Called Again

by Jennifer Pharr Davis

  As much as I wanted to play with Hazel on the blanket all day, Lindsay picked her up after fifteen minutes and took her to the car, but not before promising they would both be at the next road crossing. Getting to see Hazel again was the only motivation I needed to grab a pack and start striding down the trail, this time with my brother close behind me.

  It was really nice to have James on the trail with me; not just because he could fill me in on all the cute things that Hazel had done over the past five weeks, but also because he was my brother. Getting my family to support my love of long-distance hiking had been a gradual and arduous process.

  Eight years ago, James was not thrilled when I first set out alone at age twenty-one to hike the entire Appalachian Trail. But he was there at the end to climb Katahdin with me and help me drive home. Now he was back on the trail, trekking with me through the open fields and pastures of Southwest Virginia.

  I appreciated his help, but in a way he owed me because I had spent my entire childhood going to every football, basketball, and baseball game that my brothers ever played—and their teams were never even that good. By the time I had my own tournaments and matches, both of my brothers were away at college, so they attended very few of my athletic events.

  That afternoon, I asked James to fill me in on all the pro sports results I had missed over the summer. He told me about the NBA finals and gave me a brief recap of Wimbledon, then he asked me if I had heard about the U.S. Women’s Soccer Team, which I, of course, had not.

  “It was awesome!” he proclaimed. “They had an amazing run in the World Cup this summer. It felt like the entire country was rooting for them.”

  I had never heard my brother talk about women’s soccer before.

  So I asked, “Do you think you appreciate women’s athletics more now that you have a daughter?”

  “Yeah, I guess I do,” he said reflectively. “I want Hazel to play any sport that she wants, and I hope she’ll have other women to look up to.”

  “Yeah, I wish the media did a better job of portraying women as legitimate athletes,” I added. “It makes me really mad how Sports Illustrated features men on the front cover all year until it is time for the swimsuit edition. What does that say to young girls? You have a better chance of landing a cover on SI by taking your top off than by excelling in an actual sport?”

  I stopped talking, and James didn’t respond. My brother has a quiet, pensive nature, which tends to make me more loquacious.

  “It’s not that I am against women being sex symbols,” I continued—this conversation had started to get a little awkward, considering I was talking with my brother. “I am fine with men and women being sex symbols; we are all sexual creatures. I just want women to have the chance to be taken seriously as athletes, as well.”

  “Do you really feel like people give you less chance of setting the record because you’re a woman?” asked James.

  “Of course they do!” I responded. “In ultra-running, when a guy gets beaten by a women, he usually says that he got ‘chicked.’ It’s common lingo at the finish line, and it implies that there is something inherently embarrassing about it. And I’m not arguing that most men aren’t genetically stronger and faster than women, because that’s a proven fact. But when it comes to endurance sports, the stronger, faster person doesn’t always win.”

  “Well, I’m glad Hazel’s going to have an aunt who’s a terrific female athlete—no, wait. Strike that,” James said. “I’m glad Hazel is going to have an aunt who is a terrific athlete to look up to.”

  Having Hazel join us on the trail for a day and a half boosted my mileage and my spirit. At the road crossings, Brew would keep an eye on his watch, and after ten minutes, he would lift our niece from my arms and tell me that I couldn’t hold her again until the next road crossing.

  At some point along the journey, another hiker had asked in a skeptical tone how I could prevent a passion from turning into an obsession. And I had answered that as long as I surrounded myself with people who loved me and held me accountable, I could give my all to this hike without worrying about compromising who I was. Brew and I both wanted to be good spouses, family members, and friends more than we wanted to set a trail record. I think the people who were closest to us knew that this hike only represented a season of our lives and did not ultimately define who we were. Knowing that probably made it easier for them to support our insane endeavor in the short term.

  Hazel was a good reminder of where our priorities stood. But at the same time, her visit made me want to hike stronger and faster so that I could go home and be the best friend, sister, daughter, and aunt that I could be. Hazel also reinforced the growing notion that I wanted to finish so I could be a mom.

