The AT and Me
First off, I might be off by one day. I’m pretty sure it started March 31st fifty years ago, but it might have been the 30th. It was a long time ago, a half century, and memories can get muddled. My handwritten log from the time, permanently enshrined in a cloth backed loose leaf notebook, is currently in a plastic tub in a storage unit a few miles away. My memory is going to have to be good enough.
Now, with that out of the way.
Fifty years ago today, after spending the night in a brand new motel in Dahlonega, Georgia, my parents drove me by way of a dirt Forest Service road to Nimblewill gap where it intersected with the approach trail to Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail. The AT. The plan was to follow white paint blazes from the top of Springer though fourteen states, two National Parks, and I forget how many National Forests and State Parks until I reached the last one on the summit of Mount Katahdin in central Maine.
The seed had been planted seven or eight years before where the paved path to the tower on Clingmans Dome (The name has been recently changed to the original Cherokee name. I’ve always known it as Clingmans Dome and will continue to call it as such.) started at the parking lot. To the left of the paved trail was a smaller unpaved trail. A sign next to it featured an arrow and the words “to the Appalachian Trail”. At the time, I thought it was the Appalachian Trail. I would continue to think so until 1975 when the AT brought me to the summit of Clingmans Dome without getting near the parking lot.
It was the start of the most memorable summer of my life.
Warm sunny days, cold and wet miserable days, breathtaking vistas, what should have been breathtaking vistas spoiled by fog that cut visibility to a few yards, and unexpected reroutes that sometimes added unexpected miles to to a planned day’s hike. Nights spent in three side shelters, nights spent in a small nylon tent. Nights spent with a group of other hikers, nights spent alone.
After three days I had to get off the trail for a few days to deal with large blisters on both feet. It would take almost 70 miles of hiking before my feet were really up to the task.
Like most hikers, I started with a lot of superfluous gear. A huge box was shipped home when I reached Damascus, Virginia. I started at 240 pounds. Before I reached the halfway point in Pennsylvania I was down to 180. Goodwill boxes In Damascus and Waynesboro, Pennsylvania would benefit from my weight loss.
For about twenty years after that hike I could recite in order every place I spent the night that summer. I can no longer do that, (Trying just now I was able to remember all of them up until the second night in the Smokies) but there are a number of shelters that for one reason or another hold vivid memories that will likely never dim.
Last but not least were the people.
Angus, Stephanie and Helene, Gomer, Tim and Dick, Leonard Pizor, the “Cincy Boys, Jack, Bob, and Kim, Dave Bass ……..even an obnoxious individual who called himself Caesar. Caesar helped a few of by giving us incentive to burn serious miles for a few days to get ahead of him. I’ve stayed in touch with Angus all these years, and a phone conversation with Stephanie, and a few texts back and forth with Gomer. The rest I’ve lost touch with.
I fell short of my goal, burning out when I reached southern Vermont. In 1980 I returned to where I’d left the trail and hiked most of what was left although, as was the case with the 75 hike, I missed a few sections. A 2016 attempt to fill in the missing sections was a disaster recounted here: https://www.trailjournals.com/journal/entry/523673
I’ll never finish it, and if I were to make a list of life’s regrets that one failure would top the list, far above any others.
But even if I had hiked every inch of the route, to the point of backtracking from shelters to the exact spot I’d left the official trail, it would still be unfinished in another way.
Now, even hundreds of miles away from the nearest point and fifty years since I took that first step north from the bronze plaque on top of Springer Mountain, I’m still hiking it in my mind. There are few days when something doesn’t happen that jars loose a memory. It might be something as simple as a smell. The sight of trilliums in a spring woods. Rain dripping from leaves after a summer rain. The call of a wood thrush or the drumming of a grouse. The simple sight of a well worn footpath in a nearby state park.
The last time I actually set foot on the Appalachian Trail was last year in July when I made a quick visit to Carvers Gap in Roan Mountain State Park. Earlier, in March I’d visited Davenport Gap, the northern terminus of the AT from the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Newfound Gap. Newfound Gap doesn’t have any special memories, but Newfound Gap has some, and Carvers Gap has a major one. I’ve been there many times, and each time I’ve been transported in my mind to the first time. As windy and cold a night as I have ever spent in a tent. Three others were with me that night. I cannot visit Carver Gap without thinking of that night and those people. We all had stories to tell when daylight greeted us with a beautiful day to hike the balds of the Roan Highlands.
The memories of that summer and many shorter section hikes that would follow will allow me to continue hiking the AT in my mind long after my body has lost the ability to walk a few hundred feet in a city park. The Appalachian Trail is part of my soul.
Randy's Ramblings 