North

by Scott Jurek

  I think most people we ran into meant well. But there were outliers. A few days back, JLu stopped at a popular brewery to get me some french fries. She felt too grimy to wait inside with the well-groomed customers, so she stayed in the foyer near some thru-hikers. One of them asked how many days I’d been on the trail so far.

  After a quick calculation, she replied, “Eighteen.”

  He looked surprised. “I’ve taken more zeros than days he’s hiked,” the young thru-hiker said. “That insults me.”

  Before JLu could respond, another hiker stood up and said, “Hey, man, hike your own hike. I think it’s cool what he’s doing,” and asked to take a picture with her.

  There it was again, that age-old rub. I could hear the man yelling at me in the Smokies “What’s your hurry?”; the people online posting that I was missing the point; the guy who said I was too slow to get the record—and now this hiker felt insulted by my pace.

  Hike your own hike and I’ll blaze my own trail. These comments only motivated me more.

  The South was where we had gotten our bearings and lost our minds. I’d bumped up against my mental and physical limits and thought it was over. But I’d bounced back. JLu, for her part, had been harassed and overworked, but she’d held her own. And now she was running a tighter ship than ever. Castle Black had gotten more professional. She’d turned it into an efficient food, comfort, and lodging machine for one very ragged runner.

  We crossed the Mason-Dixon Line on day twenty-two, leaving the South behind and approaching the halfway point. Mile markers were one thing, but it felt more significant that we had crossed into the geographical midsection of the trail. We were done with the Blue Ridge Mountains and heading into the mid-Atlantic bluffs and forests. My body had healed up from the first major blows, and my head was back in the game. Up next would be Pennsylvania, then quick dips into New Jersey and New York before I officially entered New England—the last section of the trail.

  That was what progress felt like.

  The differences, day to day and region to region, were incredible to experience. Especially since I was carried between them by nothing more than my own muscle and willpower. There was none of the strange disorientation that comes from flying across time zones—it was just me and my legs, pulling the world toward me.

  Or running away, depending on the situation. The mama bear was still fresh in my mind as we left Virginia behind. But threats would always be a part of nature and the trail. When they weren’t imminent, they deepened my respect for the place. I welcomed the wild; that was part of the experience. There was darkness and danger on the Appalachian Trail, both known and unknown to me.

  Just a few days after I passed through Great Smoky Mountains National Park, a hiker was attacked by a bear. It happened near Hazel Creek and involved a bear that hadn’t even been provoked. Prowling for food at about 10:30 at night, the bear had pulled a sixteen-year-old hiker out of his hammock and mauled his leg and head, even though the boy, camping with his father, had done everything right and taken excellent bear precautions. He’d hoisted his food, pack, and equipment far above the ground. The boy’s dad, who’d also been in a hammock, beat the bear back and then helped his son limp to the shore of a nearby lake. Campers there who had a boat took them across the lake to a dock where paramedics were waiting. He was airlifted to a hospital in Asheville, where he was treated for his injuries.

  In all, there were an average of nine bear attacks on the AT every year, most of them during the late spring and early summer, before the summer fruit had ripened.

  In addition to big mammals, there were other dangers hidden in those mid-Atlantic woods—less dramatic, but ultimately more vexing.

  First of all, there were the rocks. Jagged and uneven stones covered the trail, inspiring thru-hikers to name the middle stretch Rocksylvania. It seemed like every step was its own little adventure: uneven, slippery, and often bordered by boulders that raised the stakes of tripping and falling by promising you a cracked skull or mangled knee. The earth itself was a danger here. The rocks had been compressed into sharp layers and then pushed upright like spears about two hundred million years ago, when the landmass that would become Africa rammed into North America, shoving this part of the continent westward. That primeval push still echoes through the contours of the Pennsylvania landscape, most obviously in the westward-curving ridges of the Appalachians.

