Becoming Odyssa

by Jennifer Pharr Davis

  I was stoic. There were so many emotions flooding through me that it was hard to know what to say. I had planned to have it all figured out by the time I got to Katahdin, and instead everything seemed more complicated than when I had started.

  Mooch seemed to be the most affected by seeing katahdin. As soon as the mountain came into view, he took off. Up until this point we had been the two bringing up the rear, but from that point forward, Nightwalker and I struggled to keep up with Mooch. Not only was he a stronger hiker, but he also stopped complaining, even jokingly. I guess now that he could see the finish line, he knew that he could make it.

  Our proximity to Katahdin didn’t make the daily task of hiking any easier. The trail continued to test us in ways we didn’t expect.

  Descending off the Bigelow Mountains, I arrived at Little Bigelow Lean-To and found Nightwalker buried in his sleeping bag and knotted into a ball. It was only 6:00 PM. Usually he would be reading, or eating, or searching for a spot to take me on a date, but tonight all I could see was his curly black locks sticking out the end of his maroon sleeping bag.

  I heard a noise behind me and turned to see Mooch walking toward the shelter with Nightwalker’s cell phone in his hands. As he approached, he put his finger to his lips, signaling me to be quiet.

  “He needs to sleep,” he whispered.

  “Why? What’s wrong?”

  “I think he has giardia. He just spent an hour in the privy, and he had to dash off the trail fifteen times today. I was with him for most of the afternoon, and he just kept getting worse. He’s really dehydrated and I think he has a fever. I tried to call for help, but I couldn’t get service on his cell phone.”

  “what are we going to do?”

  “I don’t think we can do anything tonight, but tomorrow we can hike to a dirt road a mile down the trail. There’s not supposed to be much traffic on it, but I think it’s our best shot at getting him out of here.”

  Mooch and I silently ate dinner. Then, as we prepared our sleeping bags and foam pads, we saw Nightwalker’s cocoon stir.

  “Nightwalker?” I whispered.

  “Uuuuunnnnnnhhhhh.” It was one of the most pain-filled moans I have ever heard.

  “Hey, can I make you some dinner or get you some water?”

  He pulled his sleeping bag below his eyes and then, ever so slightly, shook his head no. He looked horrible. His face was beet red and his eyes looked lifeless. He was struggling to keep his eyelids open, and I could see him shivering despite the sweat rolling down his face. I spent the rest of the evening wetting his bandana and applying it as a cold compress to his forehead.

  The next morning, Mooch and I helped Nightwalker down the trail. He had his left arm slung over Mooch’s pack and his right arm over my shoulders. We carried him to the road like a wounded soldier.

  The guidebook said that only one or two cars would travel this road per day, so after situating Nightwalker in the shade, Mooch and I sat down in the middle of the road. This was not the time for selective hitching; this called for a roadblock.

  After about forty-five minutes, we heard a noise coming down the gravel road; standing up, we saw a car quickly approaching in a cloud of dust.

  We stood in the road and waved our arms. The driver had no option but to stop. She was on her way back from a Fourth of July campout at a nearby lake, and although she didn’t have much room in her vehicle, she offered to cram us in and drive us to the nearest pay phone.

  The “nearest pay phone” ended up being thirty minutes away on bumpy back roads. Scrunched on Mooch’s lap in the very back of a station wagon with my chest to my knees, it felt like a lot longer.

  she dropped us at the first gas station we saw. There, we called a hiker hostel in nearby Stratton, Maine. It took several hours for the owner to come and pick us up, but then he drove us directly to the hospital, where Nightwalker was diagnosed with giardia and given a prescription. From the hospital we returned to Stratton, where we spent two days resting so Nightwalker could regain his strength.

  It was hard to stop when we were so close to the end. Katahdin had just come into view, and now it felt like it was taking us forever to get there. But it also made me realize how strong my ties to Mooch and Nightwalker had become. I knew that the boys would have stopped and waited for me if I had been sick. After hiking eighty percent of the trail alone, now it wouldn’t have felt right to summit katahdin without those two by my side.

