AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

by David Miller

The exertion of carrying a pack up and down mountains day after day is incredibly fatiguing. You get hungry, you get rained on, your feet blister, and your legs ache. While hiking, you experience hardship, deprivation, drudgery, and pain, and the cooking stinks. The similarities to marriage don’t end there. Some people love it, and many are committed to seeing it through.

Gnats, flies, and black flies swarm me at every break on my walk over Three Ridges. Gnats fly into my eyes, nose, and mouth. Sunglasses fail to deter them. I eat three gnats; with effort, I could probably suck in a couple dozen. If all hikers consumed a few dozen gnats a day, would we put a dent in their numbers? Would they leave us alone if they feared us as predators?

I’ve encountered many large groups, and within each there are always one or more kids not happy to be there. Do I see this because kids have less patience for hiking, or because they are more likely to be here against their will? Adults with the same aversion to the outdoors—if they came at all—would get fifty yards down the trail, decide it is “not their thing,” and go home. 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. There are better solutions. The boy I saw struggling that day could conclude that he will get in shape so that he won’t need to avoid physical activity. Or he may realize that the outing was not as bleak as he imagined and resolve to keep a better attitude. These are solutions that build confidence and put no bounds on future opportunities.

In some places, wooden steps are implanted into the bedrock. A notch is cut into the stone, and a railroad-tie-sized chunk of lumber is set into the notch, secured by spikes of rebar. These improvised steps are not uniformly spaced, being separated by a distance equivalent to two or three steps that would be placed in a building’s stairwell. To get a feel for the difficulty, try taking stairwell steps two or three at a time without using the handrail. Spread some rocks and twigs on them, and then spray them down with water. If you still haven’t been kicked out of the building, try it carrying a pack.

From the top of Lafayette, views in all directions are bounded only by the limits of my vision. The enormous expanse of land evokes a powerful feeling of liberation. We spend an inordinate amount of time indoors, and the physical confinement limits the metaphorical bubble of our aspirations. Large rooms, like the vaulted interior of a church, are uplifting. Outdoors, we are free to reach for the sky.

My pack is falling apart; again the supports fall out of place and drop all the weight on my shoulders. Also, there are curved metal rods on each side of the pack that have worn loose from their cloth stays. The rods spin out of place and poke me in the rear. The pack spurs me like I’m carrying a little jockey.