A Beginning

March 25, 2009
Day 1. Rained all day. Still raining. Stopped at Springer Mtn Shelter, probably should have gone on to Stover Creek, 2.8 miles downhill, but there are a couple nice guys. One creeper, used to be a cop, goes by Spider. Harmless, should be. If the rain goes off and on tomorrow, I might hoof it to Gooch Mtn Shelter, 15 miles. Should remember to get gaiters and another layer for the Smokies. Anyway, Jim and Mofo are cool. Jim goes by Allegheny, nice older gent. But here I am, walking, feeling great. Nothing can stop me in my power.

Hah. I walk up to the frontage of this strange 3-walled structure, peering through rain-impaired spectacles, at the three men standing around their packs. Here they are: the other thru-hikers. Hard not to look at them and think they're already better than you, getting there before, maybe even better prepared. But then a tall one of the bunch leans over and extends his face towards me "Hi, I'm Spider. What's your name?"
Red flag. Who calls himself Spider by choice who isn't a creeper? OK, he could be a climber.
"Sara" I had chosen not to name myself, in hopes that I might meet people who could draw out some core characteristic to cleverly name me, and also because I couldn't think of anything clever to name me.
"Are you doing this alone?" RED FLAG! The one question that everyone told me to lie in answer if asked, and the one time I agreed.
"Umm, I'm meeting people farther up north." Admittedly, I am an awful liar. Good enough to cut the interrogation short and walk into the shelter and climb up into the loft.

The day began much differently than it ended. I woke up in a cozy bed, surrounded by embroidered matching pillow sets under a heavy comforter, looking out a window to a wet and gray morning. At Amicalola Falls Visitor's Center, I had blinders on. I couldn't find the hook to weigh my pack, I didn't see the displays of indigenous poisonous snakes, didn't find words to greet the other hiker who walked in as I was filling out my information in the logbook. Connie asked if I should have a picture of myself filling out the logbook. That seemed like something I'd want to remember, so she photographed me pretending to pen my information, wearing a big goofy wide-eyed grin. Then the Ranger asked if I had noticed the flier on bear activity around Blood Mountain.

"Bear? No I didn't see that." The flier stated sitings around the mountain's Shelter, and gave a number to call if the animal was seen again.

"Oh, I better write down that number, do you have a pen and scrap paper?" He obliged and I carried that post-it with me for the first week in my camera case.
Connie walked over to me, "Sara, are you going to hike up to the Falls? Because there's a road, I could just take you up there." Tempting.

"Thanks Connie, but it's kind of a tradition, I wouldn't feel right about taking a ride now."

"So are you hiking to the Approach Trail?" He was listening!
I nodded. The Ranger spouted his memorized directions.

"To get to the Approach Trail, walk out of the visitor's center, go around to the left, take a left and follow the green blazes. When you see blue blazes, follow those until you get to the white blaze, you're on the Trail."

"Thank you." I had retained none of that besides green. So Connie and I walked outside through one of the many exit doors (making the Ranger's directions all the more confusing) and she asked if I would like a picture of myself under the entry gate. Yes, that also seemed like something I would want to remember. The picture is of an awkward figure dressed head to ankle in black, with a small glimpse of a goofy smiling face visible under the rain slicker brim, and I appear to be making small fists with my all too eager hands. Connie had picked up my poles from the pack-weighing hook; I'd left them there in my over-focused, unobservant state of mind.

Turning around after thanking and hugging Connie goodbye, I walked along the path that led straight up into the fog. I remember there being three paths to choose from, and I don't remember a single sign directing the way I meant to go. I turned around, pointed the way I saw another pack-laden hiker choose, and Connie and the hiker's father nodded and pointed that way.

There were no blazes. I walked up the switchbacks, thinking, I'm hiking and I don't know where I'm headed because it may not be Maine but I'm hiking! I soon passed the other hiker, who I never saw again, gasping on a rock.
"I'm already out of breath. That's a bad thing, isn't it?"
"No, it's okay, you're listening to your body and taking a rest, that's good!" I smiled and bounded along. The steepness was not easy, certainly, but there was adrenaline pumping. The trail to the approach trail was supposed to be stairs, and this was not stairs, but I could hear water, and I was climbing, so I *must* be getting closer to the Falls. The trail emerged upon a gravel drive, where a civilian couple were descending. I turned uphill and greeted them, passing and forgetting them.
The blue blazes began at the Falls, which I couldn't see through the rainy haze that had descended on my ascent.

