North

by Scott Jurek

  For some people—many of whom announce their views loudly online—the Appalachian Trail is an opportunity for unplugging, for connecting to subtler rhythms of nature, for letting go of technology and submitting to forces beyond one’s control. In the parlance of the decade, it’s an invitation to be mindful. And mindfulness, for these people, must be uncoupled from ambition. When they saw me and countless others—professionals and amateurs alike—lacing up our running shoes, carrying small packs with minimal gear, and actually running on the trail, they saw a bunch of pretentious heretics. When Jenny told me about the reverential store near the trailhead down in Georgia, with the sacred pair of beat-up boots, I smiled. But I quickly realized that there really were people who saw the AT as a kind of church. And if you were to visit any historic church anywhere in the world, you’d follow the rules and keep quiet. You wouldn’t race around the pews. So in that respect, I couldn’t blame my detractors.

  And I largely agreed with their outlook. It was something I struggled with. The most joyous moments out here were those of natural serendipity and grace; the slow moments, the moments of stillness and smallness. I agreed with those who saw the AT as a place of worship.

  I also wanted to beat the record and push the edges of my capabilities. I thought I could do both. So far, I had.

  The hiker at Buckeye Gap probably wouldn’t agree that you could revel in beauty while also struggling in pain. I didn’t feel like lecturing him, but I had a bit of experience with doing exactly that. He also probably didn’t know that I was moving at three miles an hour, no faster than a strong thru-hiker, not at the ten-mile-an-hour pace he likely imagined runners kept. Would he have understood if I’d told him that, though man’s soul finds solace in natural beauty, it is forged in the fire of pain? That if I wanted to find real peace, I had to pass through the crucible of fifty-mile days? Probably not. Would he comprehend that there was joy in speed, and that speed is a relative concept in any case? Perhaps I should have told him that, even though I was covering more miles a day than most, I was also spending far more hours awake on the trail than most, so I was able to enjoy the trail and its inhabitants when it was blanketed in darkness as well as during the daylight.

  I decided there was a time to discuss the meaning of life and there was a time to offer a simpler, less confrontational answer. As I went by, I kept it short.

  “Gotta catch a bus.”

  The smoky haze blanketing the endless layers of ridges and valleys had disappeared into the thin mountain air hours ago. The sun beamed brightly and rewarded me when I came to a rare opening in the dense canopy of trees. I had been looking forward to reaching the Great Smoky Mountains even though I knew they would make me earn every mile.

  To the Cherokee, these mountains were sacred. They called the area Shaconage (pronounced “sha-kon-oh-hey”), meaning “land of the blue smoke.” Modern scientists learned that this sacred and mysterious blue smoke is actually fog created by the local plant life. The same biological processes and products that create that freshly mowed–lawn smell after you cut the grass are at work behind the smoke of the Smokies. Only multiplied about a billion times. It’s almost like the earth itself is exhaling.

  I was adding to that great communal exhalation with my own breath as the AT dragged me up and onward. Down twenty flights of stairs, then up thirty; down ten flights then back up twenty. That’s what following an ascending ridge is like. A hundred feet here, fifty feet there, and on and on it went. Going nowhere fast. The trail cut a rocky path straight up, then straight down, then up and down again. I climbed two thousand feet, then descended five hundred, then climbed another thousand. By the numbers, the elevation change from Fontana Dam to Clingmans Dome is a modest forty-four hundred feet. In reality, I had to go up and down three times that, climbing more than twelve thousand feet in the span of thirty-three miles.

  When pondering elevation gain and mountains along the Appalachian Trail, most people think of the high peaks of New England: the Green Mountains of Vermont, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and the Mahoosuc Range in Maine. However, the highest mountains are actually in the South. In fact, seven of the ten highest peaks on the AT are south of Virginia, and four of them are in Great Smoky Mountains National Park; three of those are over six thousand feet high.

