"What would you both think of trying to hike 20 miles in a day with me?..."
So began one of the most defining hiking trips of my life.
Rain pelted my already soaked jacket. I half-cautiously, half-deliriously stumbled down a ravine of cascading rocks disturbed by the monsoon rains passing over. The ground beneath me had turned from trail into stream in minutes. Rubble scudded under my boots as I tried to gain traction; I felt like I was eroding downstream with the rocks. There was no point in trying to keep my boots dry, inside or out. Water gushed from between their laces every time I took a step. My two friends, Jo and Char, and I had tried to outwalk the storm, but instead we walked right into it. We were on the Appalachian Trail a few miles outside of Pine Grove Furnace, and we were frantic.
This storm wasn’t our biggest worry. Our first problem arose when we got a late start to the day. We intended to set a new record for ourselves by hiking twenty miles in one go, but we didn’t start walking until close to 11:00 am because of a miscommunication on my part about when and where we were meeting. We were hours behind schedule by the time we’d parked the cars at opposite ends of our route. Still, we took a moment before starting to make sure we still really wanted to hike, given that the forecast promised rain all day.
One of the beautiful things about Jo and Char is that they’re both incredibly optimistic. When I offered the chance for us to back out as we listened to the rain plink against the metal exterior of my van, they responded hopefully, assuring me they thought we could do it. I tried to soak up some of their confidence. As long as we stayed in the car, which insulated our hopes as we fed off of each other’s eagerness, we could talk ourselves up endlessly. But I looked outside at the rain and the gray and couldn’t help but wonder if we were flying too close to the sun. Or to the clouds.
Everything went surprisingly well until about 5:30 pm. The only issues we’d encountered up to then were constant mist or rain, mud that slowed our pace, and some bickering between Jo and Char as to whether the orange mushroom we saw was called “chicken on the woods” or “hen of the woods” (for anyone interested, it was chicken of the woods; hen of the woods is brown). But later that evening, with almost fifteen miles behind us, I looked up to see Char frozen in the middle of the trail. I heard her gasp and exhale the words: “Ohh noooo…” I froze too, terrified, thinking maybe she’d seen a bear. She paused and didn’t respond after I demanded “What?! What happened? What is it?” Now I knew: a corpse. There was probably a dead body strewn across the trail. And a bear was lumbering off into the distance, the deed done. Or maybe an ax-wielding backwoodsman. Or, somehow, all three? The mind of an anxious person.
“I forgot my keys.”
“Where?”
“...in your van.”
Fifteen miles back. We’d walked fifteen miles away from the key that would get us into the car towards which we’d spent the last six hours trudging.
It was okay, I assured her. Charlotte’s expression was so grave and guilty that she needed consoling more than I did. Jo caught up to us, and we told her. We spent the next twenty minutes problem solving. Reception was low where we stood, and nonexistent in Pine Grove Furnace. My phone battery was at 13%. Green stripes danced across the screen—I’d let the rain damage it by pretending that my rain-soaked pocket would be protection enough. Thunder rumbled in the distance. We were warned. Still, we squatted by the trail and hunched over our phones, calling friends who might pick us up and even businesses in Pine Grove that offered lodging overnight. We decided there was no better way than to walk the last five miles, try to convince someone to rescue us at our end point, and beg them to drive us back to the van, which was an hour away.
Jo remembered an old friend, Jarred, with whom we had worked at a summer camp a few years back. We weren’t very close to him, but a camp friend was probably the most likely of anyone to pull through in this kind of situation. After a few suspenseful minutes during which Jo had to describe our situation to Jarred and tell him how desperate we were, we had our ride. Jarred: my savior, my forever friend. I love you, Jarred. To you I will be forever indebted. Please call me if you ever need a kidney.
The last five miles were everything horror movies portray when three young women go on an outdoor adventure, minus the gory death. I lost track of how many times I checked to make sure Char and Jo were still in sight. The rumbling thunder from before was now a series of deafening cracks. The kind that make you think the sky and your ribcage surely must have broken in half from the impact. Lightning struck multiple times per second. The rain was ceaseless. I puzzled through the chances that we’d veered off the trail into a stream as I watched my feet swim. The storm wasn’t coming; it was directly overhead.
Meanwhile, my parents sat in their living room at home with the TV on. Reporters forecasted stormy weather moving east. Specific warnings: severe thunderstorms, heavy rains, flash floods, even a tornado warning. And the county under the most severe threat: Cumberland county. They’d remember my hiking plans, and that our route put my friends and I at the center of the storm. My mom later described her reasoning to me as she heard the forecast and offered herself some false comfort: that sounds really bad, and that’s exactly where Anna said she’d be...but they’re probably done by now. They started so early, I’m sure they’re off the trail. I guess they’re old enough to figure it out, anyway. Should I call? No, they’re okay… We were not off the trail, and whether we were old enough to handle ourselves was still in question.
Having not eaten in hours, our stomachs were empty but numbed by adrenaline and a preoccupation with reaching Pine Grove Furnace. My mind was on nothing but making sure Jo and Char were okay. They both had worn tennis shoes for the hike; I berated them for it, and insisted they at least wear the extra pairs of wool socks I’d brought along. But even with those, Jo sustained several raw blisters that had ripped open even before mile 10. She was still walking at mile 17, and not complaining. Around mile 12 we’d shared which parts of our bodies hurt the most. When Char and I asked Jo how she was bearing the searing pain of fresh blisters, she responded, “A few miles back I thought, fuck it, they already hurt, what else can I do? I just decided they were going to hurt.” Goddamn resolve. These were the kind of women I wanted to know for the rest of my life. Still, as we approached the last miles of our hike, I obsessively checked to make sure Char and Jo were still walking. Every now and then I made a thumbs-up sign when Char looked back at me, and I looked behind me until Jo caught my eye and did the same.
I blew rain off the tip of my nose and tasted my own sweat. As we descended toward the gap leading to Pine Grove, I screamed/yelled/whooped as loud as I could. Jo and Char started doing the same. I felt like I was going crazy and yet becoming someone I’ve always been but could never show. This was the trail version of me, and it felt like the truest one. We reached Pine Grove and walked stunned but with a certain focus. It came from spending the last hours navigating the unexpected challenges of a wrench in our plans and a storm that knocked us into primal sharpness. My body was at once exhausted and exhilarated. Everything was a blur yet totally vivid and real. I was more body than mind. It was terrifying and beautiful.
I mumbled words of gratitude when I saw the headlights of Jarred’s car pan across the fog of dusk. The rain turned golden in the bars of light from his car; he’d seen us! He parked! We thanked him profusely. In his quiet way, he assured us it was no problem. He said, I kid you not, that when he got the call, he didn’t think twice about choosing an adventure over sitting at home, especially when Jo offered to buy him dinner.
Later I’d think about how we hadn’t wasted any time or energy regretting Char’s mistake. It just wasn’t worth getting upset. I would marvel at how that crucial mistake was treated, like a logistical puzzle. We didn’t scream, or fall begrudgingly silent. We just figured out how to get ourselves out of that situation—how to get home.
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