  We didn’t do much at the hostel except sleep, watch tV, and stare at the southbounders. There were over a dozen southbounders at the hostel, and they were all so pretty. They looked like models out of an outdoor magazine. They smelled good, their clothes were clean, their hair wasn’t in knots, they didn’t have tacky hiker tans, and they were full of energy and laughter.

  On the other hand, they looked at us in horror. Even after two days of rest, we were still gaunt, sunburned, and covered in bug bites and scars.

  Our last night at the hostel, after taking a shower, I spent several minutes looking in the mirror. I combed through my nappy hair with my hands, ran a finger over the scratches on my arms, and picked the loose scabs off my old bug bites. I wasn’t pretty—at least, not the way the southbounders were pretty. I didn’t look groomed, and I wouldn’t be chosen to be in an outdoor magazine. But I did feel beautiful, probably more beautiful than I had ever felt.

  I felt beautiful because my body was toned, my legs could hike thirty miles a day, and my arms could pull up on branches or brace my fall when I needed them to. I felt beautiful because my body was capable of hiking over two thousand miles. I felt beautiful because I was part of nature, part of a creation that was expansive and awe-inspiring. I might not have been considered pretty by society’s standards, but what society thought mattered less and less to me.

  After two nights at the stratton hostel, Nightwalker felt well enough to return to the trail. We were all eager to resume our journey. Thankfully, the trail leveled out a bit after the Bigelow Mountains, so the next obstacle we came to wasn’t a mountain but a river.

  Right before Caratunk, Maine, the trail crosses the Kennebec River. Although it’s not very deep, the river is extremely wide and can rise rapidly. Thousands of successful fords, or river crossings, had been completed here in the past, but unfortunately, one year, a sixty-one-year-old hiker lost her life when she slipped in the river and stayed submerged due to her pack. After that incident, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy decided to offer a summer ferry service. The service consists of a small canoe that shuttles people across the river early in the morning and again in the late afternoon.

  I wanted to ford the river, but the boys didn’t.

  They told me that the official route of the Appalachian Trail was on the ferry, and that if I didn’t cross in the canoe, I wouldn’t be on the official trail and it would compromise the integrity of my hike. The ATC had even included a blaze on the bottom of the boat to support that logic.

  I didn’t see how walking by foot instead of riding in a canoe would compromise my hike.

  Then Mooch, determined to get to katahdin as soon as possible, bluntly stated, “Listen, Odyssa, Nightwalker is still weak. He needs to take the ferry and I want to take the ferry, so if you ford, you ford alone. I know you’ll probably be fine fording the river, but what if something does happen? What if you get injured or step on a rock wrong or whatever? We’re a week away from Katahdin; it’s not worth the risk.”

  Mooch made a good point, and sometimes the worst thing about being part of a group is having to accept sound advice. The three of us crossed the river in the canoe, and it was actually kind of fun. We may not have been walking, but at least we got to paddle.

  Safe, dry, and on the opposite shore, the three of us decided that we would try to catch a quick hitch into Caratunk for an ice cream break before returning to the trail for an afternoon of hiking.

  I assumed the position by the side of the road with my right arm out, my thumb in the air, and the boys several feet
behind me. As we hoped, the first car to drive by slowed down and pulled over. But as the middle-aged man passed us, I caught a glimpse of far more than I expected to see.

  “He’s naked!” I whispered to the boys.

  “That’s ridiculous,” said Mooch. “I bet he’s just not wearing a shirt.”

  “I promise you, there is more missing than his shirt,” I said.

  Still unconvinced, Mooch walked up to the car window. He was there for less than a second before he had to look away.

  “Um, no thanks, we changed our minds,” said Mooch.

  “Are you sure about that?” asked the driver.

  “Yep, pretty sure,” said Mooch.

  The driver laughed and drove off. The boys couldn’t believe what had just happened.

  “I mean, really? Did a naked guy really just pull over and offer us a ride?” Mooch asked in disbelief.

