AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

by David Miller

On foot the distance from Springer to Katahdin is 2,172 miles. Your balloon ride would be only thirteen hundred miles with significantly reduced risk of snakebite.

The reasons for a thru-hike are less tangible than many other big decisions in life. And the reasons evolve. Toward the end, possibly the most sustaining rationale to finish a thru-hike is the fact that you have started one.

I’m northbound thru-hiker number 927. He tells me that the dropout rate for thru-hikers has consistently been 50 percent before finishing the Smokies. Ninety percent of the trail is still ahead.

When the path is clear to pursue a fledgling goal, the path is also clear for deeper insight into your desires.

Gumption is the most important thing for a thru-hiker to maintain. Compare rounds of golf, one played while keeping score and one in which you hit a mulligan every time you are unhappy with a shot. In the latter case, being on the golf course loses significance. Rounds that are memorable are the ones that you make count. In a broader context, all rounds of golf are of no consequence, whether score is kept or not. But you are the center of your own universe. You are free to create meaning for yourself. When you attempt to capture the highlights without burdening yourself with the tedium, the highlights lose the foundation that elevates them to the status of “highlight.” Analogies abound because a focused attitude defines the quality of all that we do. In playing a game, dieting, or hiking the AT, you benefit most when you commit yourself to it, embrace it.

The next stretch of the trail in northeastern Tennessee was made possible by eminent domain land grabs that didn’t sit well with the locals. Hikers tread lightly here.

Crash and I have dinner at the restaurant and dessert at Dairy Queen with two other thru-hikers, Jeff and “Double A” (written as “AA” in shelter registers). I tell AA that she should have the trail name “Snow White” instead. She has jet black hair, a pale complexion, and looks that are too clean and soft for a thru-hiker. She has heard this suggestion enough times for it to raise her dander. AA is simply the initials of her name, Allison Allen. I comment on the coincidence that my next door neighbor has the reverse name: Allen Allison. I go on to explain that I always had difficulty with the neighbor’s name because the previous neighbor in the same house had the last name “Allen,” like AA. To further compound the coincidence, we learn through our conversation that AA went to a small college in Georgia (Toccoa Falls) with Lisa Allen, the daughter of my previous neighbor.

I am glad that I write. Experience is enriched by reliving it, contemplating it, and trying to describe it to another person.

I recall a formative decision I made soon after starting my first job out of college. An acquaintance had asked if I would reroof his mother’s home. I spent two days pondering the decision. I had a job programming. I didn’t need to labor on roofs anymore. When the decision finally came, it was an epiphany. No way was I going to allow myself to settle into an ordinary life because it was the easy thing to do. I didn’t want to be pigeonholed, defined by my career, growing soft and specialized behind a desk. I would continue to resist specialization and stretch myself by undertaking new endeavors.

This shelter, like many others so far, has the message “SMOKE WEED” scratched on the ceiling in big, bold, charcoal letters. I can’t imagine that nonsmokers are converted by this commandment, or that those who do bring pot are waiting to be told.

Tipperary always makes me feel as if there is no person he’s happier to see. I am greeted with a hearty “Awol!” and an engulfing hug. His unshakable good nature makes him popular among thru-hikers and certainly improves his chances of staying on the trail. On this trek, his temperament is more of an asset than conditioning or know-how.

Anything that we consider to be an accomplishment takes effort to achieve. If it were easy, it would not be nearly as gratifying. What is hardship at the moment will add to our sense of achievement in the end.

Having a rough time on the trail is not the same as the irredeemable frustrations of urban life, such as being stuck in traffic or wading through a crowded store. Difficulty on the trail, like this long and rainy day, is usually reflected upon fondly.

It doesn’t take a debilitating injury to end a thru-hike. At the moment, it is easy to see why hikers choose not to continue walking when it causes such discomfort. It is a tough decision to make. Wisdom is knowing when perseverance will be rewarded.

Hiking the AT before joining the workforce was an opportunity not taken. Doing it in retirement would be sensible; doing it at this time in my life is abnormal, and therein lay the appeal. I want to make my life less ordinary.

Not everyone needs to be a hiker, but using “not my thing” is too convenient. Activities that even momentarily cause discomfort, that don’t provide immediate positive feedback, are subtracted from the realm of experience. We are outraged when we are constrained by others, but willfully, unwittingly put limits on ourselves.

I don’t suffer much for the mistake of running out of water, but it was a mistake I should not have made. I had eliminated any margin of error. If I had gotten lost or injured, my situation could’ve quickly become desperate.

