The Appalachian Trail (AT)
The Appalachian Trail stretches from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mt. Katahdin, Maine. Benton MacKaye, born in Stamford, Connecticut in 1879, is credited with conceiving a trail connecting the ridge tops of the Appalachian Mountains from New England to the South. There are a host of other names and countless volunteers, who brought the Appalachian Trail to reality and maintain it.
The trail was completed in 1937, although completion is perhaps too strong a word as the trail changes slightly over the years. My earliest readings listed it as 2,247 miles, but more recent resources record it at 2,184 miles. The Appalachian Trail Conservancy’s mission is “to preserve and manage the Appalachian Trail, ensuring its vast natural beauty and priceless cultural heritage can be shared and enjoyed today, tomorrow, and for centuries to come.”
The AT crosses 14 states and is the oldest of the three trails that comprise the Triple Crown. Each year tens of thousands of hikers start from Springer Mountain, Georgia, hoping to walk the entire distance in one season, to be thru-hikers. Many thousands more, perhaps even millions, hike sections ranging from a day hike to a weekend or weeks at a time.
This trail winds its way from mountain to mountain in a narrow strip of wilderness, sometimes near large population centers. Depending on the time of year and the section of trail, you may meet many hikers on the AT or take a walk in complete solitude. The AT goes up and down many mountains and wasn’t built to accommodate horses. Some steep and rocky sections require hikers to use hands as well as feet. The lush growth over most of the trail has given it the nickname of “The Long Green Tunnel.”
The Pacific Crest Trail (PCT)
By 1920 the Forest Service created a trail called the Oregon Skyline Trail, winding from Mt. Hood to Crater Lake in Oregon. To that was added the Cascade Crest Trail in Washington State from Canada to the Columbia River. It wasn’t until the 1960s that a commission appointed by the Bureau of Outdoor Recreation recommended that Congress establish scenic trails. In 1968 Congress passed the National Trails System Act and the Appalachian Trail and the Pacific Crest Trail were named the first two National Scenic Trails. The Pacific Crest Trail Association’s mission is “to protect, preserve, and promote the Pacific Crest National Scenic Trail as a world-class experience for hikers and equestrians.”
The 2,654 miles of the Pacific Crest Trail extend from the Mexican Border below Campo, California to the Canadian Border near Manning Park, Canada. This trail does not go over every possible mountain on its route in the manner of the AT, but traverses close to many high mountain peaks while following, more or less, the crest of the Sierra and Cascade Mountains through California, Oregon and Washington. One can summit many peaks while walking the PCT, but most of them require a side trip from the trail itself.
At the time I began walking on the Pacific Crest Trail, hundreds of hikers started at the Mexican border each year hoping to thru-hike the PCT in a single season. Over the years I have been working on the Triple Crown, the number of thru hikers has increased into the low thousands. And, like the AT, many more hikers walk parts of this trail as section or day hikes.
Passing through a wide variety of terrain, the PCT moves from high desert, to alpine areas in the rocky Sierra to the mountain hemlock forests of the Cascades and many variations along the way.
The Continental Divide Trail (CDT)
The last trail, which makes up the Triple Crown is the highest, most challenging and most remote, according to the Continental Divide Trail Coalition. (Really, each trail in the Triple Crown deserves respect. Completing any of these trails is an achievement with its own unique challenges.) The CDT is not entirely complete, requiring the hiker to bushwhack (walk without trail or road) or road walk in a few sections, requiring backcountry navigation skills.
Traditionally, the CDT begins from the Mexican border in three possible places: the official start from Crazy Cook, farthest south point of New Mexico on the boot heel at Antelope Wells or at the border below Columbus. It then travels through states containing the Continental Divide to end at the Canadian border at Glacier/Waterton National Park, either at Waterton or Chief Mountain. At the time I began this journey there were probably only 50-100 hikers to be found thru-hiking this trail each year, although more people hiked sections or day hikes, particularly when close to populated areas or near specific attractions. The number of hikers on this trail is also increasing year by year. In 2017 the hiker grapevine said that 500 hikers left Crazy Cook headed north, and I saw another 50 to 75 southbound hikers in Montana.
