Becoming Odyssa

by Jennifer Pharr Davis

  Lees-McRae was where Professor Warren Doyle taught undergrad courses in elementary education. But beyond being an educator, Warren was an Appalachian Trail legend. He had hiked the trail thirteen times and counting, and when the Lees-McRae students left the campus for winter break, Warren used the facilities to host his Appalachian Trail Institute: a course designed to help prepare hikers who intended to hike the entire trail.

  At 7:57 AM, I found an empty desk in the professor’s classroom and took a seat. There were nine other participants, and they all looked nervous. I fidgeted with my pen and rustled with my notepad until eight sharp, when Warren entered the room.

  He was in his mid-fifties, he had a peppered gray beard and a larger belly than I would expect on such an accomplished hiker. He stood at his chair in front of the class and surveyed the Institute’s participants, then he took a seat, clasped his hands together in front of his body, and in a resounding voice, he asked, “Why do you want to hike the Appalachian Trail?”

  I was pretty sure he was staring right at me, but he might have had the power to make everyone in a room feel that way.

  “Let’s go around the room and have everyone tell the class who they are and why they want to hike the Appalachian Trail,” he said, grinning like the Cheshire Cat.

  There I was, sitting in the classroom of the legendary Warren Doyle, who had hiked the Appalachian Trail more than anyone else, and I didn’t know how to answer the first question of his three-day workshop.

  I had only spent three nights in the woods in my entire life, and I knew very little about thru-hiking. As we began to go around the room with introductions, I felt panicked and unsure of myself, like I was naked and everyone knew it.

  The attractive young couple at the opposite end of the table were the first to respond: “My name is Doug, and this is my wife Sarah.”

  My mind began to shift back and forth as I tried to listen to what the other participants were saying while reflecting on why I wanted to hike the trail.

  “We want to do it as a couple,” said Sarah. “This has always been Doug’s dream, but now we’re married, so I want it to be our dream.”

  “I’ve wanted to hike the trail ever since I was a Boy Scout,” added Doug. “But now that we’re married, I couldn’t imagine going off and leaving Sarah for six months. That’s why she’s coming with me. The only problem is that she’s really prissy, and I don’t know how she’ll cope without her makeup and curling iron.”

  Everyone laughed, including Sarah, as she gave her husband a playful shove.

  “It’s true,” she said. “I’m a priss, but I’m a stubborn priss.”

  I smiled and thought about the advantages of having a hiking partner, someone to share your gear, your day, and your memories. When I decided three years ago that I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail, I thought that my best friend or my father might come with me. As time passed, it became clear that none of my friends or family would be able to go on this journey with me. Most of them thought I would abandon my plans well before now, but I was still determined to do the trail. I had adjusted to the idea of hiking on my own, and I was excited about it, though my mother was not.

  “Wesley, why do you want to hike the trail?” asked Warren

  We were already almost halfway around the table. I was thankful to be positioned at the end of the nine-person panel, but I was still worried about what I would say.

  “Well . . .” Wesley began. “I grew up on a farm in Alabama. I was outside every day doing work, hard work. After I graduated high school, I left the farm and started working in the city. I spent thirty years behind a desk, and the whole time I was there, I missed being outside and I missed manual labor. We sold the farm when my father died, but now that I’m retired I want to hike the Appalachian Trail. I want to work hard during the day and go to bed with the sun. That’s what I think we were made to do.”

  “Do you think your body will remember what it’s like to perform manual labor?” asked Warren.

  Part of what made me nervous was that Warren responded to each answer with more questions. He was the king of what ifs: What if your hiking partner doesn’t like it? What if you get injured? What if you don’t finish in time to get back to work? What if your spouse wants you to come home?

  Warren was especially hard on Jeff, the middle-aged man seated to my right.

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa!” Warren interrupted Jeff’s response, waving his hands and shaking his head. “You said you want to hike the trail for fun? Do you think hiking in the rain and snow is fun? Do you think walking twenty miles a day with blisters on your feet is fun? What are you going to do when you wake up one morning and decide that the trail isn’t fun anymore?”

