I had to average forty-nine miles per day to break the record. I was in pain, I was tired, I was wet, I was annoyed with my crew—and this was a good day.
When I arrived at the Bear Mountain Bridge, I met Brew and he walked with me across the Hudson River. Ever since overcoming the sharp knife-like sensation in my shins, I began to embrace road walks, not just for their ease, but also because they allowed me to walk with my husband.
“It’s hard for me to hear Steve and Melissa talk about all the luxuries at Steve’s house,” I said.
“Well, you should tell them that,” suggested Brew.
“How can I? Don’t you think I’ll sound like a diva, and a bad friend?”
“Setting a record is not about building friendships,” Brew said. “You have to stay focused. And besides, if there is any time in your life when being a diva is justified, this is it.”
“Well, do you feel like things have changed since Steve got here?”
“What do you mean?” asked Brew.
“It just feels like there are more distractions. I really appreciate all his help and all the food he is bringing, but last night when he brought pizza and beer, I felt like he was upset with me when I crawled in my tent and didn’t sit outside and socialize. I just feel like he wants to have a good time, and he expects it to be like it was in 2008. I don’t think he realizes how different it is.”
“I’ll talk to Steve and Melissa,” said Brew.
“That’s not your job,” I replied.
“It’s my job to make this trip less difficult for you and to allow you to focus only on hiking. So I’ll take care of it.”
I turned toward Brew, not to say anything, but just to admire him. I always knew that I had a great husband, but still, something about him this summer seemed supernatural. Maybe he was like the Dover Oak; I could appreciate him better and take in more of his love when I was running on empty.
I continued hiking with Brew through the Bear Mountain State Park Zoo, which straddles the trail and is home to native Appalachian animals. For a hiker like me who loves wildlife, it is one of the highlights of the trail.
I had seen numerous wild animals since leaving Katahdin. In fact, one of the unique and unexpected benefits of trying to set the record was encountering so many. Already, I had seen more moose, porcupines, and skunks than I had on my other two Appalachian Trail hikes, and my bear tally was climbing almost daily. The long days, combined with plenty of solitude and a heightened awareness that comes from spending so much time in the wilderness, did wonders for my animal count.
The advantage of routing the trail through an actual zoo is that it provides the perfect opportunity to take all those wildlife pictures that don’t naturally present themselves in the forest—and still include them in your A.T. slideshow with a clear conscience. On that particular afternoon, however, all of God’s more sensible creatures were hiding in their habitats and keeping out of the rain.
The trail to the top of Bear Mountain had been rerouted and now followed stone steps that looked more like rockwork at a mansion in nearby Greenwich, Connecticut, than the primitive Appalachian Trail. When I reached the monument on top of the mountain, Melissa met me, and we began hiking in the rain over more PUDS, then across the Palisades Parkway and into Har-riman State Park. The rain and fog prevented us from seeing the Manhattan skyline from Black Mountain, but I was hardly disappointed because I was enjoying my time with Melissa so much.
It was clear that she and Brew had had a talk. Even though Melissa and I both knew she would soon be spending another night at New York Steve’s, she did not mention anything about the house, or the car with heated seats or the Tempur-Pedic mattress. Instead, we focused on the trail, and we evolved—tempo-rarily, at least—from two people trying to set a record into two little kids who loved sliding on wet slabs of granite, splashing in puddles, and skiing down muddy descents. We came to the next road crossing, laughing and yelling for Brew and Steve.
Even though it was almost dark, Steve
and Melissa did not leave. Instead, Steve decided he was going to night hike—for the first time ever.
Together, we put on our headlamps and headed off into the woods. We traveled as fast as we could until the sun went down, then we navigated slowly and cautiously across the rocky terrain. It was a difficult section because there was a handful of bouldering obstacles, such as the Lemon Squeezer—a narrow passage that forced you to turn sideways, suck in, and shuffle between two large rocks.