  AT legend has it that Pennsylvania hiking clubs and trail crews are proud of their state’s nickname of Rocksylvania and don’t remove rocks from the trail. In fact, some people claim they actually dump wheelbarrows full of rocks onto the trail. Speedgoat kept saying, “Dude, why’d they route the trail over the rocks? That makes a lot of sense.” Often there were no rocks to the left and right of the trail but the trail itself ran directly over boulder fields and rock beds.

  Pennsylvania’s rocks were notorious on the AT for causing disabling injuries and ending trips. The mountains’ diamond-hard, multicolored quartz rocks—used as arrowheads by the Iroquois and as building material by the early European settlers—were so plentiful and so inhospitable to plant life that many of the blazes here were painted on rocks instead of trees. Even in relatively—and I use the word relatively with caution—flat stretches of Rocksylvania, it was impossible to develop any kind of rhythm or pace. Some of the especially treacherous sections, popularly known as the Knife Edges, required a hybrid of scrambling and hiking.

  Pennsylvania’s rocks were perilous in their own right, but they also provided shelter for two of the AT’s three types of poisonous snakes, northern copperheads and timber rattlesnakes. (The third type, the aggressive water moccasin, lives in the South and ranges only up to southern Virginia.) Karl spoke of the Pennsylvania rattlers as “big fuckers.” He said their bodies were the diameter of a coffee can and claimed he could hear them rattle even through his headphones blasting Strangefolk. Speedgoat hated all snakes; fortunately he’d grown up in New Hampshire, where they have only one species of poisonous snake.

  The copperheads were more likely to bite than the rattlers, though. Like other pit vipers, they have muscular, thick bodies that range up to three feet in length. Their brown and rust-colored patches help them blend into the rocks to the point of near-invisibility, and they compound their camouflage by freezing when people approach instead of fleeing or offering a warning as rattlers usually do. They’re especially troublesome in the narrow straits of the trail that are bordered by rock shelves on one side and cliffs on the other. But the copperheads weren’t nearly as dangerous as the timber rattler, the most feared AT snake of all. The timber rattler can grow up to six feet long and has the girth of a man’s arm; its hollow fangs—large and sharp enough to puncture clothes and most boots—inject a notably powerful venom.

  About a month after I was scrambling up the Knife Edges in Pennsylvania, a timber rattler bit a thirty-nine-year-old camper on that stretch of trail. He received antivenin on-site and got airlifted to a hospital, and he still died.

  But bears and snakes didn’t even come close to the most fearsome creatures out there. The blacklegged tick and the common deer tick, no bigger than the tip of a pencil, were the menaces that loomed largest in my mind. The woods of the Northeast are responsible for the country’s highest incidence of Lyme disease, and even a mild bout of it could wreck my chances for the FKT and extend well beyond that. Even after treatment, Lyme disease can manifest as a mysterious, disabling condition that can last for years.

  The poisonous spiders were the least of my worries, even though black widows and brown recluses inhabited the trail. I was usually the first person on the trail in the morning and the last to leave it at night, so I inadvertently cleared the trail of webs, earning myself the trail name of Web Walker, a moniker bestowed on me by my fellow thru-hikers. I’d started at Springer Mountain with a trail name I’d been called for years, but I especially loved this one. It made me feel a part of the Appalachian Trail Class of 2015.

  In spite of t
he rocks, I’d been pushing myself so hard that I was making up for some of the time I’d lost during my thirty-mile days after the injuries. I was laying down fifty-four to fifty-eight miles a day, thanks in part to the Speedgoat, who reminded me every time I was ready to pack it in that I had to “chip away at some extra miles every day. Nickel-and-dime and even penny your way to Maine, dude!” At some point, I guess Speedgoat had come around and decided I did have a shot at the record after all.

  After years of knowing Karl, I had grown comfortable with his idiosyncrasies and philosophies. The passions of running and hiking bring together an eclectic stew of individuals who are all trying to get to a finish line or reach a destination. And beyond that? Almost nothing. Often these are people who would never interact with each other at all in everyday life, let alone spend hours or days together. Horty and I are a good example. His friends always asked why he went on long running adventures out west with “that Jurek guy.” I guess crew-cut, buttoned-up Liberty University professors aren’t supposed to hang with long-haired vegan hippies. I love it. We respect each other’s differences and appreciate each other’s strengths. Our sport shows there’s hope for different kinds of humans to get along and not hate each other—at least, if they all have a similar goal to concentrate on.