  When Victor and I finally reached the highest peak on the entire trail, Clingmans Dome, we were greeted by a small group of runners who had driven three hours to catch me on the roof of the AT. I was hours behind schedule and I felt bad that I’d made them wait. I chatted with them a bit before starting up the spiraling concrete ramp to the lookout tower. It was a detour, but I wanted to enjoy the view. Groups of tourists leaned far over the railing with their cameras, and a small group from Alabama was shocked when they heard I was doing the whole AT. A heavyset young man seemed intrigued, and I told him he should hike the entire trail. He told me that someday he would, and I hoped he might.

  We looked back out over the dense, thicketed ridges that shrouded the Georgia–North Carolina border. From the ground, those mountains looked like densely forested humps, nothing more. But the southern courtliness with which those ridges hid their hazards didn’t fool me anymore. I wasn’t alone in viewing that stretch of the AT with respect. The great long-distance hiker Daniel Boone described these particular mountains as being “so wild and horrid that it is impossible to behold them without terror.”

  That reputation had lasted, but somehow the terror of the Smokies brought me delight minutes later as I ambled beneath firs and spruces pierced by the orange beams of the sunset. Root-balls the size of dump trucks were strewn along the trail, reminding me of my insignificance in the face of Mother Nature’s might. My first day in the Smokies was a long, strenuous one, but I felt alive and content as it wound to a close.

  When I reached the van after 11:00 that night, all I wanted to do was lie down on the bed. But JLu insisted I rinse off with the camping shower, knowing I would sleep better without the trail grime on me. Reluctantly, I jumped out of the van and bathed with cold water in the wind and fog. As I finished up, headlights approached, and I thought a ranger was about to pop out of the vehicle and tell us we couldn’t park here for the night. Instead, I heard a loud, excited voice cut through the gusts. “Hey, do you know when Scott Jurek is going to arrive?”

  I knew what Jenny was thinking as she was warming up dinner inside the van—Just tell him Scott Jurek came through hours ago! I knew because I was thinking the same thing. Still, I couldn’t help myself. JLu knew I couldn’t say no to fans. So, half naked, shivering in the wind, I said, “Uh…I’m Scott Jurek.”

  “Oh my God! Son, get out here! I can’t believe it—we found him! What luck; Scott Jurek is here! We’ve been driving for hours and we’re big fans. My son is eleven and we run ultras together. Can we get a photo with you?”

  Maybe because it was dark, they couldn’t tell I was wearing only goose bumps and a camp towel. I told them I needed to put some clothes on but that I’d come back out. Jenny didn’t even look at me when she tossed me some shorts. I knew she just wanted me to put my feet up and eat. And I did, but only after I posed for a few photos and encouraged the young boy to keep doing what he loves. I’ve met so many people at races and my events, and I’ve found that it’s their stories that keep me going. Many athletes have inspired me throughout my career, and I feel like it’s my duty to pass on inspiration in that giant circle of motivation.

  As I stepped back into the van, JLu and I broke into laughter. The father and son almost saw more of me than they would’ve cared to.

  * * *

  On the morning of the fourth day, in the gray, predawn light, a white sedan pulled up and parked near our van. It was eerie to see another car out here this early, but I figured somebody had just gotten lost and spotted the light from our van. Jurker and I were getting ready to start our day the same way we’d started the previous two—by running the first section of the trail together, just us. It was by far my favorite
part of each day.

  But as we stepped out of the van and turned on our headlamps, the driver emerged, and he looked anything but lost. In fact, he was wearing a running pack.

  He had driven six hours through the night from Louisville just to meet Jurker. I had to hand it to him for finding us—our tracker hadn’t been working consistently—but it was too early for company. Friends are one thing, but complete strangers require a whole different level of presence. Also, I’m not particularly good at social niceties. Jurker, however, is a master. It’s a Minnesota thing. At home, he chats up all our neighbors as I try to avoid eye contact and make up excuses to go inside. Normally I admired his friendly demeanor, but right then I wanted to slip into the trees and listen to the birdsong.