The CDT was suggested when the National Trail Systems Act was passed by Congress, but it wasn’t yet a real trail. The potential of such a trail arose from a study of the Department of the Interior in 1977, and in 1978 it was recognized as a National Scenic Trail.
Jim Wolf served on the early advisory board for the CDT. The US Forest Service, The Bureau of Land Management and the National Park System were all involved in the CDT, but funding wasn’t robust. The early management plan called for a trail within a 50-mile corridor on either side of the Continental Divide. Forming the Continental Divide Trail Society, Jim Wolf wrote the CDT Guide Books and advocated for the CDT.
The Continental Divide Trail Association was created as a broader organization to advocate for the trail, and it united a number of smaller groups, but lacked finances to continue. While the CDTA existed, Jerry Brown (Bear Creek) mapped the official trail.
Today the Continental Divide Trail Coalition, CDTC, advocates for and contributes volunteers to the maintenance of the CDT. Jim Wolf, Jerry Brown, and numerous volunteer groups have joined forces in this organization. Its “mission is to complete, promote, and protect the Continental Divide National Scenic Trail by building a strong and diverse trail community, by providing up-to-date information to the public, and through encouraging conservation and stewardship of the Trail, its corridor, and surrounding landscapes.”
From the deserts of New Mexico to 14,000-foot mountains in Colorado, through the Great Basin and the Wind River Range in Wyoming, through Yellowstone National Park, along the winding, mountainous border of Montana and Idaho to the ultimate end in Glacier National Park, the CDT presents many challenges in terrain and navigation.
Each trail is unique in philosophy, history, and challenge. Together, they draw many, many thousands of hikers from the United States and other nations to their winding treads.
Triple Crown Recognition
In long-distance hiking circles, there are those who aspire to hike the Triple Crown. Many have done so, especially in the last few years. The American Long Distance Hiker Association – West (ALDHA–West) recognizes and awards a plaque to those who complete a Triple Crown and ask for recognition. Exactly how many people have completed a Triple Crown is unknown, as not all hikers ask for recognition, and ALDHA–West does not claim to keep official records. ALDHA–West initiated recognition of those who hiked the Triple Crown in 1994. But hikers were on the trail before that date. 1977 is the earliest date of completion listed by ALDHA–West.
Chapter 2 August 2001
Getting Started
So, how did I begin this journey to complete the Triple Crown at 76? Blame it on my parents. Blame it on the Girl Scouts. Blame it on the Wonderland Trail.
Blame it on my parents: Camping and camp skills were not something new to me at 76 or 40 or even 20. I was born into a family that camped. Each year we drove to Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, from Westminster, Colorado, for a conference my Dad attended. As a kid, I thought motels were only for rich people. We camped. We also drove to California to visit relatives. Ditto. We camped. In the 1940s to 1950s it wasn’t that unusual to just pull over to the side of the road or down a smaller road off the highway to find a place to spend the night. One memorable (awful) night we left home several hours later than planned, and my Dad decided he was too tired to drive safely. So we camped in the ditch on the side of the road going over Loveland Pass with semis roaring by us.
My
most memorable family camping trip was the year I was in the 7th grade. I’d taken all my finals early, weeks before the end of the school year. Dad had a week’s convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey, a week’s convention in Philadelphia, and a week in between. We drove and camped from Colorado to the east coast. We stayed in a campground outside of Atlantic City for a week while Dad attended his meetings. We stayed in Valley Forge for a week while he attended meetings in Philadelphia. (Valley Forge allowed camping in those days although we seemed to be the only ones doing so.) We even found a trailer park a stone’s throw from the Jefferson Memorial in Washington DC that had one small square of grass for tents. That trailer park is long gone, a freeway bridge now occupying the spot where we’d put our tent.