  Karl was different from me in about a million ways, but he was a venerable champion. He had a thirst for domination but he also genuinely wanted to help me get the record. Something in his makeup made him both ruthless and selfless, often at different times during the same day. But there is always plenty of that contradiction throughout the ultrarunning community. When we’re out on the racecourse, we duke it out, but after the race we’re all buddies, sipping some post-race brews and enjoying the afterglow of a good clean fight. That strange camaraderie was what drew me to the sport and has kept me in it for decades.

  Perhaps the emphasis should be on strange. Ultrarunning seems to be a harbor for outsiders of all kinds, Horty and Karl most certainly among them. I’ll never forget when Speedgoat and I roomed together in Hong Kong for the 2002 Oxfam Trailwalker 100K. As far as I know, it was the first time he’d ever traveled outside of the United States. The day after our team won the four-person team race, most of us went on an excursion to a famous Buddhist temple, and I encouraged Speedgoat to join us even though I could tell he was over the Asian experience. “Dude, I’m kinda tired of all the Chinese food and this crazy city,” he said. “I’m gonna get whatever American food I can find, some beer, and watch golf on TV all afternoon.” The Speedgoat was way out of his comfort zone and far from his curated routines, and he was not about to break the routine that had gotten him there.

  When I got back to the hotel, there were empty beer cans and minibottles of liquor on the desk and nightstand; chip bags and candy wrappers were strewn on the floor, and the minibar had been cleared out. Karl, lounging in bed watching golf, was lit up and pumped as shit.

  “Dude, they left all this free shit in the fridge for us! Want a drink?”

  He didn’t realize that he’d just demolished two hundred dollars’ worth of minibar refreshments. Like I said, the ol’ Goat didn’t usually roam far from home. And the type of lodging we generally inhabited most definitely didn’t include stocked minibars.

  Around 8:00 p.m. on day twenty-four, Jenny and I arrived at PA-325 near Clarks Creek and checked the maps. I’d gotten forty-five miles already—not bad, but not finished yet. Most days around that time, I’d have only a few more miles, maybe an hour or two to go. I even thought I might finish up the day before having to break out the headlamps, which would have been a true milestone considering how late into the night the past week’s runs had gone. But the Speedgoat had been scheming, and he had a different plan at the trailhead.

  “Dude, sweet! You’ve been rolling, right on! Now I told you we’d give you a lighter day today, but I really think you should bank some more miles. There’s talk about a huge front moving in and it’s bringing inches of rain with it. Some kind of tropical storm. Better lay them down tonight; tomorrow night could be brutal. Here’s the deal—it’s fourteen miles to the next road crossing through Pennsylvania State Game Lands and I know it’s already getting dark, but I think you gotta crank this shit out. I’ll run in from the other side and meet you halfway.”

  At this point I was doing whatever Speedgoat told me to do. I let out a sigh and stretched my headlamp onto my sweaty skull. It was going to be a long night; fifty-nine total miles for the day. I knew it would be great to catch some extra miles when my body was working well, but I was dreading it to a certain degree. The dark, lonely nights were quickly becoming my least favorite part of the experience. The heavy lifting happens in the darkest times—but the glimmer of the record was starting to come back into view.

  As JLu was reloading my pack for the night, we were interrupted by a stranger, a gray-haired farmer who was at the trailhead. He handed JLu a fresh-baked blueberry oatmeal cobbler and a bottle of something home-brewed. The old-timer called it “switchel.” While it seemed wildly reckless to take food or drink—especially the fermented type—from strangers, I just couldn’t say no. Besides, I had hardly been rigorous about not accepting food from strangers so far, and I hadn’t yet gotten a trip-derailing stomach bug or food poisoning. On the contrary, the random food and drink from followers had been a godsend.