  • 13 •

  LEANING HARD

  JULY 21, 2011—JULY 26, 2011

  When James, Lindsay, and Hazel left us, I was downtrodden, to say the least. As they departed, we were closing in on Damascus and the Virginia-Tennessee border. I should have been elated to leave behind the five-hundred twenty-five mile stretch of Virginia and to enter one of the last three states. But instead, I felt stuck.

  When I met Brew at the next road crossing, he knew by my sullen look that something was wrong.

  “You miss Hazel, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But I also hate where we are right now.”

  “You mean because it is still the almost-end?”

  “Yeah. It’s as if we are in trail purgatory,” I replied. “I feel like I have given this trail everything, and I have made it a really long way, but I can sense that I am almost on empty and we are not anywhere close to the finish. I am hurting, and I am tired, and there is no end in sight.”

  “At least you know that,” said Brew.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well,” Brew said, “you know this trail inside and out. And so far you have paced yourself perfectly. Someone else might try to give too much at this point because they think they’re closer to the end than they really are. But you know every mountain, valley, and river between here and Springer, and I know that somewhere in your subconscious, you’ve kept enough strength in reserve to make it through the last five hundred miles.”

  I heard what Brew was saying, but it didn’t help much. I was at a point on the trail where I really needed inspiration. Fortunately, I got what I needed when Maureen arrived.

  Maureen was a life-long family friend, and she had been a small part of my first thru-hike in 2005 when I got off the trail in Hot Springs, North Carolina, to watch the NCAA men’s basketball tournament at her house. During that visit, she prepared a huge dinner for me and a warm bucket of water with Epsom salts so I could eat, watch the game, and soak my sore feet all at the same time.

  Maureen knew about endurance and efficiency. She was one of the toughest women I knew. When she was my age, she participated in a number of endurance riding events on horseback, including multiple hundred-mile rides in the back-country. Now in her sixties, she lived on a farm and trained her four border collies to participate in sheepdog trials—another sport where precision is key and the slightest mistake has huge consequences.

  Whether at a national trial or at home, Maureen usually had two or three dogs trailing at her feet and an SLR camera hanging from her neck. She is the most gifted photographer I know. The only problem is that she refuses to shoot humans.

  Maureen would capture images of sheep, dogs, and horses all day long, but she typically insisted that we two-legged creatures were not worth the trouble. It had been a three-month struggle to convince her to be our wedding photographer. For me, it wasn’t just about having great photographs; it was about sharing such an intimate occasion with someone I knew and loved. Maureen finally agreed.

  Not only did she take pictures at our outdoor wedding, but when a five-foot black snake crawled across the aisle just before the guests arrived, Maureen snatched it up by the head and slung it into the distant hedges.

  Taking photos at our cerem
ony must not have been too unbearable, because two months after our nuptials, Maureen was also at Springer Mountain with her camera in hand as we set the women’s supported record.

  Usually she would have hiked a mile or more to get on-trail shots, but this summer she was limited to the road crossings. With her hair growing slower than Brew’s beard, and a chest as flat as mine, we couldn’t help but be reminded that Maureen had faced a journey much longer and more difficult than our own.

  When we found out late last summer that Maureen had a progressive form of breast cancer, it surprised everyone. She was one of the strongest, fiercest women I knew. In a sense, we all felt that she was invincible. But last autumn, for the first time ever, I saw her cry. I wanted to give her something to look forward to, so I told her, even before telling my own parents, that I wanted to set the overall record on the trail and I wanted her to be there at the end to take photos. She looked at me and scoffed. And in her shrill Southern accent, she said, “I don’t even know if I’ll be alive next summer.”

