Happy Trail (Park Ranger Book 1)

by Smartypants Romance

  “For the most part. One of them has a cough, but doesn’t seem serious,” Bandana tells me.

  “Good to know. Thanks.” I twist the cap back on my bottle and tuck it in the side pocket of my pack. “Ranger station is about eight miles ahead. If you need anything, stop in and we can assist you. You’re welcome to weather the storm in the valley with us.”

  After a quick goodbye, we head in opposite directions.

  I don’t encounter any more hikers for another couple of hours. Turns out, the guy with the cough is a man in his fifties with buzzed, silver hair and the thin physique of someone who’s been on the trail for months.

  He’s happy to chat for a few minutes and I get the sense he’s a real talker. He hacks a few times and I’m concerned he’s on the verge of bronchitis or pneumonia, especially given how common respiratory infections are among hikers once the weather cools.

  “You might want to check in at the station for your cough. We’re not far from Green Valley and you can see a doc in town,” I suggest. “Storm’s coming in and you don’t want to get caught in the bad weather.”

  He thanks me and promises he’ll think about seeing the doctor. “By the way, there’s a young woman hiking solo. She said she was taking an extra day back at Clingmans Dome. Be sure you find her. She’s not traveling with a cell phone and won’t get the weather warning unless she hears it from another hiker or ranger.”

  Great. Nothing like being at the highest altitude of the whole damn trail when there’s a major storm blowing up the east coast and we’re the bull’s-eye.

  For the record, I’m not being a sexist asshole about a woman hiking the AT solo. Plenty of women complete the trail every year, but I’ve met enough of the male hikers to know it isn’t easy to be a woman on the AT.

  What annoys me is the lack of cell phone in case of emergency, especially this late in the season when other thru-hikers are few and far between. Unless she runs into day visitors, she’s not going to meet up with anyone heading in the opposite direction.

  Rescuing a damsel in distress is something best left to fairy tales.

  I’m a national park ranger, not some Prince Charming, who swoops in on his noble steed to save the princess and falls in love at first sight.

  Chapter Two

  Olive

  Love makes us do crazy things.

  For his thirtieth birthday, my boyfriend Tye decided to hike the Appalachian Trail. For the record, that’s over two thousand miles. Two hundred miles would be a lot. Honestly, twenty would’ve been inconceivable for me prior to this year.

  He promised it would be an “epic adventure.”

  I said yes.

  Mostly because I’d watched part of Wild on a flight once.

  In hindsight, I should’ve read the book.

  I don’t come from outdoorsy stock. The Perrys aren’t hiking people. We don’t even march in parades, should we be required to attend. We’re the people waving from floats or the back seat of a classic convertible, and in my grandfather’s case, behind bulletproof glass in an armored limo.

  My mother sometimes walks on a treadmill while watching The Today Show or strolls down Madison Avenue to shop and have lunch with friends. Dad is known to occasionally decline a cart on the golf course. That’s about it.

  Hiking wasn’t exactly on brand for Tye either.

  We’d met at a young patrons night at the Guggenheim. Surrounded by contemporary art and the babbling blah blah blah conversations of New York’s elite, our eyes locked. Sutton Wallingford III, known to everyone as Tye, was recently single and the hottest bachelor in the city. Barely back on the market after breaking off my engagement, I was available and interested. His family was thrilled about their son’s connection with the Perrys. My parents remained tepidly optimistic that this relationship would stick. In other words, we were perfect for each other. At least on paper.

  At a cocktail party for the latest YouTuber’s book launch, someone asked how we were training for hiking the Appalachian Trail. I joked I’d been walking for almost thirty years and was more than adept at putting one foot in front of the other, especially in four-inch heels.

  After the laughter subsided, two people simultaneously asked, “No, seriously, how are you training?”

  And then the enormity of hiking every single day for months hit me.

  This wouldn’t be a walk in Central Park.