Delaware Water Gap is an inviting town on the bank of the Delaware River, the last stop for thru-hikers in Pennsylvania. The Delaware lies between Pennsylvania and New Jersey. This is an ideal town for hikers since there is a hostel where the trail enters town; there is also a post office nearby and a handful of restaurants.

When I bring my attention back to the trail, I discover that I have strayed from the white blazes. This is clearly a footpath, but it is not the AT. Backtracking, I learn that once again I had stepped over a pile of twigs that was meant to deter hikers from continuing along the ridgeline. The AT dips off the ridge and descends to Culvers Gap. I would repeat this frustrating error half a dozen times in New Jersey and New York, more than on any other section of trail.

A United States flag is painted on a slab of rock at one of these overlooks. “Remember 9/11” and a number of similar messages have been scrawled near the flag. The attacks of September 11, 2001, and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan took place during the time I was contemplating my hike. The second war in Iraq began less than a month before I quit my job. From a national perspective, this was the most tumultuous era of my lifetime, and I was about to go on leave from the world. These events trivialized my selfish plans and added to my reservations about being away from my family, my job, and the world. There is no objective importance in walking the range of mountains in the Eastern United States. As my departure date neared, my unease faded. The news won’t change because I’m not watching it. I had dismissed those thoughts, and they did not reenter my mind until seeing this memorial. I am doing the right thing.

Tunnel Vision looks up at a wet sock hanging from a rafter overhead and asks, “Is that going to drip on my head all night?” “Not if you sleep with your mouth open.”

The fewer responsibilities we have, the less free we are. Communism and democracy differ in this only by a matter of degree. We can vote away freedom as easily as it can be taken away.

“If we were paid to do this, we would have quit by now,” he says. Obviously his joke rests on the fundamental enigma of the trail: why do we voluntarily, happily (mostly), submit ourselves to tribulation? Aside from the spectacular moments, aside from the gratification of working to accomplish a goal, there is ownership. This endeavor is much more endurable because we “own” it. We are here by choice, and we are going about it in the way of our own choosing.

The Appalachian Mountain Club (AMC) runs bunkhouses called “huts” in the White Mountains. They are large cabins that can sleep forty to ninety paying guests and have no road access. All guests have to hike in to the huts. The huts generate their own power from wind, solar, or hydroelectric generators. Each has a staff of about six that is responsible for cooking, cleaning, entertaining guests, and packing in supplies. The first few thru-hikers to arrive at a hut can do work-for-stay, and they cannot stay for more than one night. In exchange for menial tasks like setting tables and washing dishes, hikers are fed leftovers for dinner and breakfast, and sleep on the dining room floor.

New Hampshire’s state emblem is a facelike rock formation that was on the side of Cannon Mountain. A week after I started my hike, the Old Man of the Mountain broke loose and tumbled into Franconia Notch. Before his fall, he was staring at Greenleaf Hut.

The AMC guide doesn’t mince words: “If you begin to experience difficulty from weather conditions, remember that the worst is yet to come, and turn back, without shame, before it is too late.”

Signposts at trail intersections identify the choices, but “Appalachian Trail” is not always identified. A sign may point to the northbound Osgood Trail or westbound Gulf Trail, and we need to know which one is the AT. On some signs, hikers have helped by carving the AT symbol next to the right choice. This is the one section of the AT on which I would advise carrying maps.

A group of hikers ahead are having difficulty with the climb. As I pass they make comments: “Look at him, just waltzing up the trail.” Of course they are unaware of how I have to manage my own struggle. If a person who has not had enough exercise attempts to backpack, then he will find the going difficult. He might think, “I sweat, I get out of breath, I’m out of shape.” But he is wrong to think the tribulation is uniquely his. Everyone sweats; everyone pants for breath. The person who is in better shape will usually push himself to hike more quickly and bump into the same limitations. But when the fit person is stressed, he is less likely to attribute the difficulty to his shortcomings. Backpacking is hard—that’s just the way it is. Obviously conditioning is advantageous, but the perception of disadvantage can be more debilitating than actual disadvantage.

I update him on my progress, telling him of my sprained ankle and my struggles with the heat in New York and rain in Vermont. “Geez, I thought none of that would bother you,” he says. “Why would you think that?” I answer. “You were such a machine back when we met in North Carolina. I thought you were some military type, like a sergeant.” My recollection is of Crossroads powering up Standing Indian Mountain. He is younger than I am; he was hiking faster and was on a more ambitious schedule. At the time we first met, I was mired in doubt about my ability to thru-hike. We all perceive that the other guy has it easier than we do; we all assume that others know our inner doubts.