If I had not completed the trail twice before, I would have had trouble staying on the correct path. I also never would have believed that the trail disappeared over and in between the imposing boulders that surrounded us. At one point, I had to hug the base of a tree and lower my body to a ledge five feet below. I realized midway through that I had picked a bad route and needed to reposition myself because I couldn’t see anything beneath me or get a foothold. I was suspended in the air with no place to go. I looked up at Steve’s headlamp.
“Steve, I need you to grab my hand.”
He reached out and held on to my wrist, allowing me to slide my body to the right and touch my toes to solid ground.
“Okay, I’m good now. You can let go.”
When we arrived at the next road crossing, Steve was so proud of his night-hiking adventure that I could hear him providing play-by-play of the entire stretch to Melissa as they climbed into his car to drive home. That night, it didn’t bother me that Steve did not spend the night on the trail. What did it matter if he went home to relax in a hot tub? He had been there when I needed a hand.
That night, Brew and I camped together in our tent a few hundred yards away from the road crossing. One of my biggest fears before the hike was that I wouldn’t be able to adapt to the lack of sleep on the trail. At home, I was used to getting eight or nine hours of sleep at night, and even then I had trouble getting up in the morning. This summer I was lucky to get six, but it was surprising how well my body had adapted to the change. During the day, I usually drank one or two caffeinated drinks to help stay alert and energized—nothing scary like the small, brightly colored energy shots near the cash register at a gas station—just a coffee at breakfast or Coke with lunch.
The main drawback of getting less sleep was that my body didn’t recover as quickly as it usually did. In addition to my lingering soreness and swollen feet, my scrapes, blisters, and bruises took longer to heal, too. Wounds that I had sustained in Maine were still trying to scab over. My body did not have its usual reserves set aside to repair itself.
One of the biggest threats to my hike was infection. So far, I had spent only one night in a hotel, and I could count the number of showers I had taken on a single hand. Every night before I went to bed, I either had to take a sponge bath or clean myself with wet wipes. Between that and still having to wrap my shins each morning, I was losing half an hour each day to upkeep and preventative care. And that made sleep seem even more precious.
I tried to do everything possible to maximize it. Recently I even asked Brew to “cook” my freeze-dried dinner earlier in the day. If the meal was cold or lukewarm, I figured I could ingest it faster than if it were hot and steaming.
On our last night in New York, I scarfed down a cold package of lasagna; wiped myself down with water, a bandana, and biodegradable soap; and exactly twenty-eight minutes after I stopped hiking, I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and fell asleep.
I rarely woke up in the middle of the night. There were a few instances where I had to wake up to pee, and once in Connecticut I was stirred when Brew meekly asked me to relinquish one of the two sleeping bags in our tent. But beyond a handful of exceptions, as soon as I closed my eyes, I entered another realm.
Unfortunately, my unconscious state was not always restful. I dreamed about hiking. The repetitive motion of putting one foot in front of the other continued in my head even when my body was at rest. As is often the case with a dream, it didn’t make sense. I usually felt lost or rushed. A lot of times, my mind pulled images from places that I passed earlier in the day, and I would feel as if I were turned around, headed in the wrong direction. I also had frequent nightmares about sleeping through my alarm in the morning.
That last night in New York, I fell asleep and immediately started to dream that I was lost and needed to get back on track. I was falling behind schedule. I knew Brew was going to worry about me and I wasn’t going to be able to set the record. I wondered where the path was and why everything was so dark. Then I heard Brew’s voice.
“Honey? Honey! What are you doing?”
“I have to keep hiking . . . I have to find the trail!”
Then I felt Brew grab my arm and shake it, and suddenly I realized that I was on my knees, pawing at the tent like a caged animal.
“It’s still night-time,” Brew told me gently. “It’s not time to hike. It’s time to sleep.”
I was thankful he explained this to me as if I were a three-year-old because I was still struggling to put the pieces together. Finally, after a few more seconds, I realized that I’d been trying to “sleep hike.” Before this summer, I had never been accused of snoring, talking in my sleep, or sleepwalking—but now I was doing all three.
