TRAIL DAY 102
Wed, June 1, 2016 It’s still May as I write – the last day of the month and tomorrow it will be June. The thought fills me with emotion. I think it’s the march of time. Time past and time coming. The trail has changed my life tremendously. It is like a thick thread of natural reality running through my entire life.
I was reading a little in Surprised by Joy by C.S. Lewis this morning. He is looking back at his childhood and early formation and noting how his active imagination conjured up a world he called Animal-Land. I think of my formation in the hills of Connecticut and New Hampshire as a boy, preceded by endless romps in the woods around my home in Connecticut. I think of several articles about me and my hike and a headline reading: APPALACHIAN TRAIL THRU-HIKER COMPLETES DREAM AT AGE 75. My own youthful imaginings coming into fruition. Sometimes life seems so full that it can be overwhelming.
More accurately, the trail is a river that is always running through my conscious mind from Georgia to Maine and only another who has experienced such a thru-hike knows how deep and powerful that river is.
Like a whale living in the depths of the ocean, the trail had lived in my imagination since I was 12, surfacing only occasionally but always there. It rose to the surface in 1955 when I was 14, then sounded for years, rising to the surface again only enough to exchange the stale air of inactivity for restored purpose and resolve.
And so it was for years – many years.
Two nights ago I was having dinner at the home of my 2nd child, now 47, joining in his reunion with his close childhood friend who had become a part of our family. They both told me that they remember my mentioning the Appalachian Trail many times as young boys. I guess that whale surfaced more than I realized.
And now, it was happening and I would soon turn 75 on the trail. It was June. My birthday. I would soon be with my family as I neared the end of my second 500 miles. I no longer needed to sing:
I am 500 hundred miles from my home
My family could hear the whistle blow and the whale’s echolocation could be heard from hundreds of miles away – even from Virginia to Pennsylvania. There was going to be a reunion.
Three-quarters of a century – and the year I would complete the Appalachian Trail.
Now, a year later, June means 76. It means leaving that incredible year behind. It means continuing my review, day by day of that full-gift, that complete-fulfillment year walking the common thread of nature northward from southern exile into my past. I was going back to the future. New England, lay ahead and New England was my past, my history, my formation.
I looked up the term “common thread” and the Oxford Dictionary gave only this example:
a “common thread” through most of the stories is the support from the family
And so it is for all that has been in my life – for every step in society and outside it in the wilderness. You’ll hear how profoundly I needed my family’s support in the months ahead – literally for every single step.
“No man is an island” said John Donne. We are sustained by an ocean of love that connects all of us.
Whatever the metaphor – ocean – universe – thread – river – whale – train – love flows in and out of us every bit as much as the life-sustaining air for which the whale surfaces.
June 1st. I began the month with a picture of Theo and me in our tent at 6:02 a.m. As I sat outside for breakfast, I observed a tree stretching skyward in front of me. It was awkward with limbs all askew yet something about it prompted reflections about life – perfect in its imperfections. I had to share the moment with my dear wife back home, soon to meet me in Front Royal, the northern end of Shenandoah National Park.
After breakfast, I took a picture of where my tent had been and headed out past the privy, which I had used once, recalling that one of our number at the shelter said he saw a bear right by it earlier.
We were on our way at 7:30 a.m. on another sunny-but-hazy day. We continued to have spectacular views westward over vast stretches of farmland and rolling hills. And, as was often the case, we were again treated to geological and natural wonders.
As I think back on our hike together and review my many pictures, I am reminded that my good companion seemed to be weary in Virginia where he frequently lagged behind. There are perhaps several reasons for this, including the fact that we were approaching summer and, because the trail was flatter (sometimes), I went faster. Theo would resign himself to his fate and step aside permitting me to take the lead. It was always his choice.
Now an interesting thing happened about an hour into our hike this day. As was frequently the case, there would be a turn off the trail to a viewpoint on either the left or right side. We came to several this day but one of the first caused me a bit of a problem. When I returned to the trail, Theo was in the lead and he turned right. Perhaps I had left my brain somewhere in the hazy sky above the distant farms but I just followed suit until. . .I began to wonder if we were headed in the right direction.
Theo had a habit of starting back the way we came for a short stint almost every time we returned to the trail, be it after a snack, lunch, a view or overnight. It was my job to set him straight. Perhaps this was his way of saying, “Let’s go home” or maybe it was just instinct because he knew whence we had come but not where we were going.
Today, however, I just blindly followed him and when I questioned myself as to whether we had headed in the right direction, I could not remember if I had turned left or right to go to the viewpoint. If I had turned right, we were headed in the right direction. If I had turned left, we were headed in the wrong direction. How to tell?
Then I remembered that I had taken a picture of a rocky section of the trail shortly before the viewpoint. I would go as far as that rocky section, get out my camera, turn around, and check the view rock for rock.
I had been here before. Wrong way. Back to the viewpoint and carry on. . . .
After a series of beautiful views, we passed over US 211 at Thornton Gap, 9E of Luray, Virginia. We met another hiker who wanted our picture, so I took hers. We crossed Beahms Gap and then Rattlesnake, Hogback and Little Hogback Overlooks, crisscrossing the SLD again and again until we came just shy of Gravel Springs Gap. My AWOL tells me I stayed at the Gravel Springs Hut but I have no picture to help me remember this location – the first blank night so far.
En route to the Hut, I came upon a millipede convention or the birthplace of all millipedes.
I would see my dear wife on the morrow since we had arranged for a day to ourselves before others arrived. Daughter-in-law, Karen, wife to our oldest, is very adept at arranging things with impeccable taste. She chose the Wayside Inn in Middletown, Virginia owned by George and Becky Reeves. Good times were ahead. My second 500 miles were nearly over and I was about to see my family after more than 3 months.
Day #102 Byrds Nest #3 Hut > Gravel Springs Hut 17.5 miles