I have a pretty good idea of where I will be each day, and I’m sure Kiwi does as well. Hiker etiquette necessitates vagueness in how you divulge your plans. If you find the new acquaintance disagreeable, you can deviate from your actual plan without effrontery. If you change plans for other reasons, you won’t unintentionally offend hikers you really aren’t trying to avoid.

I walk alone in the quiet woods and ponder the difficulties of my day. I think myself unfit for this hike, being so susceptible to cold and being discombobulated by the rockslide descent earlier. I want to give myself no credit for hiking two thousand miles; I am just the beneficiary of favorable conditions.

The radical break from routine that I made in coming on this adventure unloaded the attic of my mind. Everything that I had stored away, out of habit, I’ve taken out and reexamined. I’ve yet to rearrange, toss things out, and repack. But most important, I should not treat this journey simply as an agent for change. It is an experience in and of itself. I am unequivocally pleased doing this.

We can see Katahdin, perfectly centered in the swath cleared of trees. The side of the peak to our right is tinted gold with sunlight. The top of the mountain is the first piece of land in the United States touched by the morning sun.

The amount of elevation gain and loss on the AT is equivalent to climbing up and down Mount Everest sixteen times.

Possibly it was a motivational advantage for me to be attempting a thru-hike in my particular circumstance: not young, not single, not retired, and not rich. If I left the trail, I couldn’t try again next year. It was a one-shot deal. I am lucky to have experienced it all—the awe of seeing spectacular landscapes, the excitement of encounters with wildlife, and the invigoration of a physical lifestyle. It was always a treat to descend into one of the tiny towns the trail goes through, to get cleaned up, and emerge replenished.

My daughters, especially my youngest, missed me. Being away from home for long stretches cannot be a way of life. Still, it is important for parents to continue to live their own lives. We can’t sit by and say we’ve already made our decisions, done our striving, and dish out opinions on the doings of our children. Words alone lack authority, and we risk making them surrogates for the life we’d like to lead. We can better relate to the budding aspirations of our children if we follow dreams of our own.

The payoff, though difficult to quantify, is much greater than I expected. I have no regrets about having gone; it was the right thing to do. I think about it every day. Sometimes I can hardly believe it happened. I just quit, and I was on a monumental trip. I didn’t suffer financial ruin, my wife didn’t leave me, the world didn’t stop spinning. I do think of how regrettable it would have been had I ignored the pull that I felt to hike the trail. A wealth of memories could have been lost before they had even occurred if I had dismissed, as a whim, my inkling to hike. It is disturbing how tenuous our potential is due to our fervent defense of the comfortable norm.

Take the best camera that you can afford and are willing to carry. Learn how to shoot the types of pictures that you will take on the trail: close-ups of flowers; wildlife in dense, low-light woods where a flash will have a spotlight effect; hikers sitting around a campfire. Know how to use the camera’s timer or remote to take a photo of yourself alone at a scenic overlook. Take a minitripod and learn techniques for propping and stabilizing your camera.

Virtually every night’s stay can be free, and there’s enough food left in hiker boxes to eat for free. No one does this, though, as the pull of a hot shower, soft bed, and “real” food is strong. A reasonable plan might be to factor in the cost of a hotel or hostel stay and a few restaurant meals every week. A thru-hike will last fifteen to thirty weeks.

I have little doubt that with similar weather conditions and hiker fitness, slowest progress would be made through the White Mountains and southern Maine. Here the trail has its steepest ascents and descents, along with rugged, rocky terrain.

Did you ever feel like quitting? No. There’s a subtle distinction between hardship and amusement, and I more often assumed the latter. My age was an asset. I was old enough to realize the limits of my time, and I was in no rush to abandon an experience for which I might not have another opportunity. I always saw the trying moments as a component of the endeavor; they never defined it. I wanted the difficulties to end, not my hike. The times when continuing my hike was questionable due to injury strengthened my desire to finish.

How did the experience change you? My thoughts on this are unchanged from the epilogue, in which I cited patience, less concern over money, and a greater inclination to do things. I’ll add that I did not seek these changes. Change is inevitable on such unique and prolonged endeavors, with one caveat: the journey is no cure-all. Loading it with expectations will increase the odds of a premature end.