  Tye found my panic “adorable” and only reluctantly agreed to attend wilderness preparedness classes and spend Saturday afternoons tromping up the hills of Fort Tyron park on the northern tip of Manhattan, wearing backpacks stuffed with canned goods to simulate carrying all of our belongings on our person.

  “This gives new meaning to the term pack rat,” I complained, flushed and out of breath while sitting on a curb next to a suspicious stain from either an animal or a human. Hard to tell without getting closer and I was already close enough.

  “Darling,” he reassured me, “we’re not ordinary hikers. I’ve hired a travel concierge to plan our route and make all the reservations and accommodations.”

  “We need reservations to sleep on the ground?” I asked, naïve to the world of camping.

  I mourn for that girl, the one who’d only ever gone to the bathroom in toilets. Sweet, innocent Olive no more. I’ve seen and done things I never imagined possible for myself.

  Months later, I could still hear Tye’s laughter at my questions. “No, at hotels, and if necessary, the occasional bed and breakfast along the way.”

  “Feels like cheating.” I don’t know why I protested the idea of a mattress instead of sleeping on sticks and rocks.

  He scoffed. “Says who? We’re not beholden to some sort of rulebook. Most thru-hikers stay at hostels whenever they can. If you want to share a room filled with bunk beds and strangers, I can call Mina and amend our itinerary.”

  Unlike the majority of hikers, we wouldn’t be starting in Georgia in April. Turned out, Tye had a strong aversion to the South, based solely on watching the movie Deliverance when he was nine during a sleepover with his older cousins. He also hated all banjo and fiddle music. Made me wonder if his cousins were also musical sadists.

  “There isn’t an actual prize for completing all two thousand miles, you know,” he chided. “If we start in Pennsylvania right after Memorial Day, we’ll still hit Maine by the end of the summer. Labor Day in Kennebunkport will be glorious. I can already taste the lobster rolls.” He sighed a dreamy sigh, mentally enjoying the monstrous combination of shellfish and mayonnaise.

  Give me butter or give me nothing was my motto when it came to cooked shellfish.

  “You don’t get a trophy or medal for summiting Everest either, but I’m pretty sure it doesn’t count if you start halfway up the mountain,” I replied, surly and already tired at the thought of hiking for weeks on end.

  “Bragging rights and the endless, fascinating stories we’ll get to tell at dinner parties for the rest of our lives will be worth more than any trophy on a mantle,” he countered, revealing his true motivation for the hike.

  I loathed dinner parties with his boring and even more pretentious friends. They’d all seen Riot Club and instead of taking it as a cautionary tale, modeled their lives after the morally doomed and pompously horrible characters.

  Rules were always more suggestion than set in stone when it came to Tye.

  In hindsight, I should’ve had my eyes checked for color blindness. I kept missing all the red flags.

  June

  Delaware Water Gap, border between Pennsylvania and New Jersey

  Day Zero

  Mile Zero

  Starting on the Pennsylvania side of the Delaware Water Gap, we’re setting off with our shiny, spanking-new, top-of-the-line gear, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed like two spoiled children going to their exclusive summer camp in Maine. Which, essentially, we are. If kids chose to walk almost nine hundred miles to get there.

  Dating a social media influencer has a few perks.

&n
bsp; Once Tye informed his legion of followers he was thinking about hiking the “AT,” sponsorship deals flowed in like a fast-moving spring river full of snowmelt. All of our high-end equipment was gifted with the understanding that he’ll post about it on his accounts.

  Easy peasy. Done and done. The man lives his life for likes.

  Our adventure has been clearly ordained by the universe—or at least by several multi-national companies and good-deed, environmentally conscious B corps.

  Our very long walk is the hiking version of glamping. Gliking? Glaking? Glamking? Insert cool, new hashtag here. Whatever the social media catchphrase, we’re doing it.

