Called Again (25 page)

I continued, “I may not be having fun, but I feel a sense of joy and purpose. When things are this difficult, it causes you to
change and grow. And I am learning a lot out here. Sometimes I am too tired to process it all. But even though this hike isn't easy, it is fulfilling—and increasingly rewarding. I guess, in the end, it is better than fun.”

I didn't think that what I had just said made sense. After all, it was getting late and I had hiked over forty-seven miles that day. But I figured something was favorably lost in translation because Dutch accepted my answer and nodded in agreement.

That night after walking for an hour in the dark, we came to a place that was level and soft enough to set up camp. Dutch and Rambler took off their packs. Rambler reached inside his and pulled out a bag of food that Brew had given him, then he brought out a large unopened bottle of Powerade that he'd brought from home. He handed them to me with outstretched arms.

“You need to eat and drink,” he told me. “Dutch and I will have your tent set up in about ten minutes.”

Dutch pulled out my one-person tent from his rucksack, and with Rambler's help, he quickly set it up before pitching his own. As soon as my shelter was staked in the ground, I thanked the men for their help and crawled inside to go to bed.

But as I unzipped my flap, I noticed something was out of place.

“Hey, guys, one of you left a blow-up Thermarest in my tent.”

“That's for you,” said Rambler.

“But my foam pad is in here, too,” I responded, a bit confused.

“I know, but I thought that you could use two mattresses on this rocky terrain,” Rambler offered.

I smiled. This morning I thought I would be stuck at a roadside or camping out alone. Instead, I was sleeping on an air mattress on top of a foam pad, drinking lemon-lime Powerade that I hadn't carried. I felt like a hiker princess.

When Dutch asked me whether or not I was having fun, I had sincerely answered no. However, after he and Rambler joined us on the trail, I began to enjoy small moments of laughter and tiny glimmers of lightheartedness that almost felt, well, fun.

Developing a friendship with the two new crew members was effortless and natural. Immediately, their presence began to make the hike more enjoyable. I realized that one reason why my relationships with Warren, Melissa, and Steve had been strained was because their motivation for joining us had been rooted in friendship. They had been out there to support me, and I had not been the “me” that they liked or remembered.

But Dutch and Rambler weren't just there for me; they were also there because of their devotion to the trail. They loved to hike and they didn't have any expectations of me as a person or friend; they just wanted to join in our adventure, pass by places they remembered from their hikes, and experience the trail in a new and different way.

Both men could walk all day, and at night they expected to camp on the trail. They appreciated every ounce of food and drink that was offered to them. In brief, they were thru-hikers. And I realized that the best support I could have would come not from family or friends or runners—but from thru-hikers.

I had less in common with Dutch and Rambler than with any previous crew member, and that gave us more to talk about. We were all in different places in our lives, and we had different interests. When it came to academics, I was out of my league. Dutch and Rambler were both highly intelligent. Not just above average, or relatively smart. I'm talking genius IQs. Rambler was a retired chemical engineer, while Dutch spoke five languages and was studying to be an off-shore engineer. They were both well traveled
and well read. I felt like I was hiking with two bearded, grubby mad scientists.

One of my favorite aspects of long-distance hiking is spending time with new people and learning from individuals who I wouldn't have had the opportunity to meet at home. I didn't think I would be able to experience that on a record attempt. I had my team planned out months beforehand. But Rambler and Dutch reminded me that some of the trail's best gifts are found in the strangers and surprises you encounter along the way.

I rarely hiked with both men at the same time, and I preferred it that way. I wanted a friend, not a caravan. Rambler erroneously believed that he would slow me down, so he would usually take a few provisions from the road and hike ahead, then wait for me to catch up. Once I did that, he would hike with me for a few miles, but he always prodded me to go ahead if I wanted to. I never did, though. I couldn't. Rambler was a much faster and stronger hiker than he thought he was.

When I was with him, he constantly reminded me to eat and drink. He wouldn't let me go more than an hour without taking in a small snack. And beyond bringing snacks from our car, he always carried additional options from his supply in case I wanted something different or needed more food than I thought.

By spending time with Rambler, I learned about his family and his career. We talked about his love for orienteering, but most of all, we talked about long-distance trails. All told, he had over 20,000 miles of completed long-distance trails under his belt.

