North

by Scott Jurek

  Jurker was so relieved to see me, he practically collapsed in my arms.

  Topher calmly walked up to us, and his voice was all business.

  “Here’s the deal. You’ve got ten miles to the base of Katahdin and then a five-mile hike up. You have eleven hours to do that, so you only get one hour of sleep here.”

  “One hour?” Jurker balked. “You said I could have four!”

  I nodded; I’d heard that too. Toph had said he could have those precious hours of sleep once he got to Golden Road.

  “You don’t believe in me, Toph? You don’t think I can do it? You don’t think I can sleep for four hours and cover the last fifteen miles in seven hours?”

  I could tell Jurker was suddenly offended. How dare Toph doubt the Champ? But the Champ had taken eight hours to cover the last seventeen miles, so nobody knew what to expect from him.

  “Do you want to sleep or do you want the record?” Topher asked. “You get one hour.” With that, he turned around and walked to the rental car, where, he told me later, he started sobbing, worried that they had pushed him past his breaking point.

  Jurker spun around and walked toward Castle Black. He looked me straight in the eye and said, “He’s fucking crazy.” He threw his poles down and I followed him to the van.

  What the Champ didn’t understand was the magnitude of the mountain he needed to climb. It was like he was looking at what the Penobscot tribe called “The Greatest Mountain” from the wrong end of a telescope.

  “Toph’s out of his mind,” he huffed as he labored into the van. “Don’t wake me up for at least two hours.”

  Chapter 16

  Down to the Wire

  Day Forty-Six

  Toph’s warning about time must have wormed its way into my unconscious. It rang me awake as surely as any alarm clock, and I didn’t even have to set it. My body wanted at least four hours, but some part of my mind wanted the record more, the deep, autonomic part that keeps the lungs expanding and heart pumping, the part that keeps each of us moving toward what we need rather than what we think we want. Toph was right. I couldn’t spare more hours.

  When I came to, I sort of blinked myself fully awake and took stock of my world as it came into focus. I could see JLu. She was there in the van with me, keeping quiet as she gathered up my stuff so I’d be ready to hit the trail. It dawned on me that today was her birthday. It was also the day I’d finish. But not yet. I couldn’t think about finishing yet. Until I got out of that van, on the trail, and up Mount Katahdin, it was just another day of grinding.

  There would be no premature victory celebration.

  For one more day, I would have to be my primal self, alive only in the present. No futures, no pasts. No different from an animal. The real El Venado had to come out today.

  I checked my watch as I got up. It was 6:25 a.m. We weren’t out of the woods, not by a long shot. It wasn’t any kind of smooth finish that lay ahead of me that day. For most NoBo thru-hikers who are finishing their journey, Katahdin is no cakewalk. There’s a campground at the base where they stop to rest and get an early start the next morning. Mount Katahdin is the highest point in Maine; it’s a monumental hike. This is why I wanted to finish here, for pure aesthetic reasons and ultimate thru-hike culmination. The climb symbolizes everything that the AT embodies: wildness, grandeur, and grit.

  My desire to go north on the AT meant that the challenge would extend down to the last stretch, the last mile, the last minute. The path up the final mountain required full-on scrambling, the kind of hike you’d see out west in the Rockies, Cascades, or Sierras. Boulders and rocks cover the scarp. As I’d done through most of Maine, I’d have to pick my way carefully up the slope, one safe footfall after another.

  As I got out of the van, I saw Kim and Toph studying a map of Katahdin and the surrounding area. The fact that everyone was still on high alert, still strategizing, reinforced what I already knew: We had work to do. And quickly.

  My body reluctantly came to. Every joint felt a rusty stiffness with movements happening in slow motion. Running was an impossible notion.

  Walking sounded better. Walking seemed more doable. Even on the very last day I thought about how sweet it would be just to walk it in.

  Toph’s sixth sense for slacking must have kicked in, because he came over to me and started delivering the hard facts of what I faced that day. I was struck by how calm he was, since what he was saying was so impossible-sounding—it sounded just as impossible as before my sixty-minute catnap.

  “If you start in fifteen minutes,” he said, glancing at his watch, “you’ll have almost exactly ten hours to reach the summit. The base of the mountain is nine miles away, and then you’ll have a five-mile climb. It’s gonna be tough but it’s not like you can’t handle it. It would be awesome if you can keep three to four miles per hour. Even given how you feel now, that should be within your range.” He didn’t mention that my pace last night had been much slower than that, and he didn’t need to. Toph was direct, always, but he never said more than he had to. However, there was one thing I absolutely had to say. With joy. JLu came over to me, and I embraced her. “Happy birthday!”

  She hugged me back and looked at me like today was the best day of her life. I wished I could bottle her optimism so I could take sips from it forever.

  I thought about something I’d said to her so many days and states and miles ago, back in Virginia. “If it comes down to hours, then you can get mad at me.” I’d been so confident then.

  But she wasn’t mad at me. She just wanted me to get the record. I was suddenly overwhelmed with admiration for her, and with empathy for what she’d been through.

  Not yet, though, I told myself. Not yet. There’d be time for feelings at the summit.