New York City was the only place we visited during that month-long trip where we didn’t camp, staying with somewhat distant relatives outside of New York and taking in the sights by riding the train into the city.
So my parents can be blamed for my knowing how to camp at a young age, albeit that camping may just have meant throwing a sleeping bag on the ground or erecting a heavy canvas tent as our traveling home. Because we camped, I was able to visit many places in the USA, appreciating many parts of this beautiful country. Travel and camping were a part of growing up in my family.
Blamed it on the Girl Scouts: From the third grade through high school, I was a Girl Scout. In the summer of 1953 I went to Girl Scout Camp. I loved it. I talked a steady stream of chatter all the way on the several hour drive home, through dinner and into the night, telling everything I’d done in great detail, from learning songs, washing dishes, how to ride, saddle and bridle a horse to the proper way to clean a latrine.
From that first year as a camper through Camp Counseling during college, I lived for Girl Scout Camp. The rest of the year was very nearly irrelevant to me. The only time that really mattered was that two or three weeks, and later, as a counselor, whole summers at Girl Scout Camp.
My camping skills were honed. Hiking became my forte. After a year or two, counselors sometimes let me lead the whole unit of 20 girls on hikes. I learned how to lead others, how to set a pace so as never to leave people behind and how to help others know and enjoy the outdoors.
The most memorable experience at Girl Scout Camp was a ten-day burro trip with eight girls and two counselors. The burros carried gear and each girl carried a small daypack. We learned to care for those burros and load them up each day, tying the load with a proper diamond hitch. Each girl carried one cup, one spoon and a sheath knife. We cooked meals of Seidel’s Trail Food in #10 tin cans with bailing wire handles over wood fires and slept under heavy canvas tarps rigged from trees with binder’s twine and held together with Alice’s gold bobby pins.
It rained every day. It hailed every other day. And we were lost much of the time. That was of no great account to us eight girls. We made up rain songs, wrote a journal and had a blast, although our two counselors probably suffered consternation about the being lost part. I’d never had so much fun in my life. This trip was formative in teaching me to enjoy the outdoors in all weathers and all circumstances, and I loved the friends I made.
Life intervened: After Girl Scouts, other life chapters passed by over the next 35-40 years: my first job as a physical therapist in Tacoma, learning to climb glaciated mountains including Mount Rainier with the Mountaineers, a stint in the Peace Corps in Turkey as a physical therapist, marriage, the birth of my two children, divorce, remarriage and ultimately another divorce, going to seminary, and becoming a pastor and serving a congregation for 15 years. All of those are stories in their own right, but not direct parts of this particular story. Yet those chapters contributed to who I was and am as an old lady on the trail.
My physical therapy background gave me knowledge of body mechanics. The Mountaineers taught me basic wilderness and mountaineering skills. The Peace Corps encouraged my adventurous spirit and a desire to see new things and meet new people. Marriages and divorces, and the counseling that accompanied them, taught me to be comfortable in my own skin, comfortable with who I am. My children and grandchildren brought and bring me joy. Seminary and the struggle to become a pastor when woman pastors were few, taught me to walk each forward step even without certainty of completion. Serving as a pastor gave me a fulfilling call to share the love of God with others.
Every hiker is unique in who they are and what they bring to long-distance hiking. Individual backgrounds add different textures to our experience. Passing years and life chapters added depth to my being and influenced my approach to hiking long trails. An older hiker may bring to the trail multiple viewpoints accumulated over years and life chapters.
Younger hikers, too, come to the trail with different points of view and backgrounds. Whether young or old, we encounter each other in a kaleidoscope of personalities on two-foot-wide paths winding through the wonders of the natural world.
Blame it on The Wonderland Trail: “Oh, we’re done.” (Spoken with great regret.) Before I began long distance hiking, I had occasions to hike and take short backpack trips, taking my children and both husbands. My son was in the Boy Scouts, and he car camps and hikes with his two children now.
But my daughter was the child who liked hiking the most. We took three backpack trips together, up to five or six days each. I also took members of the congregation I served on hikes, and led a few parishioners on short backpack trips as a church activity complete with Bible study at rest stops.