Dutch, on the other hand, was newly enamored with longdistance hiking. The A.T. had been his first extended backpacking trip and now he couldn't wait to do more trails in the United States and Europe. He did not underestimate his hiking abilities like Rambler did. But he did overestimate me. He erroneously believed that I could keep pace with his tall, toned legs. As he floated down the trail at a casual pace, I had to shuffle and skip to try to keep up.

When I hiked with Dutch, we talked about his university and his girlfriend. On more than one occasion, he even indulged me with conversation about 2011's hottest topic: European royal weddings.

Dutch was always willing to hike with me at night. During his thru-hike, he often spent several daylight hours reading, then he would catch up to his trail friends in the dark. He preferred the crisp night air to the midday heat and, in my opinion, Dutch seemed to walk faster after dusk. So when daylight faded, I would simply point my headlight at the back of his feet and try to keep up until we reached our campsite.

With Dutch and Rambler there to help, our team of four moved gracefully down the trail. The interactions seemed effortless and instinctual, too. Brew was giving less instruction and was relying more on the crew, and so was I.

Often, I would crawl out of my tent at five in the morning to see Rambler standing there, asking if I needed help or wanted company on the first stretch. Rambler not only wanted to help me, but he also wanted to make sure Dutch was well rested and taken care of, too.

And Brew wanted to ensure that the lanky Dutchman was well fed. Whenever I was on the trail with Dutch, Brew took special care to double whatever he was making so that Dutch could have some. Brew loved making food for Dutch. While I always looked at my husband like he was trying to torture me with food, Dutch never stopped complimenting him on the sandwich wraps, homemade cookies, and snacks in the back of our car. Eventually, Brew started to feel like a pretty good cook, even though all he did was add water to freeze-dried meals, fold meat and cheese on bread, or pick up fast food.

When our hiking quartet crossed the halfway point, Rambler managed to find a half gallon of ice cream to commemorate our success. It is a trail tradition for hikers to try to eat an entire carton of ice cream on their own at the halfway mark. It's called the “Half Gallon Challenge.” I was hungry enough to put away the whole carton, but I was too tired to stay focused on the task, so I let the boys eat most of it.

South of the halfway point, we had to face some intermittent electrical storms. I don't enjoy hiking through them, but then again, I don't know many people who do. I always told Dutch that he shouldn't hike with me in those conditions. But he always gave me the same response in his heavy Netherlands accent: “I don't mind.” Those three simple words meant I had a hiking partner for some of the scariest and most challenging stretches of my record attempt.

One of my favorite memories came when I was with Dutch just south of Duncannon. We were damp and tired from hiking in the rain all afternoon. When the sun went down, we put on our headlamps and I followed Dutch's large, agile feet. As he effortlessly sla-lomed around large pointed stones that jutted into the trail, I tried to lengthen my stride and place my feet exactly where his had been.

After night hiking for a mile over rocky terrain, the tread started to level out and transition into dirt. I had hiked the A.T. enough to know exactly where we were; we had made it to the Cumberland Valley and were officially out of the rocks.

I scurried along behind Dutch for several more minutes, then we left the forest and entered a field of tall, wet grass. In the open expanse of the farming valley there was very little artificial light, just the lightning bugs that danced above the meadow. The night sky rolled over us like an ocean. We barely needed our headlamps with the glow of hundreds of brilliant stars overhead.

We kept our eyes focused on the heavens, but then noticed what looked like two very large lightning bugs in the distance.
Then those bugs began to whoop and holler. We drew closer and discovered Brew and Rambler with our tents set up and dinner waiting for us. We had completed a fifty-plus-mile day, survived the thunderstorms, and made it out of the notorious rocks of Pennsylvania—and it was only 9:30 p.m., which meant I was going to get almost seven hours of sleep! I went to bed with sore feet, hurt shins, and scraped legs, but also with two amazing friends, one unbelievable husband, and the sense that there was nowhere else I would rather be.

With the addition of Dutch and Rambler, the two-hundred and thirty miles in Pennsylvania, thought to be one of the most tedious stretches on the A.T., quickly became a fond memory— with one notable exception.

I was hiking with Rambler late one afternoon. He was telling me about the Continental Divide Trail, which in places is more of a “choose-your-own-adventure” route than a well-marked path. I was asking about logistics and route finding and making plans for a future adventure, when I caught a quick movement out of the corner of my eye.