My recollection of the trail up to Springer Mountain is not exactly fresh. Thinking went something like this: oh this is hard but it's going to get easier, and my shell isn't waterproof anymore, why don't my poles feel natural? left right, get a groove, left right. I'm doing it! I'm alone and will walk alone to Maine. I'm hiking the trail, I flew to Georgia and will keep going, won't stop til Maine, this is it this is it this is it this is it this is it. Oh my god a person! Talk to him, talk to him!
"Hi!"
"Hi, I'm mofo, are you hiking the Appalachian Trail?"
"That's the plan" I had months before that stopped expecting everyone I met to believe I would finish, and wanted to believe it was okay not to finish, so that was the answer I gave. "I'm quitting my job to hike the AT" or "I'm going to not talk to you for six months because I'm going to hike the AT" and when they asked "Are you going to hike the whole thing?" how could I say yes? "That's the plan" was all I ever managed.

"Well you're embarking on an incredible journey. I hiked it years ago." We chatted some more as he waited for his friend Allegheny to catch up. He motioned that I should go on ahead. The rain drove on, I kept walking, wondering how fast, then all of a sudden I was at the top of Springer Mountain. I took pictures at the rock. I took a picture of the first white blaze. It was 2 in the afternoon. To go on or stay? My shell was obviously not waterproof despite the tech wash and dry, and I was colder the longer I lingered. I wasn't tired. But staying at Springer Mountain had become the beginning, a night I would share with so many legends before me. So despite the time, despite Spider, despite the other kids I glimpsed from between the loft floorboards going on to Stover Creek, I stayed and ate undercooked couscous next to Allegheny and Joe.

Before I left for the trail, a number of apprehensions took form. The biggest one was that I would be mocked for not using my stove appropriately, thereby judged as not being prepared for the thru-hike. Strange, as I had had the stove for years. But that's the one that took.

Leftover couscous weighed down my pack until Neels Gap. I made far too much, had tried to make less. And who undercooks couscous? So 5pm on the 25th found me laying in my sleeping bag, trying to sleep, racked with gas pains from the expanding grains in my belly, but I was on the fucking Appalachian Trail. And that's exactly where I would be for a while. How long? All the miles? Until October 15th? Somehow that night I slept.

In the morning, I dressed in my clothes and wet jacket, tried to warm my icy fingers, gathered water (which I vowed never to leave for the morning again) and hit the trail before everyone else. Most I never saw again.

An Introduction

March 24, 2009
The drive here to the airport was all nerves. It was a very nice hug good-bye to Bob, without tears, then I walked through the automatic terminal doors and was on my own. And I'm feeling good. So good. Through that portal, and the journey was mine. The nerves changed- more familiar, apprehensive of an adventure, rather than the nerves around friends and family, reminiscent of anxiety as a child- dread. I'm going to take all the nerves and visualize them as champagne bubbles giving me buoyancy and momentum to go ahead.

I handed the Delta Lady my precious backpack, gleaming with shiny reflectors, stuffed awkwardly with all the finalists from my gear spread that had filled the floor of my parents' guestroom for the last week. The green Stop & Shop reusable shopping bag that was my carry-on held a book (Mountains Beyond Mountains), my phone, the Patagonia R2 fleece my friend Ash gave me, a nalgene, and a few more pounds worth of miscellaneous things that I somehow knew I must not live without in the woods for six months. These did not include three items that were imperative for a successful hike: lighter (illegal), fuel (illegal), chapstick (forgotten). At the gate I listened as my plane was switched from B2 to B8 and back again. I walked calmly, knowing how I was leaving all this commotion, determined to let it slide off my new resilient hide. I called Mariya, my god-sister, to tell her I was going to hike for a while, and hoped to see her in 8 months at Thanksgiving. Then they called my flight to board. Was this it? Was this no turning back?

Off the plane I navigated the huge Atlanta Airport's walking boardwalks and tunnels and shuttles, Boston-speedwalking what takes most people 30 minutes in maybe 20 (I knew this because I remember a LED sign with estimated times to reach various gates and terminals). There were three things I needed to do before I called the woman who would make my thru-hike possible: pee, buy chapstick, buy a lighter. I spent $8 at the newsstand on Burts Bees flavored chapstick, and a lighter that read ATLANTA. I hoisted my bag onto my back, finding myself quite the badass (I was in the Atlanta airport on the 24th of March for Chrissakes, where were the other thru-hikers?? ), and walked out the terminal doors into the warm winds of the city proper.

Connie M is the beautiful, poised, generous mother of my friend Trent. Trent asked me if he could hike the trail with me when I told him my intent (for the record, half the people I told asked me if they could accompany me and the other half told me I was crazy). Then a few months before I departed he decided to one-up me and join the Peace Corps. Yeah, you win, Trent. So Connie is incredibly and deservedly proud of her son, and somehow also willing to pick me up at the airport, drive an hour to her new home, make me dinner, leave me to think about the rain about to pound the region for a while (how long, I could never have guessed), and drive me the two hours to the trail early the next morning. She told me about her decision to move to a new city alone after retiring (I'd never gauge her a day over forty) served me a salad and heated up the stuffed manicotti she'd gotten for me because Trent was kind enough to tell her my (past) dietary restrictions. Ooh, fun aside.