  At least now I knew not to include the word “fun” in my answer.

  Jeff tried to backtrack for several minutes, unsuccessfully, then Warren finally called on me.

  “And last, young lady, we come to you. Tell us a little about yourself and why you want to hike the Appalachian Trail.”

  “My name is Jen,” I began nervously, “and I’m twenty-one years old. I decided during my freshman year of college that I was going to hike the Appalachian Trail, and I arranged my classes so I could graduate a semester early—this past December. I’m planning to start the trail in March from Springer Mountain, Georgia, and I’ll stay out there as long as it takes to reach Mount Katahdin in Maine.”

  “Okay, but why do you want to hike the trail?”

  Ugh, I was hoping he would forget that part.

  I took a deep breath. I had given people different answers to that same question for the past three years. I said that I wanted to hike the trail to be in nature, to push my limits, to meet new people, to put off getting a job, or to give my mother gray hair. I had given various answers depending on what I thought the person asking the question wanted to hear. But I knew that Warren would see through a trite response. So for the first time, I tried to tell the truth.

  “I feel like I’m meant to . . . I mean, I feel like I was made to . . . I guess what I’m trying to say is that I think I’m supposed to hike the at.”

  “What does that mean?” asked Warren.

  “Well, when I think about doing anything else it just feels wrong. The thought of not doing the trail fills me with regret to the point that it almost hurts inside. The idea of thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail came to me three years ago, and since it entered my mind, not a day goes by when I don’t think about the trail. It’s not like I chose to hike the trail, but more like it chose me.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Warren, looking surprisingly pleased. “So the trail is a calling?”

  “Yeah . . . a calling.”

  Admitting to everyone—including myself—the real reason that I wanted to hike the trail made me feel good. A little crazy, but good. I felt lighter and breathed easier knowing that I was able to be honest.

  Meanwhile, Warren had stopped asking questions and started whimsically singing, “The trail is calling, calling, calling, calling to you and to me.” Then, with a more serious look on his face, he sat up straight and looked around the room.

  “Thank you all for your answers,” he said. “They were very . . . insightful.”

  Then, before wrapping up our morning session, Warren once again managed to look at me and stare at everyone else at the same time.

  “You need to know that the trail can and will change you,” he said. “Once you finish the trail, your life might not look the same as it did when you started. If you don’t want things to change, then you need to rethink thru-hiking.”

  Then Warren, with a knowing gleam in his eye, let out a mischievous laugh that shook his soft belly, and with his arm outstretched and his palm facing up, he ushered us out of the classroom for an afternoon hike on the Appalachian Trail.

  3

  INEPTITUDE

  EARLY MARCH 2005

  UNICOI GAP, GA, TO SPRINGER MOUNTAIN, GA—

  50.9 MILES

  For a northbound thru-
hiker, the southernmost fifty miles of the Appalachian Trail is the beginning of a new relationship rife with hopes, fears, and stomach butterflies. The anxiety and anticipation about what will come next are expressed by friendly smiles, nervous chatter, and numerous photos. The miles build up slowly as people adjust to the Trail and their gear, and the learning curve is visible each day as hikers figure out how to set up tents, pop blisters, and exist in a wilderness that is full of strangers. For many northbound thru-hikers, the foothills of Northern Georgia are both the happiest and the most challenging part of the journey.

  After three days at the Appalachian Trail Institute, I felt far more prepared for my thru-hike than I had before I arrived. I felt more confident planning my food resupplies, limiting my gear, budgeting my money, and preparing myself mentally for the trail. I was still uncertain about the alternative hiking methods that we covered, such as not packing a stove and not filtering the water from mountain springs or streams, and the alternative gear options, like using a tarp instead of a tent, a trash bag instead of a raincoat, or a ski pole instead of a hiking stick. But, most importantly, I left the Institute knowing that it was not my gear that would get me to Katahdin, but my heart and my head.