  #livingourbestlives

  Day Two

  New Jersey

  Mile 10

  Oh, New Jersey. You’re a lot prettier than I ever knew.

  Ten miles took us all day. All. Day.

  Why am I doing this?

  At this rate, we’ll barely make Kennebunkport by Labor Day.

  My feet hurt. My toes hurt. My back hurts. My knees hurt. A spot right below my hip hurts. My boobs hurt from my pack’s straps digging into my shoulders and across my chest.

  I’ve never been happier for a hot shower, mediocre pizza, and a real bed.

  Tye is so exhausted, he hasn’t even complained about the low thread count on the sheets.

  Our mutual love of the finer things is what brought us together. No one ever expected us to carry our belongings on our backs and hike for months.

  Yet here we are.

  Ten miles down and almost nine hundred to go.

  Day Nine

  Mile 106

  Who am I?

  Apparently, a woman who’s walked one hundred and six miles.

  I’d give myself a high five if I could easily move my arms without pain.

  Over the past week, there’s been a lot of bickering, more crying than I ever anticipated, and several times I’ve sat down on the ground and declared myself insane for ever agreeing to go on this hike.

  All in all, I’d say it’s going about as well as can be expected.

  Today, we took a zero day (hey, look at me using the trail lingo!) and picked up a new pair of fancy walking poles for me. I broke one of mine yesterday on the boulders I was heaving myself up and over. Imagine a salmon jumping and flopping itself upstream, only less graceful.

  After breakfast in bed, we spent the afternoon at the spa. I decided to skip the mud treatment since I’ve basically been covered in it every day this week. Sadly, my skin isn’t softer and most definitely isn’t glowing—unless sweat counts as highlighter.

  At this rate, we might make it to Maine for Thanksgiving.

  Day Fifteen

  Mile 154

  Three summers ago, I visited Paris and walked thirteen miles around the city in wedge sandals and then went out to dinner in heels.

  Those same miles on the trail in practical shoes are exponentially harder.

  Today there was no going out to dinner. I crawled into bed and ate French fries Tye hand-fed me like I was a baby bird, dropping them into my open mouth from above.

  Everything hurts.

  I hate my past self and everyone who knows me for not recognizing an episode of temporary insanity when I said I’d do this. Any reasonable person should’ve had me committed. I could be resting comfortably in a padded cell, enjoying a cup of pudding right now.

  Shockingly, I don’t hate Tye for being the reason for my current situation. Mostly because he also ordered not one but two brownie sundaes with extra hot fudge sauce for dessert.

  Day Seventeen

  Connecticut

  Mile 190

  Met some guys on the trail who are hiking from Georgia to Maine in one hundred days. According to my calculations, they’re walking close to a marathon a day.

  Puts things in perspective for me.

  Tye and I are sloths in comparison to their pace. Smelly, cranky, slow sloths who make questionable life decisions.

  When they saw our light packs, they asked if we were day hikers. I took the question as a mild insult. Did they miss the myriad of bruises, scrapes, and mosquito bites covering my exposed skin? The slightly crazed “what the hell am I doing” look on my face? Come on. I’m obviously walking the walk.

  While sharing some jerky by a waterfall, Speed Racer (obviously not his given name) enlightened us about life on the trail.

  Turns out they have a name for people like us. Tye and I are slackpackers.

  Our people are the ones who don’t carry their lives on their backs in heavy packs and get picked up at the end of the day to sleep in a hotel or even at home if they’re close enough. Like hiking is their day job.

  I’m a little disappointed by the title. Glamking has a nicer ring to it.

  The knowledge that we’re not alone in taking the easy way is both comforting and a confirmation of my sense of imposter syndrome.

  Day Twenty

  Massachusetts

  Mile 205

  We crossed the two-hundred-mile mark today and still have feet.

  I’m down to one hiking pole.

  Chatted with more northbound AT hikers during the day.