  A few weeks into her treatment, Maureen and I went shopping together for only the second time. The first time had been when we were searching for my wedding dress; now we were looking for a wig. I watched as the thinning hair on her head was completely shaved off, and then helped her try on hairpieces of different lengths and colors. She ultimately decided she’d always wanted to be a redhead, so she chose a beautiful shoulder-length auburn coiffure. But that was the only day I ever saw her wear it. In the end, it didn’t really suit her to wear a wig—or to have reconstructive breast surgery. There had never been anything artificial about Maureen.

  In the past nine months, she had experienced a double mastectomy and multiple rounds of chemotherapy and radiation. Now, she was standing at the trailhead smiling, snapping pictures, and reminding me that when a task feels overwhelming, the only thing to do is take one step at a time. Maureen was an everyday hero. She was struggling and persevering because she had to, not because she wanted to. The grace and determination that she exhibited during her cancer treatment made me realize that I still had more to give, and it helped me to stop complaining. This endeavor was difficult, but I had chosen to be here and could stop at any time. Maureen’s resolve was unwavering and her battle was ongoing. Her presence on the trail was humbling and inspiring, and her story and example helped me through the almost-end.

  Often, when I arrived at a road crossing I would find Maureen and Brew bickering. Maureen gave both of us tough love, just like my mom would. It was great entertainment watching her chide my husband.

  “You need to let me clean the inside of the car,” she would nag. “It is an absolute mess! If you don’t rinse out this cooler with soap and water, Jen is going to get a bacterial infection.”

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do it,” Brew would reply.

  “No, you don’t have time to do it. You need to let me help you.”

  “But you don’t know where to look for things or what container to put them in.”

  “Oh, and you do? Anything would be better than the state this car is in right now.”

  Then Maureen looked over at me sitting in the camp chair.

  “Oh my God, Momie! What is that you’re putting in your mouth?”

  Maureen has called me Momie since I was born. To this day, I don’t know why, but just hearing the nickname makes me feel loved.

  I’ll admit, I had started to include French fries and a milkshake as one of my daily snacks. I also continued drinking fruit smoothies; squirting honey in my mouth; and eating healthy sandwiches, Greek yogurt, and guacamole as much as possible. But I was still extremely nauseous, and fries and a milkshake were still somewhat appetizing, and they went down easily.

  “You can’t set a record by eating French fries all the time! Here, I brought fruit and some hard-boiled eggs from my chickens.”

  Then she handed me several zipper-lock bags from the cooler in her truck bed. “You need to eat some of this, too,” she said. I dug inside one of the bags and brought out a giant hunk of watermelon.

  I filled my mouth with the sweet red flesh and let the juice run down my chin. It tasted delicious. I guess watermelon also worked pretty well as a trail snack. The only problem was I didn’t have time to isolate the seeds in my mouth and spit them out so I just swallowed them. Watermelon may be healthier, but I never had to worry about seeds when I ate French fries.

  “Keep that and eat it,” said Maureen. “I’m going back to the farm tomorrow. I’ll bring you some more fresh fruit toward the end of the trail.”

  When we reached the North Carolina border, things felt as if they had come full circle. I was in my home state, where I had grown up, and soon I reached the place where I’d first set foot on the Appalachian Trail.

  Just north of Roan Mountain, I passed a rural county road near a cemetery and a church where on a day hike in 2004 I had seen my first white blaze. I passed by a familiar tree with a double blaze and laughed out loud. I remembered wondering eight years ago what on earth two off-set blazes could possibly mean. Now, I instinctively veered left, knowing the two white rectangles signified a sudden change of direction.

  I loved walking over the top of Roan in the mid-morning mist and smelling the sweet scent of the Fraser fir and spruce trees that bordered the trail. This had been one of the portions of trail where I’d spent time training in the spring, and it was amazing how different it looked just two months later. The flame azalea and rhododendron no longer showcased their brilliant colors, but the green was deeper than I remembered and the scent of evergreen was stronger. I knew that I would smell this aroma again on Unaka Mountain and on the ridges of the Smokies—only two more high-elevation, Christmas-scented summits left.