  The other benefit of the Appalachian Trail Institute was that I made several good friends. In particular, I had grown close to Sarah and Doug. My first reaction to the couple and their overwhelming affection for each other included a lot of mental eye-rolling. But as the workshop progressed, I felt myself reluctantly drawn to their friendly personalities and the warmth of their love for one another. By the end of our three-day course, the three of us left the workshop with a plan.

  We decided to start the trail together for the sake of companionship—and the sake of my mother—and to begin our thru-hike as an unbalanced “flip-flop.”

  There are three ways to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail:

  1) You can start at Springer Mountain, Georgia, and hike to Mount Katahdin, Maine, as a northbound hiker.

  2) You can start from Katahdin and hike to Springer as a southbound hiker.

  3) Or you can start somewhere in the middle and hike to either Springer Mountain or Mount Katahdin, then return to your starting place and hike in the opposite direction to complete the trail as a flip-flop.

  Most hikers who flip-flop start in the middle of the trail, near Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. We started our flip-flop in Georgia, fifty miles north of Springer Mountain. The idea was to meet in early March and hike the first fifty miles of the trail backwards.

  Theoretically, there is no right or wrong direction on the Appalachian Trail, but in the month of March, in the state of Georgia, everyone hikes north—everyone except for us. We wanted to hike south to meet as many northbound thru-hikers as possible and learn from their mistakes. The more lessons we could learn vicariously, the better.

  I met Sarah and Doug on March tenth in a gravel parking lot a mile north of Springer Mountain, and after gathering my gear and locking my car, I climbed into their SUV, and together we drove back down the mountain.

  Unicoi Gap is only fifty trail miles from Springer Mountain, but on the road it took us winding two and a half hours to reach the trailhead.

  The day so far had been sunny and cool, but at Unicoi Gap, the long afternoon shadows and increased elevation meant freezing temperatures and bitter winds. Before we left the car, I pulled all my extra clothing out of my pack and layered it on my body for additional warmth.

  As I zipped up my raincoat and adjusted my pack, I heard Sarah call to me from the edge of the woods.

  “Hey Jen, come look at this.”

  She had found our first white blaze. One of the things I loved about the AT is that it seemed idiot-proof. There are two-by-six white rectangles marking the trail every hundred yards. I didn’t need a map or a compass; all I had to do to make it to Maine was follow the white blazes.

  I walked over and stared with wonder at the simple stripe of white. I curiously grazed my fingertips along the bumpy rectangle of tree bark, and then, noticing that my friends were already twenty yards up the trail, I stepped past the blaze and began my thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail.

  It was 4:30 when we started. In early March, deep in the Blue Ridge Mountains, that meant we had an hour and a half of daylight left.

  Our first day’s distance and ascent wouldn’t be difficult for a seasoned hiker, but I wasn’t used to hiking with a heavy, awkward backpack. It felt like I was giving a hefty six-year-old a piggyback ride up the mountain.

  I tried to take my mind off the climb. Glancing around, I looked for the natural beauty that is synonymous with the AT, but all I saw were naked trees shuddering in the wind. Looking up into the blustery wind made my eyes water, so I dropped my head and stared at the trail. For the rest of our uphill journey, I concentrated on the rocks and roots on the trail, and the big white puffs of air that appeared every time I exhaled.

  It took us just over an hour to hike the 2.2 miles from Unicoi Gap to blue Mountain shelter. The three-sided wooden shelters are an important part of the trail and trail culture. With a shelter approximately every ten miles, hikers will gather at the lean-tos during the day to socialize, and at night the structures provide cover for those who don’t want to pitch their tents.

  Peering into my first official shelter, I was not impressed. The floorboards looked dirty and the sides of the building had gaping holes. Sarah walked up behind me, put her hand on my shoulder, and said, “I guess we should try to stay here since there’s not enough daylight to set up our tents. I just hope there aren’t any mice.”