  Apparently, most people use a trail name. Some choose their own, but most people earn a nickname from other AT folks. Hence the name Speed Racer for the guy on his way to completing the hundred-day hike.

  No one told me I’d get an alias. I’ve always wanted a nickname.

  Squeaky, so named because he had a pair of noisy boots when he started, assumed Tye and Olive were our trail noms de guerre.

  When asked why, he said Tye looked like he’d be more comfortable in a suit and I was small and round but obviously salty.

  I took it as a compliment.

  Now I want to earn a real trail name.

  It’s good to have goals that don’t involve the number of miles hiked and not peeing on my boots.

  June

  Berkshire Mountains, Massachusetts

  Day 23

  Mile 260

  I stopped keeping a daily journal because every entry for the past week would be the same.

  We walked.

  My body ached.

  Things bit me.

  The pope might not poop in the woods, but Olive Perry has.

  I still regret my decision to do this while dreaming of institutional pudding.

  Long-distance hiking can get a little tedious and more than a little painful.

  Not for Tye, though. His days have gone mostly like this:

  Look at a tree. Snap a picture. Post it to the ’Gram. #deeproots

  Look at a cool boulder. Snap a pic. Post it. #thisrocks.

  Look at deer poop. Snap. Post. #everybodypoops

  Look at a view. #howisthisreal

  Keep walking. #miles

  Everything is a photo op or a chance for a quick, ten-second story to share the experience with his loyal minions.

  Two bowls of bland oatmeal is an #ad for the cooking gear. Doesn’t matter that we eat room service at hotels most mornings.

  Snack time is a pic of a different protein bar or trail mix. #healthysnax

  He even has his assistant upload staged photos for future non-photo-ready moments.

  I thought the worst part of walking for hours upon hours would be the blisters and unwanted chafing in delicate areas.

  Nope.

  Unbeknownst to me, I’ve signed up to be a model, camera operator, human tripod, and equipment schlepper.

  Sure, I’ve been featured on Tye’s accounts many times before this. Early on, I thought that it was sweet he proudly showed me off as his girlfriend. His Instagram is an online highlight reel of our happy life together.

  Tye’s face is what his followers want to see in their feed. Makes them feel like they’re on this adventure with us while scrolling on their phones from the comfort of their own bathrooms.

  I miss modern plumbing.

  Chapter Three

  Olive

  Day 25

  Berkshire M
ountains, Massachusetts

  Mile 282

  When Tye suggested we sleep in a tent last night, I should’ve known something was amiss.

  I agreed because the Berkshires have always been some of my favorite mountains. Picaresque white church steeples dot rolling green hills and valleys sprinkled with forests and farms. I love visiting in the fall when the foliage is at its peak and pumpkin spice laces the air, a fact Tye knows because he went leaf peeping with me last year.

  In hindsight, he probably thought such a tidbit made his grand gesture more romantic. It promoted the lie that his actions were in any way about me.

  He woke me before sunrise, hustling me out of the tent. Only a third conscious, with sleep in my eyes and flakes of drool on my chin, I shuffled after him, up a hill to a craggy outcrop of rock.

  Below us, undulating green waves of trees stretched to the horizon. Pale pinks and hazy lavender lit the eastern sky. Mount Greylock poked her head above the other hills to our north.

  After he handed me his phone and told me to go live on Instagram, I figured he was going to show off some sun salutations like he’d done a dozen times on the trip already. #yogaislife #onlyonetoday

  Glancing around, I realized the view probably wasn’t the only reason Tye chose this spot. Leave it to him to find a location with a strong signal.

  I was grateful not to be on camera. The mosquitoes had held their last supper on my forehead two days earlier. Clusters of swollen bumps near my hairline felt like horns about to sprout from my skull.

  The trail was not kind to my vanity. Luckily, I hadn’t packed a mirror and had learned to resist using my phone to check on the latest downfall in my appearance. I avoided my reflection in our nightly hotel bathroom mirrors with dubious lighting.