  “I never thought I’d see anything like that on the trail,” said Nightwalker.

  “Get used to it,” I said, smiling. “You’re hiking with me now, remember?”

  The next day we had to try to hitch again. It was our last hitch of the entire trail, and it was our hardest.

  It rained hard all day. It was cold and my gear was no longer waterproof, so I was chilled and soaked to the bone. I also had two hard falls that morning. Both times, I remember looking down at my feet speeding over the slick wet rocks, and then the next thing I remember I was looking up at the sky, trying to figure out how I had gotten there.

  I beat Mooch and Nightwalker to the road, because it was cold and, no matter how tired I am, I always hike fast when it’s cold. When I arrived at the road, not only was I shivering and wet, but I was covered in mud. I even tried to get a ride before the boys arrived because I knew that if they looked anything like me then no one would stop to pick up the three of us as a group. I stood alone in the downpour getting splashed by cars as they sped through the runoff for twenty minutes without success. Then the boys came out of the woods, and as I expected, they were dripping wet, slathered in clay, and sprinkled with pine needles.

  We stood there for another forty minutes, and still no one stopped. Aside from evacuating Nightwalker, the longest I’d ever had to wait for a hitch was ten minutes. But on this, the last hitch, when I barely had the strength to stand by the road and stick out my thumb, I was stuck in a cold downpour for an hour. I started hoping that the naked man from the day before would drive by again. If the boys had agreed to go with me, I would have been more than willing to get in his car.

  I was consumed with fatigue and irritability. I began cursing the vehicles that passed us. Not all of them, because there’s no way that I would have picked us up either, but I did yell at the pickup trucks that passed with empty truck beds.

  When a car finally pulled over, my bitterness melted, and I was filled with gratitude. In the end, it was not a truck with an empty bed that pulled over to help us; it was a family of four in a clean, crowded SUV. The mother and father were sitting in the front and two young children were strapped into car seats in the back, and between the seats were layers of boxes and household goods that they were delivering to friends.

  The car was filled to capacity without our presence, but the young couple insisted that we could not stay on the side of the road in this weather, so the mother climbed in between the two car seats in the back. Nightwalker sat in the front with his pack at his feet, I sat on him with my pack on my lap, and Mooch somehow contorted himself around the equipment in the back. The mother held some of their belongings to give us more room, and even put light boxes on her toddler’s lap.

  Unlike other resupply towns along the trail, Monson was not a quick jaunt down the road. The ride lasted nearly ten minutes, and throughout the drive, the mother apologized for the lack of room in the vehicle.

  And did I mention that the SUV was not only clean, but it also smelled new? I prayed the scent was coming from some unseen air freshener, because God only knows what we did to that car. As much as I tried to contain myself, the limited space meant that parts of my body were plastered against the window and dashboard. And even without putting any weight on my feet, the mud and water on the bottom of my shoes left clear sneaker prints on the clean floor mat.

  The family’s willingness to give of their time and to sacrifice their car for us was humbling and completely out of the ordinary. I’m still not convinced that they weren’t angels, but I like to think they were human . . . it’s more impressive that way.

  20

  TRIUMPH

  MONSON, ME, TO MOUNT KATAHDIN,

  ME,—118 MILES

  The Hundred Mile Wilderness is filled with large lakes that are surrounded by warm white boulders. The plentiful water sources provide nice resting spots and a refreshing place to swim. After climbing over White Cap Mountain, the Wilderness flattens out and becomes a victory road leading to Katahdin. The trail is still strewn with roots, rocks, and streams, but views of the big mountain help hikers step lightly over any obstacles. The Hundred Mile Wilderness ends at Abol Bridge. From the bridge, you are ten miles from Katahdin Stream Campground, and fifteen miles from the end of the trail.

  You would think that on the last stop of the trail I would have been ready to celebrate. But after a brief stop at the post office in Monson and a bite to eat, the only thing I wanted to celebrate was my bed at the nearby hostel. At the beginning, I had been hiking on the trail to get to towns. Towns had been the reward, but now, at the end of the trail, towns felt more like interruptions.