As soon as Brew stopped me from breaking out of the tent, I lay down and immediately fell back asleep. Then at 4:44 a.m., I woke up—as I did most mornings—exactly one minute before my alarm sounded. Thankfully, that was the only time that I remember trying to sleep hike. But after that, Brew realized that he couldn’t fully rest at night, either. He was on duty even in the darkness. From then on, he interrogated me whenever I left the tent for a midnight bathroom break.
The next day, my delirium had not completely dissipated, and I was cautious to stay on the right trail, headed in the right direction. Still, almost every turn gave me a slight sense of déjà vu. That was one area where having completed the trail twice before and in different directions was actually working against me. This wooden footbridge looks really familiar, I would think. Did I cross over it two hours ago or two years ago? It was amazing how many mental images my brain had locked away from those previous hikes.
I was at a place now on my journey where I absolutely marveled at the human body and mind—how those two anatomical partners sometimes seemed like close allies, and yet, at other times seemed directly opposed to one another. I couldn’t believe that my body and mind (with a little prodding from my husband) had been able to overcome all the pain, injury, and sickness that I had faced during the past few weeks. It was amazing that I could hike forty-five to fifty miles each day on just six hours of sleep. It was equally incredible that my digestive system could process 6,000 calories every day. And I didn’t understand how I kept waking up one minute before my alarm sounded, especially since I was absolutely exhausted and I went to bed at a different time each night.
My first thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail had taught me to feel confident and beautiful because I realized that my body was part of God’s breathtaking creation. But on this hike, I valued my body on an even deeper level. My physical potential seemed almost incomprehensible—a miracle and a mystery.
One of the reasons I wanted to keep going was because I was curious how my body would respond. Trying to discover your maximum potential is an exhilarating experiment.
My first full day in New Jersey brought with it one of my favorite stretches of trail. Near Vernon, New Jersey, there is a one-mile boardwalk that spans a protected wetland where beautiful red-winged blackbirds swoop above and below the tall, thin cattails. On any hike, I would appreciate that the entire stretch was flat, without a root or a rock to obstruct the path. But on a hike where my husband was not allowed to walk with me for 99.9% of the trail, it was even better. The boardwalk offered a twenty-minute section where we could simply be together. And the fact that it was wide enough to walk hand in hand was a great bonus.
Usually when Brew and I walked together, we didn’t talk about the hike or logistics. We focused on other things. Sometimes we were
just silent, and sometimes Brew sang. Okay, almost every time we hiked together, Brew sang. I loved it. He asked for suggestions and when he refused to sing Mumford and Sons for the umpteenth time, I would usually request “Mighty Clouds of Joy.” It is a gospel song that I first heard on one of Brew’s mix CDs. It made sense that I wanted to hear something soulful. This hike demanded every ounce of my being, and I wanted to hear a song that reflected that.
Before this summer, when Brew and I hiked together and he didn’t have a bum knee, he would wait until we were on remote portions of trail before he serenaded me. But since our time was limited this trip, it didn’t matter that there were dayhikers and mothers with strollers coming down the boardwalk toward us. Brew sang at the top of his lungs anyway.
“Those old storm clouds
Are slowly drifting by.
And those old raindrops
Are fading from your eyes.
Oh, Mr. Sun, Oh, Mr. Sun,
Will shine on us again
When those mighty clouds of joy
Come rolling in.”
Brew had the ability to make his voice sound low and thunderous when the song was sad and then raise it to something more upbeat when the tone was hopeful. But my favorite part of this particular song was when my husband did his best James Brown impersonation for the chorus.
“Holy Jesus, Oh, Holy Jesus,
Let your love seize us.
Let us fi-i-ind sweet peace within.
Hallelujah. Shout Hallelujah!
Happiness begins
When those mighty clouds of joy
Come rolling in.”
At the conclusion of his solo, Brew received an “amen” from a man walking past us. It had been a good date. It also made me a hair more optimistic as I hiked up to the base of the next mountain under a sky that was darkening with afternoon thunderclouds.
Called Again Page 14