The week before I left for the trail I was a vegetarian, or, if you want to be technical about it, a pescatarian. So I knew I'd need a lot of protein hiking, and because I really, honestly, wasn't sure I had it in me to hike 2200 miles without significant interruption, and didn't want any sort of personal preference against eating animal flesh to handicap me more than whatever shortcomings I possessed but knew nothing of yet would inevitably challenge me. This is how my mind works. So I trained myself to eat meat again. I began with a simple chicken salad: combine a third cup of cooked shredded chicken with 3/4 tablespoon mayonnaise, 1/4 tsp curry, 1 tbsp golden raisins, a sprinkle of salt and pepper, garnish as desired. Then, because I didn't get sick from that (my iron stomach may have been an advantage in the next months), I moved onto some smoked turkey meat. I forget how I ate this, but really, isn't smoked turkey a forgettable food after all?

Once before, I had moved to meat after a bout with mononucleosis left me too skinny. My roommate at the time was so elated at the chance to feed me pork he cooked up his famous collard greens and chicken 'n' dumplin's. My task was to stir the greens and watch the boil. The long handled, wooden spoon I used had a small indent, the kind of spoon you use to stir not scoop. No matter, the smell wafting from the pot, thick steam like flavored air gripped me like shackles and I stood stirring, scooping meager spoonfuls of thick stew, blowing and sucking the broth, like bacon water but better than any memories of bacon anything. I stood there an hour, happily sipping away, then feasted with my dear roommate. All night I laid awake as the digestion pains racked my body like angry, tiny seizures.

Needless to say, I did not want to repeat that history. I started with the white meat for practice. Then, one day I was working at the outfitter I'm perpetually employed at (despite long breaks for travel and a move to the Big City), and decided it was time for beef. A burger joint had opened in town that got a nod from the Times Travel section, and was known for using responsible beef. So I walked in, chatted with the cutie behind the counter, telling him I hadn't really eaten beef in 8 years, so this burger was kinda important. On impulse, overwhelmed by options (dry-aged or grass-fed beef??) I ordered the eponymous Local Burger with sweet potato fries and sat down. Cutie brought me a double patty covered with bacon, mushrooms and cheese. Well, that was cows and pigs in one sitting. I took a picture of the thing to show my friend who never supported my non-meat-eating-ness how I had changed, and dug in. It was sublime. I returned to work. For the remaining three hours of my shift, as a dozen or so customers perused our store, my coworker liked to remind me that from her post some thirty feet from mine, over the alternative rock station on the stereo, she could hear my stomach twisting and gurgling like a baby discovering and tasting a new toy. But I didn't get sick. Back to Atlanta.

After dinner, Connie invited me to watch "On Golden Pond" with her, as we had discussed how it struck her personally. Usually I would be up for a film, but something she had mentioned earlier had me a wee bit distracted: "Sara, I'm not sure you've heard the weather forecast, but it's supposed to rain pretty hard for the next four days."
Four days.
That's a long time without indoors. What do I do? I had selected the 25th as my start date because the flight on the 24th was the cheapest flight I found after the 15th (a very popular start date) and before the 30th (how could I hike fast enough to finish without those extra five days?). Somehow, I had decided how long it would take me to walk these miles, decided not when I wanted to finish by (the northern terminus is a capricious mountain with its own weather system and the great state of Maine closes it, persistently, by the 15th of October), rather when I wanted to start -in order not to worry, and also figured into the plan that I would not want to be surrounded by other hikers starting when I was (I mean, really, what could we possibly have in common?), figured that I would prefer a more isolated beginning.... was all this rain something to avoid? My mind covered my two options, back and forth, a wave over sand and water. Or was tomorrow just the beginning, in whatever form? Eventually, after talking with friends and making them check the weather, I accepted the shitty forecast, embracing that I would invariably walk in rain, why not begin in it.
I slept.

When I woke up to my alarm, the windows were stenciled with gathering raindrops, tinted slightly by the gray morning of an approaching storm. I couldn't eat much, so I let Connie pack me a tuna sandwich for lunch (Hell, I knew it wasn't what I was supposed to eat, but I was carrying 30 frickin pounds on my back, what would another 1/2 lb in my coat matter, right? Right? How little I knew). She got on the highway, wipers moving at that rate above intermittent, and said to me "Are you sure you want to do this today?" Thankful for her to give me the opportunity to ask myself, I privately enjoyed my resolution.
"I'm going to walk in the rain eventually, I guess I just have to start in it. I decided on this day, to delay would feel like quitting a little."
So she kept driving.
"Sara, I don't know you very well, and don't want to say you can't do it, but if you ever feel like you don't want to keep going, you have my number. I can meet you, in Georgia, North Carolina, wherever you might be. If anything happens, I will pick you up."
"Thank you." And so I knew there was an out. As we drove on through the, now driving, rain, I thought: this is it. This is the point of no return. I am delivered to my entry to the woods. There is no turning back now. This is what I chose. I choose to walk in the rain.