  The next morning, the three of us headed back to the trail and entered the Hundred Mile Wilderness leading to Katahdin. At the start of the Wilderness, there’s a sign warning hikers that they should be prepared with food for at least ten days when entering the section. The boys and I carried four days’ worth of provisions. We were ready, no matter the conditions, to climb Katahdin five days later. I had no doubt that we would face challenges every day on our way to the mountain, but I also knew that, somehow, we would find ways to overcome them.

  One would imagine that our team morale would be at an all-time high as we approached our ultimate goal, but this was not the case.

  Nightwalker was in a foul mood because his camera had broken, and he would not be able to capture our finale. He decided to take out his frustration by giving Mooch and me the silent treatment and hiking especially fast. I couldn’t fault him for being annoyed with the two of us, since Mooch and I had stopped carrying our cameras long ago with the intention of getting doubles from Nightwalker.

  Mooch was irritated because part of his food source (and his trail name) came from mooching off other hikers—including Nightwalker and myself. And by this point, due to our own hunger and waning compassion, we were no longer inclined to share. When we stopped to have lunch together, I took out a bag of dried apricots that I had picked up in Monson. Mooch thought that I had bought them to share, but that was not the case. When I gave him just one, he became indignant. Nightwalker, still bitter about his broken camera, snapped at Mooch for always wanting handouts. That hurt Mooch, so he stopped talking too.

  I was feeling antisocial as well, not because I was upset, but because I was more tired than I had ever been. We encountered three tough river crossings that day. The current was especially strong due to the past twenty-four hours of rain, and one crossing was located several yards above descending whitewater. With each ford, I thought the river might wash me away because I was too weak to wade through it.

  Toward the end of the day, my vision literally became blurred from fatigue. I tripped and fell on a well-groomed section of trail simply because I was having trouble keeping my eyes open.

  When I arrived at Cloud Pond Lean-To that evening, Nightwalker was there, but Mooch was nowhere to be seen.

  “Where’s Mooch?” I asked.

  “He decided to hike ahead.”

  “Hike ahead?”

  “Yeah, he said he wanted to spend a night or two on his own.”

 
I could certainly understand the desire to be alone. But I was mad that Mooch had split up the group so close to the end. At least, I tried to be mad, but even my emotions were watered down with fatigue. I was too tired to care. I was too tired to eat. I was too tired to talk. I just wanted to sleep. If I had become a good hiker on the Appalachian Trail, I had become a great sleeper. It was still bright outside, but I was unconscious by 7:30 PM.

  The next morning, when Nightwalker gently nudged me awake, my eyes were still gluey. I could have easily fallen back asleep and slept for the rest of the day. Struggling to pack up my gear, I asked Nightwalker to hike with me for the first half of the day; I needed his conversation to stay awake.

  When it was time for lunch, we decided to venture down a short side trail to enjoy our meal by a waterfall. After I finished my meal, I packed up my belongings to head back to the trail.

  “That wasn’t a very long lunch break,” said Nightwalker.

  “I know, but I feel like I need the extra time to make it to the shelter this evening. I’m so tired, I feel like I’m barely hiking two miles per hour.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I’m going to enjoy the waterfall a little longer, and then I’ll catch up with you.”

  After about thirty minutes of hiking, I began to wonder why I hadn’t yet seen Nightwalker. I hiked for another half hour, and still no Nightwalker. I started to worry. He was a fast hiker and I had barely been going at a shuffle for the past hour. He should have caught up to me by now. Where was he? Was he lost?

  I saw a sign up ahead, and much to my confusion, it implied that after an hour of hiking, I was now three miles south of where I had eaten lunch. I pulled out my guidebook and began to survey my surroundings. It looked familiar, but NO . . . I couldn’t have.

  I was hiking in the wrong direction!

  The whole point of this trail, the one thing that kept me going, was the knowledge that every step was taking me closer to my goal. All I had to do was follow the white blazes and hike north, and I couldn’t even do that anymore.