  Now that I knew we would have a visitor with us, I started up the trail by myself to have some quiet moments alone. I’d barely taken a few steps off the road before it got dark again in the tunnel. In the South, night lingered past dawn in the thick woods of the trail. Wet cobwebs hit my face as I hiked forward. I quickly emulated Jurker and began speed-walking, with my poles up in a big X in front of me. On the other side of the spider neighborhood, I passed a shelter where two hikers were sleeping. It looked nice, peaceful. I missed our days on the PCT when we would sleep in and be the last hikers to leave each morning but still catch up to the pack before dusk. Pretty soon, I turned and saw the beam of a headlamp gaining on me. I was grateful to see only one.

  “What happened to your new friend?”

  “I told him that I wanted to run alone with you, told him he could meet me after the dam.”

  So we made our morning run with just the two of us after all, and it turned out to be one of the most spectacular sections of the whole trail. I’d read about the Fontana Dam in the guidebook, but the description didn’t come close to doing it justice. Its scale is breathtaking, and from halfway across it, we could look out over the basin of the Little Tennessee River and see the whole world around us: the hills, the horizon, the little white riverbanks. I’ve traveled all over the globe and run in a lot of fantastic places, but running across that mighty dam that morning was among the most magnificent experiences of my life. It felt momentous, as if we were running to another place in our lives. It reminded me of a story Luis loves to tell about the Copper Canyon.

  When he and Jurker were exploring the canyon trails outside of Batopilas with their guide, Caballo Blanco, they approached an old suspension bridge. Caballo made them stop before the bridge and said ominously, “There is adventure on the other side of this bridge. When we cross this bridge, there will be no turning back. Now, raise your right hand and repeat after me: ‘If I get hurt, lost, or die, it’s my own damn fault.’”

  Scott and I were making tangible progress on this journey north and there was no going back. On the other side of the dam, a sign welcomed us to the next phase of the trail: Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

  Standing next to that sign was the eager runner from this morning as well as a few others.

  But this time I didn’t mind. I had been nervous about Scott running in the Smokies alone. Road access and cell service were limited out there, and bear sightings were frequent. The additional company was welcome; he’d be doing the next thirty-two miles unsupported because the AT was blanketed by wilderness for that entire stretch.

  Once Jurker and the runners took off, I hopped in the van with Luis and we drove back to a little oasis called the Nantahala Outdoor Center that we’d discovered the day before. Luis wanted to do a load of laundry. I couldn’t believe it—we’d been out on the trail for only four days, Luis would be leaving in two, and he wanted to do laundry already! The van life is not for everyone.

  He chucked his clothes into an ancient washing machine that was caked with dirt and hoped for the best, and while I waited for him, I went to a restaurant overlooking the Nantahala River and checked my e-mail. I had a reminder from my doctor that I needed to get my blood drawn today so we could make sure my HCG level was back down to zero after the miscarriage. Shoot. I had completely forgotten about that. All of it. I hadn’t thought about any of it since we’d arrived in Georgia. It was nice to forget after so many months of rumination, to get out from under the dark cloud of sadness and frustration. Nonetheless, I really did need to get my blood drawn. I found a little medical clinic thirty minutes away, and Luis waited in the van while I got the test I needed so I could put that chapter of my health to bed. I hoped. When I left, I felt lighter (and a little light-headed).

  This whole journey had been a direct result of another journey we had started three years ago: we were trying to have a baby. It turned out to be the most difficult thing I’d ever done. I couldn’t understand why. Wasn’t it my maternal right to have a baby? Everything else in my life had been attainable with a little hard work, but after doing all the diagnostics, seeing different specialists, and drawing on traditions both Eastern and Western, we had zero answers. We fell into the vague category of “unexplained infertility.” And we’d had two disappointments. The first one nearly killed me. In the past, every time life had told me no, I’d put my head down, silently screamed, Yes, and kept marching forward. I wasn’t done dreaming.

  I got back to the van and discovered El Coyote fast asleep, slumped over the steering wheel. The van was idling. I would have scolded him for it, but he was exhausted, and I got it. Crewing for four days had been more tiring than we’d expected. We both needed rest, but we had a list of errands to do before we made our way to our next meeting location with Scott.