  Mice? I hadn’t thought about rodents living in the shelters. Thankfully, blue Mountain Shelter was too full of large, two-legged creatures for me to notice the small, four-legged kind. Amid the sleeping bags and backpacks, I met four college-aged girls who called themselves the Georgia Peaches. They were here on a spring break hiking trip. Even with just their noses poking out of their sleeping bags, it was clear that they were attractive, personable, and had already made quite an impression on the other hikers, especially Eskimo.

  Eskimo was a retiree from Alaska who had situated himself directly beside the Georgia Peaches. He spent the evening bragging about his handmade gear and sharing his preferred hiking techniques with the cute coeds.

  Two young men also occupied the campsite. One was tucked into a blue sleeping bag in the corner of the shelter. He wore a green ski mask that covered his entire face, and as Doug set up his bag nearby, I overheard the guy mumbling something about insulin and what Doug should do if he didn’t wake up the next morning.

  The other guy was wearing a navy blue down jacket and walking away from the campsite with his water bottle in hand. I grabbed my own empty water bottle and quickly followed.

  The hiker stopped two hundred yards downhill from the shelter and crouched over the water source: a small puddle formed by an underground spring. With pump in hand, he meticulously filtered every ounce of water flowing into his bottle.

  I watched him in awe: I didn’t have a pump. I also didn’t have iodine, chlorine dioxide, a SteriPEN, or any other acceptable form of water treatment. I had decided, based on Warren Doyle’s advice at the Appalachian Trail Institute, that it would be fine to drink from the majority of water sources on the Appalachian Trail without treating the water. But staring down into the shallow puddle, I began to second-guess my au naturel approach.

  Not wanting to look foolish without a form of water treatment, I stood back and waited for the young man to finish before I attempted to draw my water directly from the source. As he stood up to leave, I caught a glimpse of his face. Curly black locks escaped from the red bandana on his head. The lower half of his face was lined with a week’s worth of coarse stubble ending right below his full cheeks. He glanced up and met my stare with hazel eyes, then smiled.

  “Hi, I’m Matthew.”

  “I’m Jen.”

  “First night on the trail?” he asked.

  “Yeah, my friends and
I are thru-hikers, but we’re hiking this section south, regrouping, then heading north.”

  “Cool. In that case, maybe we’ll meet again farther up the trail.”

  When Matthew left, I quickly gathered my water and then turned on my headlamp to hike back to the shelter. My brief exchange with Matthew flipped a switch within me. Matthew was the first person I had met on the Appalachian Trail, and that made the hike feel real. It was reassuring to meet a complete stranger and immediately feel connected by a common goal. Plus, I had called myself a thru-hiker—in the present tense. I liked the way that sounded.

  Back at the shelter, I set up my stove and eagerly placed my pot of murky water and Velveeta Shells and Cheese on top of the burner. The outside temperature was well below freezing, and my dinner took longer than I expected to cook. As I stared at the still water, waiting for it to boil, my fingers grew painfully numb. After fifteen minutes, the water was steaming but still not bubbling, and I impatiently decided that the noodles had soaked long enough. With shaking hands, I picked up the pot, drained off the brown water, added the orange goo, and awkwardly stirred the sauce around the glob of noodles.

  I filled my spork and brought it to my mouth. Crunching down on the first bite, the concoction tasted like Easy Cheese and eggshells. I could only stomach a few bites before my decreasing dexterity and sensitive gag reflex caused me to surrender. Still hungry and not knowing what to do with the leftovers, I shamefully returned to the water hole and slung them into a nearby bush. I submerged the pot in the puddle to try and remove the orange crust cemented inside the pot. I was sure that this was not the proper way to clean camp dishes, but I was too embarrassed and too cold to find another solution.

  Ready for bed, I threw my food bag and dirty cooking equipment into my pack and placed it against the shelter wall, then I squeezed my foam pad and sleeping bag between Sarah and Matthew.