  JLu had to drive the van to the park entrance to get the spot she’d reserved. We had one last moment before she took off. The next ten miles really were the linchpin to the whole FKT attempt, and none of us knew if I could actually do it. We were in totally unknown territory in terms of my body and fatigue. So when JLu asked me who I wanted to run with that morning, I knew my choice was critical. Krissy and Toph were out; they were too tired from the night before. What I really needed was a trail boss, someone to beat the drum and keep me moving forward no matter what. Luckily, Special Forces had arrived the night before—a total surprise—and he was more than ready for that job. So I picked him and Walter. It felt like I was choosing warriors more than runners. We were going into our last battle.

  Jenny took off in Castle Black. Walter and Special Forces and I started moving. No theatrics, no rituals, no nothing. We just started moving, slowly, north.

  We crossed the Penobscot River over Abol Bridge, an unforgettable milestone for every NoBo thru-hiker. The rushing water breathed life energy into me; it represented another passage to the end. But there was something better up above. Katahdin loomed. It was right there in front of us. All we had to do was keep moving forward, and then moving up.

  I looked at Walter, and I could see that he knew the space my head was in. Like a soft suggestion, he asked, “Should we jog?”

  I didn’t want to, but his words fired up my legs and miraculously made them move. It was like when a song comes on the radio that stirs a certain emotion and you can’t help but dance—he stirred movement in my legs. As I started running, everything started to click. I know how to do this. Without thinking, I let out a primal scream as I had before the start of so many races when the energy crested within. That’s how I dealt with nervousness and excitement—I channeled it into a sound and released it.

  My stride lengthened and quickened, and I fell into the strong, steady pace that had carried me forward over the past twenty years, and with so many good friends. I remembered something Topher had said to me two nights earlier, when it seemed like the suffering would never end. He’d said that what had impressed him most about me during this torturous challenge was that, even after the trail’s two thousand miles had finally broken me,
I’d still been kind to strangers and been a good trail steward.

  I was in the shadow of Katahdin. Walter, Special Forces, and I had made it through the pivotal ten miles. I would have loved a burst of energy, but it was yet to emerge. What did exist was something more subtle and significant. I had exposed a primordial pathway to a part of myself that transformed my spasms of fear and pain into a fluid waltz of bliss. Broken and obliterated, I felt only ease. Having almost run 2,189 miles, I was hours from setting the new record and felt no worries, only calm, as I started the final ascent. It was the breaking down that built me up.

  * * *

  I didn’t want to leave the scene at Golden Road. The momentum was building and it was powerful. But I knew the longer I stayed, the more likely Jurker would dawdle in the van. Plus I needed to drive to the park entrance to claim my parking spot. It was a bluebird midsummer Sunday morning, and I knew it would be crowded.

  Speedgoat had warned me that Baxter State Park was, well, special, to put it nicely. I was about to find out what he meant. Technically, it’s not even a state park; it’s an independently funded land trust. Most hikers knew Baxter State Park had a long-standing love/hate relationship with thru-hikers. Before we stepped foot in the park, its director penned a letter requesting that the AT be diverted from Katahdin, claiming that thru-hikers were a bunch of rule-breaking, littering young partiers. It was a classic “Hey, kid! Get off my lawn!” kind of letter. Even old Warren Doyle had his beef with the park staff: in 1979, he was arrested for summiting Katahdin in the winter. Rather than pay the twenty-five-dollar fine, he spent the night in jail to call attention to the ridiculousness. In fact, most reasonable people seemed to agree that the park’s attitude on this front was absurd; the Portland Press Herald wrote that the “park officials’ statements on AT thru-hikers are the latest examples of overzealous park protectionism that is actually harming the park’s reputation and, in turn, the local economy.” Even so, we were mindful of their rules.

  Kim had gotten us two parking permits, one for each of our vehicles, ahead of time, just to be safe. I didn’t have a working phone, thanks to the water I’d spilled all over it, so I was grateful for the help. When we pulled up to the parking area, with Kim in front of me, two rangers eagerly jumped out of the booth, as if they’d been waiting for us. They talked to Kim for longer than I felt was necessary. I started to wonder if they weren’t going to let us in. Eventually, they let Kim pass, and then I pulled up to the booth. The ranger standing outside held a clipboard and examined Castle Black. No Hi! Welcome to our beautiful park! or even a standard Enjoy your visit! I was greeted with: “Your permit expired at seven a.m.”

  I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It was 7:05.

  “I could give your parking space away to somebody else,” she warned. I looked behind me—there wasn’t a single car in sight. Apparently, this ranger wanted to make sure I knew that she was doing me a favor. I see how this is gonna go. (El Coyote, Special Forces, Ralsty, and John Rodrigue were able to obtain parking spots later that morning with no problem.)

  She grudgingly let me enter and I parked and got dressed to hike up that mountain. This was the day we’d been dreaming of for weeks. We couldn’t have asked for better weather or a better crew. I loaded my pack with extra snacks and layers of clothing because I knew this might take a while. I was so giddy; we all were. We eagerly gathered in the parking lot’s picnic area, wondering when Jurker would arrive. And shortly after, we heard the roar of a wild animal right before it charges its greatest adversary.

