Déjà Vu on the Appalachian Trail: What three section hikers taught me about perseverance, trail magic, and squeeze cheese.
After my Sunday Trail Ambassador patrol on Max Patch, I did what any reasonable person would do after eight hours of hiking around and around the mountain. I kept hiking.
My plan was to take a little backpacking adventure north on the Appalachian Trail to Hot Springs (and back), with a pack loaded for four sunshiney fall days. I was following the exact same itinerary as my 2010 thru-hike, spending my first night at Roaring Fork shelter and my second at Deer Park shelter, just south of Hot Springs.
The moment I walked into each shelter, I was back on my thru-hike. At Roaring Fork, I remembered being a tired hiker who was thrilled to be OFF Max Patch, which had been brutally windy that day. I snapped a quick photo on the summit (where is that photo anyway?) and skedaddled down to the closest shelter, where I most likely inhaled a packet of instant mashed potatoes with all the grace and patience of a starving shelter mouse.
Fourteen and a half miles later, the Deer Park shelter brought back a different memory entirely. Back then I had camped there the night before a rendezvous with my then-boyfriend. (That relationship, I’m happy to report, did not last nearly as long as my love for this trail.)
This trip, my camp companions were a trio of friends from the Atlanta area, known on trail as the “Band of Brothers.” Over meals, they shared stories from their many trips, piecing together the Appalachian Trail one section at a time.
It took them nineteen years!
Nineteen. Whole. Years. I was in awe. Hiking the whole trail in one season takes stamina, sure, but there’s something remarkable about holding onto a goal for nearly two decades. Life happens in nineteen years. Jobs change, families grow, knees creak, and plans get rescheduled again and again. Through all of it, they kept returning to the trail, right where they left off, time and time again. I believe that may take even more commitment than doing it all at once!
We swapped stories about our favorite sections and our less favorite moments, which, as most any hiker knows, usually have less to do with a particular section of trail and more to do with everything going wrong at once. All hikers have lived some version of that tale, told with an odd sense of ownership and pride.
Somewhere around Bluff mountain, I took a realistic look at my plan to turn around in Hot Springs and hike back. This is not an easy section of trail, and the thought of retracing every-single-step-up-and-over those 22 challenging miles, regaining all the thousands of feet I had so merrily lost descending into town, held considerably less charm than it had when I was planning and packing for this crazy trip. (Who thought this through, anyway??)
So… like a long-distance hiker trying to escape the trail in a storm… I began weighing all my options. I could just buck up and do it. After all, I was prepared for it. Or…. I could call one of the shuttle drivers I have in my contacts. Or, I could even call some of my friends in Asheville to come get me. (You know, the ones who are always rescuing you in some form or fashion? “I’m fine, no, really, I’m fine!)
And then, lo and behold, I learned that my new trail friends, the Band of Brothers, needed to retrieve a car they had left near Max Patch, and they kindly offered me a ride. Hurray! Problem solved! Hikers call this “trail magic,”and it arrived exactly when I needed it, with three smiling faces and a back seat.
The Band of Brothers taught me that there is no single “right way” to reach a lofty goal. Some charge ahead in one fell swoop. Others return relentlessly, again and again, chipping away a little at a time, for as long as it takes. And yet all paths can lead to the same summit. Before we drove off, they even let me in on their secret post-hike ritual… Chicken in a Biskit crackers topped with a swirl of squeeze cheese. Gourmet meal it was not. But after a few days on trail, it wasn’t half bad at all!
So here’s to the long way home, to old shelters that remember us fondly, and to new friends who show up just in the nick of time with a car, some laughs, questionable trail snacks, and a ride back to the trailhead.
Well done, friends! Thank you.