In 2001, my daughter and I decided to hike the Wonderland Trail before I got too old to backpack. It was the year I turned 60.
The Wonderland Trail is a 90-to-100 mile trail around Mount Rainier in Washington State. Although I have hiked some 10,000-long distance miles finding beauty everywhere I go, foot for foot, the Wonderland Trail is the most beautiful trail I have ever hiked.
We hiked through meadows filled with wildflowers, past beautiful waterfalls and every step of the way there was another view, another face of Mount Rainier and its glistening glaciers. The Wonderland Trail is also almost never level. Going around Mount Rainier, one climbs up and over ridges, down into glacier-carved valleys and then up the next ridge and down the next valley, repeated all the way around the mountain, 22,000 feet of elevation gains and losses in those 90+ miles.
When we hiked the Wonderland, I had camping and mountaineering skills, but I knew nothing about long-distance hiking or lightweight backpacking. Our packs were huge as we set out from Longmire clockwise around the mountain. Our friend, Jo, accompanied us. She packed way too much stuff and couldn’t carry it all. I added more to my already over loaded pack to help her out. I was probably carrying 50 pounds for the first six days. The miracle was, at 60, I could do it; I certainly couldn’t carry that load at 76.
Rainier National Park has strict rules about registering for and staying at backcountry campsites, and they were not easy to arrange. At that time, it meant phoning on an exact date months before your desired start date, at the exact time when the backcountry office opened, hoping your call was the first. I wasn’t first, but I did manage to get sites, although we were forced to spend an extra day at a site we didn’t care for, hiking to the next site when it became available. We took 16 days. The usual time for most backpackers to complete the Wonderland Trail is nine days. Trail runners do it in three days or less–but they are truly crazy. With my love of hiking, I only claim to be half crazy.
Mike, a member of the congregation, joined us for ten days and our group swelled to nine at White River with other members of my congregation. It was logistically complicated, but it all worked.
We had a wonderful time. We didn’t mind the extra time. We enjoyed it all. We took books, a sun-shower (a black water bag with a short hose and shower nozzle that can be placed in sun to warm) and many other completely unnecessary things on this hike, but the trip lives as a highlight in all our memories.
We had amazingly good luck with the weather for 14 days. The last full day, northwest weath
er settled in, and it rained all day. My daughter and I were undaunted. Sending our packs out with Jo and a ranger at Narada Falls, we ended with a road walk since a hiking bridge over the Nisqually River was washed out. We sang rain songs all the way to the campground and continued on the next day in the rain to finish at Longmire.
Then we looked at each other and regretfully said, “Oh, we’re done.”
The long-distance-hiking bug had bitten.
Chapter 3 August 2003
PCT
“Pastor Mary, I don’t think we should take the rest of the church on this hike.”
So, I discovered I liked multi-day backpack trips. Did I then say, “Oh, I think I’ll work on the Triple Crown?”
Of course not. I’d not yet heard of the Triple Crown. I knew there was something called the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) that went through Washington State, where I lived. I may have heard of the Cascade Crest or Skyline Trail when I was in my 20s. I knew of the Appalachian Trail in the eastern part of the United States. I’d never heard of a thru-hiker. I’d never heard of the Continental Divide Trail. The only Triple Crown I knew of was a horse race.
A parishioner was working on completing the Washington part of the trail. Interesting. It sounded like a fun project. When I began, I wasn’t thinking beyond Washington State.
The section I chose to do first wasn’t the best, the most scenic section of the PCT or the beginning or the end of the trail. It was the most convenient. My first PCT section began at Chinook Pass and ended at Snoqualmie Pass. Mike, the same young, red-haired parishioner, who had walked part of the Wonderland, was game to go, too. A pastoral colleague dropped us off at Chinook Pass, and my son picked us up after work six days later at Snoqualmie Pass.
Old Lady on the Trail- Triple Crown at 76 Page 2
