Called Again (9 page)

When we finally exited the forest, Brew and I walked hand in hand to touch the A.T. plaque on the gray boulder that crowned the mountain. It was one of the best feelings of my entire life. I was surrounded by friends and family, I had just completed my second thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, and Brew and I had set the women's record on the trail.

After giving out hugs and taking pictures, we laid down on the sun-baked granite and took a twenty-minute nap. It wasn't your
typical celebration, but for us it was the perfect finale to a wonderful adventure. And while there was no doubt that I was utterly exhausted, there was one little problem.

On our hike down to the Springer Mountain parking area, I kept thinking about how I could have kept going.

AUGUST 2009—JUNE 2011

W
hen we set the women's record, Brew had several standard phrases that he would repeat along the trail, including, “It's a nice day to take a walk,” “All you have to do is hike home,” and my personal favorite, “Hike it out.”

“Hike it out” meant that this was my one chance to do something great. This was the only time I would be able to attempt a record on the Appalachian Trail. It would also be the only time in our marriage when I would do what I wanted every day and Brew would follow me around, run our errands, and do my chores.

Looking back, I don't know if my husband would ever have agreed to such a difficult, thankless task if I hadn't planned the adventure directly after we got engaged. He signed on the dotted
line at the height of infatuation. Because of that, there were several times during the summer when his devotion diminished and he seemed like he was having buyer's remorse.

However, Brew faithfully upheld his commitment, and when I thanked him and praised him and told him that as payback I would watch one hundred college football games with him on TV, bring him beer at any point, and rub his shoulders during half-time, he looked at me with a serious stare and then shook his head, saying, “No. Absolutely not. We are not quantifying this. I am holding this over you for
the rest of your life.”

I truly believed that it was my last record—but not our last trail. I still wanted hiking to be a part of my life, and of our life together. As for my husband, he had sworn off supported hikes, but when it came to hiking side by side, Brew was ready to become a thru-hiker. His sampling of the Appalachian Trail made him want to travel a path from start to finish on his own two feet. So the following summer we headed west and completed the five-hundred-mile Colorado Trail together.

It was great—most of the time.

Brew had to go through the uncomfortable learning curve of his first thru-hike. The difficulty of carrying a heavy pack and the discomfort that resulted from hiking five days without taking a shower had become second nature to me. But Brew struggled with the pain in his shoulders, the blisters on his feet, and his sweaty dirty body parts sticking together inside a sleeping bag at night. It was hard for him. It was hard for most people. But unlike most people, Brew was fortunate because he had me there to tell him what to do.

That might have been our biggest challenge on the Colorado Trail. Not only had I forgotten how difficult it was to thru-hike
without prior experience, but I also didn't remember how one of the most rewarding aspects of backpacking was learning how to become self-sufficient and make decisions on your own. We may have been walking side by side, but for the first week or two, it was still my hike.

I was deciding how many miles we would hike each day, and I was picking the exact spot where we would set up our tent at night. I chose all of our food at the resupply points and decided how many provisions we needed in order to reach the next town. I had determined our course of action on the Appalachian Trail and we had been successful. Trying to make decisions together on the Colorado Trail took a lot of communication and usually required a long explanation on my end. It was frustrating. What had become instinctual for me was still a thought-process for Brew. Things were just simpler when I called the shots.

Unlike me, Brew is a very good communicator, especially on the trail. And in Colorado, his discourse was dominated by the topic of discomfort.

“I have had wet feet for three days, and our tent is still soaked,” Brew sulked. “Can't we take some extra time to dry everything out?”

“Why?” I countered. “Everything will just get wet again this afternoon when it rains.”

“But what if it doesn't rain today?”

“It's rained every afternoon since we got out here—at least every afternoon that it hasn't hailed!”

“Yes, but you don't know that it will rain today. You don't know
everything”

I was silent. His comment had just slipped out, but it still hurt. And his honesty finally made me realize what a control freak I was being.

I'd learned how to thru-hike by making decisions and by making mistakes. Brew deserved that same opportunity. I needed to stop
being the one who chose how many miles we hiked and where we camped. I needed to let Brew be the one to decide what food we would buy at our next resupply stop. That afternoon, we even stopped to dry out our tent and shoes . . . thirty minutes before the rain started to fall. Finally, we were headed in the right direction. But even after I gave Brew more ownership, he still kept talking.

