The path wound upward, around rocks and out of sight, past deadfalls that lay steeply downhill, beside thickets of rhododendron carpeting mountainsides, past views that took what remained of our breath away.
It was late November and we were on the Appalachian Trail, my wife and kids and I. Not for long, not for any accomplishment in particular, but just to do it. Sort of like adding a new state to a lifetime list of places visited, it didn’t require walking the whole thing to get the gist of the idea, but I thought it worthy of more than a brief tag to call it done. I figured walking far enough to make our breath come short, then hitting a rhythm, then getting warm and hitting our stride. The very first of these didn’t take long at all, and the others followed quickly after.
A sign at the northern edge of the parking lot read “Katahdin, Maine 1972.0.” Presumably its mate at the southern end of Newfound Gap, there astride the Tennessee and North Carolina line, advertised Springer Mountain, Ga., some 228 miles in that direction.
Overhead the skies were painfully blue. A bright sun was warm on our faces, at least until wind whipped the warmth away. Green leaves and wispy branches hung with rime. Small creeks ran clear in the sunshine, splashed over solid ice where shadow fell.
The most impressive thing about a walk in the woods, short or long, is how it demands the attention of the walker, then gives it all back in a rewarding haze. One step then another, the ticks and tocks of a metronome’s swing.
When you’re too out of breath to complain, and too distracted by unfamiliar trail to think of complaints, then the complaints don’t exist, at least for as long as the walk continues.
“Who made this trail?” The Boy asked.
“A long time ago, a guy came up with an idea to get people into these mountains,” I told him, “then other people who shared the same idea helped. It’s a long trail, but it’s mostly kept up in sections by groups of people who live nearby along the way. Sort of like the adopt-a-highway program, but without the signs.”
The Boy said he’d like to come back and hike a long time on the trail someday, and I told him, someday, maybe we would.
After a ways, our group turned around and headed back down. Far from a repeat of what we’d just seen, it was a different trail in that direction, with different places to step and different things to watch out for. The crown of the mountain was on our right now, the open sky and valley to our left below.
Presently we met a group going the other way. We stopped to let them pass. They each hauled a large pack, carried water bottles, pushed themselves along with hiking poles. They were heaving deep breaths and taking long strides, covering ground with a purpose.
“They walk like they’re looking for something,” The Boy said when they’d gone.
“I guess we all are,” I told him. “It just takes a good bit of experience in the looking to know what it is when you find it.”
Kevin Tate is a freelance writer. Email [email protected].
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