  The expression on Jurker’s face was reminiscent of day one, when I’d seen him at Neels Gap looking like a kid again. Today, he looked like a man who had just walked away victorious from battle. He knew he’d just killed those ten miles in under three hours. Not fast by normal standards, but he’d basically just crushed it.

  His face and body emanated confidence. He stood up straight; he didn’t stumble, and he had no sense of urgency. The feeling of ease took over, as if he’d just removed his boxing gloves after twelve rounds. In his mind, he knew that he’d done it. The locals weren’t as confident. They knew what lay ahead.

  Standing among my best friends, old and new, as Jurker ran toward me was like all of the best moments of our journey rolled into one. It brought back memories of everything we’d been through. Even the bad memories felt precious, since those were the times that had made me and Jurker even closer. We’d traveled through so many different places and seen so many new things, in America and in ourselves, that we knew we’d never be quite the same. As I stood there feeling the sun on my face, I thought about all the people who had come to the crossings—even those who had driven me crazy—and I actually wished all of them could be here now.

  But they were with us in spirit, glued to the live-tracker information. The tracking company later told me that they’d had more hits on their website than they’d ever had before as people constantly hit refresh. Jurker’s phone was blowing up.

  We got a message from Rickey, who was with Speedgoat and other world-class runners at the Hardrock Hundred. They were all rooting for us. And there was a message from Scott’s blind friend Thomas, reminding him to close his eyes and see the trail with his mind. People on Facebook were talking conspiracy theories, wondering if Jurker had cut it this close for entertainment’s sake.

  It was a preposterous idea, but I couldn’t fault their thinking. To break the Appalachian Trail speed record by a mere three hours was highly unlikely. By way of contrast, the margin between the current world-record holder in the hundred-meter dash and the runner-up is four times as large. It was pretty nuts, but trust me, if we could have broken the record by four days, as we’d originally planned, we would have.

  Looking back, I could see we were underprepared and naive. We’d thought we’d have this romantic and healing adventure for our tight family of two, but I realized that we would never be standing here if it weren’t for the countless strangers who’d come out to help. They felt like family too, and I felt content. My heart was full.

  I’d stopped thinking about my yearning for a baby, which had cast a pall over the drive out east. Jurker and I had everything we needed, and more. I had seen this man, who I spent practically every hour with at home, transform into someone I didn’t know and then reemerge as someone better. He’d needed this journey; he’d needed to return to the edge. He had slowly transitioned from ultrarunning legend to my domestic dream, and he needed to once again feel what it was like to suffer.

  Elective suffering is such a strange thing. At its essence, pushing his limits was a way for Jurker to learn more about himself and our relationship. Like Dean Potter once said, “I willingly expose myself to death-consequence situations in order to predictably enter heightened awareness.…And [it] often leads to a feeling of connectivity with everything.”

  Albeit less extreme, we had gone in searching for heightened awareness and connectivity with ourselves, each other, and the trail. I think that’s what drew so many people to follow our journey. It was like Scott was in a fishbowl; people could watch him in his most vulnerable state and laugh at his humiliation and cry at his defeat. They had a feeling of connectedness to what Jurker was doing, as if they were a part of the journey.

  Back on day two, Jurker had told a reporter that this would be his masterpiece. I’d cringed, but in a way, he was right. He’d gone to the graveyard and come back; he’d messed up and learned along the way; he’d pushed his body beyond what was possible and put it all out there for the world to see. In one sense, it was the most beautiful expression of his running career.

  As we signed the logbook at the base of Katahdin and again were greeted by several rangers, we both felt that ease that comes at the end of suffering. Topher put away his phone and his apps; Jurker took off his pack and set down his poles.

  He looked at me and his team and said, “I’m going for a birthday hike with my wife and our best friends.”

  Chapter 17

  Th
e Greatest Mountain

  Day Forty-Seven

  Even though I’d climbed higher mountains, explored more scabrous wilderness, and run under bigger skies, through more treacherous ground, these were all just lonely superlatives. The “best of” class is always exclusive, and like those singular experiences that seem to happen only in a world of their own, you can often find yourself there with no accompaniment.

  This journey was anything but solitary, and, most important, it was this abundance that created such an intensely beautiful and magical experience. And it was not a beauty born of one image; it was like those expansive montages assembled using thousands of striking photos that coalesce to produce another, greater image—this was an all-inclusive portrait of every experience.

  Over a lifetime of hard work and wins and close calls, I’d built a Wikipedia page’s worth of accomplishments. Most of my records have already been broken. Some might never be matched. I say that with humility; I can’t match them now. I’m not that runner now—it’s undeniable. My old self would smoke my current self almost anywhere in the world and under almost any conditions.

  Maybe not on the Appalachian Trail, though. As I made my way up the slope, I felt like each step I took had been foreshadowed by the millions of other steps I’d taken. The long path north was about to end. Along the way, it had opened up and activated pathways inside me. If I got the record, it wouldn’t be like my other victories. It was something deeper and, in a way, less remarkable. I didn’t feel like an ultrarunner or someone particularly special. I felt like I’d taken a long route home.