  When I reached the Nolichucky River, I was met by Brew and two of our best friends, Jeff and Heather. I could drive from our house to the Nolichucky River in less than an hour, so it was close enough for frequent section-hiking, and it was also convenient enough for Jeff and Heather to come and visit. They were two of our most ardent supporters, but they primarily supported us with prayer from their home because one month before we started the trail, Heather had given birth to their first child.

  Because of their newborn they couldn’t hike with us, but Heather said she had constantly prayed for us during early-morning feedings. It was nice to think that somebody else was awake, let alone praying for me, when I awoke each morning in the dark. They brought their baby boy with them that evening, and I got to carry him over the bridge that spans the Nolichucky on the outskirts of Erwin.

  I should have been happy to see our friends; I should have been proud to make it to Erwin. I envisioned my entry into this hamlet in eastern Tennessee as a triumphant parade. But instead, I felt more like the fussy, red-faced baby I held in my arms.

  Brew had been teasing me for the past several weeks, telling me that I had regressed to a toddler-like state on the trail. It was true. I existed on Juicy Juice mixed with water for my electrolyte drink, and I drank from a bottle with a nipple-shaped top. One of my special treats was chocolate milk, and like a two-year-old in diapers, I went through dozens of wet wipes every day. I had reached a point where I preferred mushy food to anything solid, and if I started crying it was usually because I needed food or wanted a nap.

  Erwin was supposed to mark the conclusion of the almost-end and the beginning of the real-end. My increasing familiarity with the trail made the task seem that much harder. Suddenly it felt like every step I took pushed the finish line one step farther away. I thought about the never-ending climb up Big Bald that awaited me tomorrow, and I dreaded the unending PUDs between Camp Creek Bald and Hot Springs. I remembered how difficult the ascent up Snowbird Mountain was before entering Smoky Mountain National Park.

  And then there was the park itself. At this point, I felt utterly weak with an eight-pound daypack resting on my shoulders. And in the Smokies I would have two thirty-mile stretches without a resupply. That meant more weight, slower miles, more calories burn
ed, more calories needed, more sweating, more salt tablets, and more time away from Brew—the one person who could get me through anything.

  I started to sniffle and tear up just like the two-month-old who was nestled against my sweaty synthetic T-shirt. Heather took her baby from me and then started soothing both of us.

  “Jen, you are doing so great! You are only a week away from the finish. What’s wrong?”

  “I thought I would feel closer to the end in Erwin, and I don’t,” I said dejectedly. “A day out here feels like an eternity. A week is incomprehensible! I have given so much, and I feel so empty. I don’t know if I have another seven days in me.”

  I realized that I seemed melodramatic, and I felt bad crying when I was so excited to see our friends. But the fact remained that even if I was able to keep hiking sixteen hours a day, I still had one-hundred and twelve hours to go and over three-hundred thirty miles of trail before reaching Springer Mountain. And that was still a really long way!

  Heather stood next to me, patting my head, telling me how well I was doing, and mentioning several of the things I had to look forward to when I finished. Usually that was Brew’s job. I looked around for my husband and saw him talking to Jeff near our friends’ Subaru. In the twilight I could see his red, watery eyes, and I could tell Jeff was providing a pep talk similar to the one that Heather was giving me.

  One of the reasons we decided to start the record attempt at Katahdin was to maximize daylight hours through Maine and New Hampshire and to get through the most technical portion of trail at the beginning. The other main reason was that we knew the closer we got to Springer Mountain, the more support we could receive from friends and family. It was a good strategy. We were both leaning harder and harder on the people who came to visit us, and we appreciated their support more and more.

  Jeff and Heather provided us with compassion and words of encouragement, then they prayed with us. And before they left, Heather brought out two trays of baked goods from her car and left them in our SUV. She also left us something even better—and there aren’t many things I consider better than my friend’s caramel brownies. But as Jeff and Heather turned on their headlights and pulled onto the two-lane road, Brew and I were not alone. Heather had left us her thirty-two-year-old marathon-running brother Hampton.