One morning we were climbing up a grassy mountain slope. The birds were chirping and flitting in and out of the tall grass like rocks skipping over a still pond. I wanted to be present. I wanted to be in the moment and take it all in. But that was difficult when Brew was behind me, talking about his chronic chafing problems.

My frustration heightened along with our ascent. Finally, after thirty minutes of listening to the same complaints and potential cures that I had heard many times before, I looked back and said, “Brew, I love being with you, but you know we don't have to talk
all
the time, right?!”

“I'm not talking
all
the time,” he said.

“Well, you're talking
a lot
of the time.”

“I thought that was what you wanted.” He paused (but just briefly). “You always talk about how much fun you had walking with Nightwalker and Mooch on your first A.T. hike. It seemed like your hike got a lot better when you started hiking and talking with them.”

“Well, it did, but we still didn't talk
all
the time. We didn't even hike together most of the time.”

“You didn't?”

“No, usually we all went at our own pace and then we met up to eat and camp together.”

“Oh.”

The way he responded, I suddenly realized that my husband hadn't been talking incessantly for his enjoyment; he had been doing it because he thought it was what
I
wanted.

After that, Brew was silent for a few minutes. And the next time he opened his mouth, he said, “Well, I'm not going to talk as much. But maybe I'll start singing more.”

For the last two weeks of our hike, we continued hiking together most of the time, but we were quiet more. We both spoke up when we had something to say, and three or four times a day, Brew would sing out loud. He wasn't doing it to fill the silence; he was doing it because
he
enjoyed it. And I liked it, too.

I don't know of any situation where spouses, partners, or significant others spend more time together than on a thru-hike. Even if a married couple is working together, they will still spend time on their own. But hiking a trail with someone is like being tethered to him. You are dependent on one another for shared food and gear. You travel together during the day, and sleep in a small, enclosed tent at night. There is no personal space.

Completing the Colorado Trail was an invaluable experience for the two of us as individuals and as a couple. Brew had learned how to thru-hike, and I had learned how to thru-hike with someone else. And once again, the trail had strengthened our marriage. We had spent more quality time alone together, away from friends and family. Even if it hadn't been in Fiji.

When Brew and I finished our five hundred miles together, we were literally finishing each other's sentences. Before that trip, I didn't know that I still had so much to learn about my husband. And even though we felt completely in-sync, there was still one thing that I hadn't told him by the time we reached Denver.

As soon as we were off the Colorado Trail, Brew started making plans for the following year. I couldn't wait to spend another summer hiking with my husband, and this time, he was picking the trails, doing all the planning, and making all the decisions.
The problem was, he was picking trails in Europe, and my heart wanted to go back to the A.T.

Four months after our successful women's record, I had gone for a hike with Warren and he had asked me if I would ever consider trying for another trail record. I scoffed at him. I was done with records.

But then, a few months later, going on a long run by myself, I kept thinking of places on the trail where I could have saved time, where I could have hiked a longer day, or where we could have eliminated a mistake. I knew for a fact that I could do the A.T. better, more efficiently, and probably for a faster time. But in spite of that, I wasn't sure that I wanted to go back. Records were hard; they were trying on my body, on my emotions, and especially on my husband.

I was hoping the thought of returning to the A.T. for another record would go away. I thought it would disappear on the Colorado Trail, especially once Brew evolved into a decisive musical hiking partner, but the longing grew stronger and the questions in my head grew louder.

Now, my husband was planning our biggest, best summer of hikes ever—stops in Geneva and London with hikes in the Alps, the Scottish Highlands, and along the coast of Wales—and all I could think about was doing the A.T., and doing it in less than fifty-seven days. My soul was screaming and my mind was telling it to be silent.

When I was quite sure I could not quiet these nagging thoughts on my own, I went to the one person who I knew would put them to bed.

I was sure that if I brought up the idea of doing another record, Brew would squelch it immediately. And once he did, that would be the end of that.

So on a late-summer evening, as we walked hand in hand, I carefully broached the subject.

“Brew, I have a question.”

“Yes . . . ?”

He could tell by the sound of my voice that this was not just any question.

“Do you think if I went back to the A.T. that I could do it better?”

“What do you mean by better?” he asked as he tilted his head toward me.

His probing stare left me wishing I could swallow the words that had just left my mouth. But once I had started, I had to keep going.

“Well, do you think I could do it faster?”

“Yes,” Brew replied hesitantly. “I do.”

I continued.

“Do you think I could do it in less than fifty-five days?”