  The long hours and uncertainty weren’t the only tiring parts of the trip. After we left the clinic, we drove to a grocery store, a gas station, and then a rest stop where we could wash some dishes. Luis hopped out of the van wearing his running tights (so tight I referred to them as his plum smugglers), a ceramic medallion around his neck, and huarache sandals. Typical El Coyote. Nothing out of the ordinary. Then I came out in my fluorescent running shorts and a polka-dot tank top. Boulder-chic, in my opinion.

  But a group of about a dozen guys lined up on motorcycles next to us in the parking lot had a different opinion. They were all in full leathers and made no effort to hide their fascination with us. As we went about our business, one of them was moved to comment, “Good Lord.” Perhaps it was the clothes, or perhaps it was the image of a Hispanic and an Asian driving around in a big black van with images of Clif Bars and the words Run Happy plastered on its side. Regardless, after we got back in the van, we dissolved into laughter.

  But only after we got back in the van. There were plenty of Confederate flags around. And I had my doubts about Luis and his plums if it came to a fight.

  Chapter 4

  This Is Who I Am,

  This Is What I Do

  Day Five

  It wasn’t just strangers who were finding me on the trail. It was old friends too.

  He was the embodiment of a crotchety prophet, that homespun coach who boosts your progress by cutting you off at the knees, and he became one of my first type 2 friends, someone who could be difficult to be around but whom I sorely missed once gone. He was my Southern Yoda.

  His name was David Horton, but some called him Horty, which he didn’t particularly like. A student of his—one of his many disciples of trail-running pain—had bestowed the name on him. It probably sounded better in the original South Carolinian twang, but JLu and I couldn’t imagine calling him anything else. We certainly couldn’t call him by his given name; he just wasn’t a David. But he was most definitely a Horty. He preferred, even demanded, that people refer to him with titles of respect: Dr. Horton or even King D-Ho.

  Horty and I went way back. We’d met in Lynchburg, Virginia, at the pre-race briefing of the 1998 Mountain Masochist Trail Run fifty-miler. I had placed second in my first hundred-miler, the Angeles Crest 100 Mile Endurance Run, a month earlier that year; I’d won three fifty-mile races and finished in the top three in three others. I was twenty-four years old and wore my hair down to my s
houlders. I was just starting to expand my ultramarathon career, and that’s why I was in Lynchburg, in the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was time to test myself against the competition east of the Mississippi. I stood out, and the race director who was presiding over the briefing that Friday evening looked me up and down, glanced at the stainless-steel bowl that held my dinner of quinoa and black beans, and then smirked. He was lanky and sinewy. Not old enough to be grizzled, but well on his way. His white polo shirt and fresh crew cut told me that my long-hair-don’t-care West Coast vibe didn’t belong in these parts.

  “Hey, Jurek,” he said in a deep drawl I would come to know well, “you’re lookin’ reeeeal good. Girl! What ya got in that bowl? Looks like dog barf!”

  The first words spoken to me by Horty. (Much later, Jenny would have a similarly droll introduction.) Then he laid into me, Horty-style.

  “Ya think you’re gonna run faaast on these Appalachian Mountains, don’t ya, Mr. Jurek? We grow ’em tougher out east here!”

  I liked to think I wasn’t one to judge someone by his or her reputation, but his reputation preceded him. Maybe this was just prickly Southern humor and his way of messing with me. In any case, I knew this seemingly straight-edged Southerner was a wild man in disguise. Despite being polar opposites, we became running buddies, meeting up for mountainous adventures.

  He held a PhD in education and was a professor of exercise physiology at Liberty University, the college founded by evangelist Jerry Falwell. Along with academic courses in exercise science, he taught a running class, which consisted of a semester of students getting muddy and bloody on the trails he had built around Liberty. In classic Horty fashion, running an ultramarathon earned students an improvement in their final grade.