  The switchel was crazy-good, gingery and vinegary, and it really hit the spot after a long hot day. Ginger can work wonders on the stomach and it was a common tool in my nutritional tool kit, on and off the trail. Surprisingly, Speedgoat took to it quickly too and downed half the bottle.

  I set off while Speedgoat and JLu drove on to the next trailhead, the final destination for day twenty-four.

  For thirteen miles, I cut through the sodden Pennsylvania darkness, following my narrow little cone of light and pumping my legs to the old familiar rhythms of techno that I’d been listening to for years. It was lonely, but it was loneliness with a purpose.

  Long after midnight and hours after giving up on Karl, I spotted a headlamp in front of me, slicing through the mist and fog, and I heard the boom of the Goat’s voice before his face came into focus.

  “Nice, dude! Way to bang that shit out.” He had run out to meet me from the destination trailhead. He was also, somehow, sipping a cold beer as he ran.

  “How much farther is the van?” I asked.

  “Little over a mile. I dropped my other beer can on the trail exactly a mile from the parking lot.”

  We found it in a few minutes.

  * * *

  The final two days in Virginia were fun, hanging with the Speedgoat. It was a relief to have somebody around who knew where we were going so I could relax and take a break from the navigation, the most stressful part about crewing on the AT. More than that, I had a quirky companion who was quickly becoming my best and only friend. He was not one to volunteer personal information, but I loved asking him about how he’d met Cheryl, how they’d decided to get married, if he ever wanted to have kids. “No. Runners with kids always say, ‘You can keep racing, you just have to rearrange your life a little.’” He paused, crinkled his forehead in a puzzled look, and said, “Why would I want to do that?”

  On the morning of day twenty-one, Speedgoat left to pick up our buddy Rickey Gates from the airport. Rickey was coming to the East Coast to race a classic race, the Mount Washington Road Race, and he’d decided to drop in on us for a few days. I loved Rickey; he was an elite trail runner renowned for utilizing multiple modes of travel. Whether by foot, thumb, cycle, or train, he’d arrive, and for the constant voyager, the conveyance is as important as the destination. He was thrift-store chic in a western shirt and moccasins at our wedding, where my designer friends voted him best-dressed. Rickey could eat with kings and sleep by dumpsters. I always enjoyed his company and I knew Jurker did too.

  Rickey ran with Jurker while Speedgoat and I drove to Ashby Gap. We had some time before they’d arrive, so Speedgoat wanted to strategi
ze. Jurker was optimistic that we were back on record pace, but I was a little concerned because we had fallen far behind our itinerary. Karl asked to see our spreadsheet, and after some rummaging around, I found it buried under the maps. He studied it and then, very matter-of-fact, very Speedgoat, he said, “It’s not humanly possible to stay on this schedule. His mileage up in New Hampshire and Maine is not possible; nobody has ever covered that distance that quickly.”

  I let that sink in. So he’s saying that we’ve been out here busting our asses for three weeks and Jurker doesn’t stand a chance at the record? I was so disheartened and angry at Scott. How could he have squandered so much time talking to people, posing for pictures, swimming in creeks, hanging out in the van? Then I started kicking myself for not being more involved in the planning. Why had I left him in charge of the itinerary? I was fuming. I knew it! I’d tried to tell him he was wasting too much time but he was too busy wasting time to notice. He was going to get a rude awakening when the AT analyst told him it was out of his reach. I cleaned the van to calm down before he and Rickey arrived.

  As a family rule, we try not to argue in front of friends, so when they got there, I bit my tongue and restocked his pack and then sent him on his way. He took off running with Karl while Rickey and I ate lunch. As starving as I was for the company of an old friend, I was distracted. I vented to him about the cruel reality Speedgoat had spelled out for me, that it wasn’t possible for Jurker to get the record now.

  Rickey just leaned in like he was telling me a secret and said, “But Karl’s never done it either.”