When I was 11, I talked my dad into taking me on my first backpacking trip: Virginia’s Triple Crowns.
That trip was wild: We trained all summer, I got injured before even stepping foot on the trail, we set a lofty goal that our Ohioan body was not prepared for, we ran completely out of water when our water sources were dry, and we had to hike across the mountainside in the pitch-black of night to the next water source. Eventually, we pulled out early due to concerns about my injury.
Not, perhaps, the best intro hike.
But for the child who grew up hearing wild west cowboy stories and reading Jack London and other nature stories, who thought the wilderness wasn’t quite wild unless the signs of civilization were days away, it was perfect.
It became a family tradition. Every other summer, we’d take a weekend before our family reunion near Roanoke, Va., and hike from McAfee’s Knob to Daleville, Va. Cousins started coming with us. It became a rite of passage to turn 11 and go on your first AT backpacking trip. 2019 was the first year we didn’t make the hike. 2021 was the first year Sami and I co-led the trip there… and took two people on their first backpacking trip.
Hiking the full trail had always been a longing of mine. From the moment I first heard about it, it fascinated me. Then when I took my first steps, the itch to thru-hike welded into my soul.
I recruited Church Mouse.
The first time she was supposed to go backpacking, she broke her arm and couldn’t go. When she finally got the chance, she wasn’t thrilled. She was the smallest one in the group, she felt untrained and unready, and the last night of her trip, a surprise spider in the shelter forced four people into a three-person tent.
Back in civilization, the aching muscles she felt were not worth all she’d dealt with on the trail. “Ready to do a thru-hike?” We teased her. “Never,” was her unwavering answer.
However, the next trip, we talked her into coming with us. And the trip after that and the trip after that. Somewhere along the way, she fell in love with it: the solitude, the peacefulness, the ability to leave everything from daily life behind her.
When I felt like I had a workable plan to thru-hike, Church Mouse was one of the first people I told. “Do you want to come with me?” I asked. She didn’t hesitate. “I would love to.”
There’s something lonely about stepping off the trail before it’s done.
We’ve been hiking this trail for years, watching a hiker or two emerge from the opposite side of the parking lot, or continue across the highway where we’d pull out. I’ve stood in parking lots watching it dip down out of sight, found myself searching for the white blazes. My feet itched with the desire to keep going, just around the next bend, just to the next intersection, just to see what was coming next.
Coming home, it would haunt me, the path turning, bending, stretching beyond what I could see. It started without me and it would continue without me. There was so much, I knew, out there still. So much I’d never seen.
One day. One day, I would have the opportunity to start at the beginning, and trace the wandering path all the way to its end.
Now, it’s that day.
Through the grace of God and a fair amount of behind-the-scenes planning, things have fallen in place for us to attempt a thru-hike. Starting in March 2023, we get the chance to see this magnificent monster of a trail all the way, from start to finish, from Mile 0 to the Mile 2,198.4, from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mt. Katahdin, Maine.
At home, my life has been packed into boxes and tucked into the closet. Now and for the next six months, it fits into a 58 liter backpack, currently sitting on my floor waiting to be filled. Everything I need, tucked there on my back.
Mountains are ahead. It’s time to go on an adventure.
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