I wanted to title this “Reflections on a Walk,” but it both sounded a bit too much like A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson (which I loved), and not descriptive enough for my purpose. I’ve never been good at titles, which the title of this post amply reflects. Like Bryson, I spent time this summer hiking two sections of the Appalachian Trail (AT), which starts in Georgia and ends, 2,200 miles later, in Maine. Unlike Bryson, who got through most of the trail, I got through less than a third of the New Jersey portion – about 26.5 miles, or 43 kilometers, over two days.
Three years ago I got my first taste of hiking, which is to say, carrying everything on my back and spending the nights in the woods. That experience was a relatively short trail in Algonquin Park, Ontario, over three days and two nights, about 36 km. It left me with an incredible feeling of accomplishment. For someone who can’t fix a car or build anything past Ikea-level furniture, the recognition that I could at least push my body past the point of static comfort, and be (mostly) independent, felt great. I say “mostly” because both then and now I was guided by my friend, Akiva, who is a true survivalist, which means I never really have to worry about something going wrong when I’m with him. It’s a great crutch.
This time we took on two parts of the trail in New Jersey, ending at the Delaware Water Gap. The first day we hiked about 18 km, and 24 km the second. Given that there was lots of time to walk and think, separated by making sure I didn’t trip, lose track of the trail markers, or make sure I wasn’t breathing so hard that I’d have a heart attack, there were a few reflections that, by putting them to paper, I hope will stay with me a little longer.
The first is the friendliness of people on the trail. It’s not that there were so many of them. Maybe we came across 25 people over two days. But seeing someone else hiking was like seeing a lost relative. Saying hello came easily and with a lot of warmth. Sometimes the interactions were short, others went on for 20-30 minutes. This seemed to come from a sense that we were doing something together, even if our paths only crossed for a few moments, and so shared something that broke down normal social inhibitions. Sometimes daily life feels like the opposite.
Very early on I learned that hiking, and the AT in particular, has its own language. There are “thru hikers” (that’s how I saw it written, in case you thought I just can’t spell) who are going from Georgia to Maine (or vice versa), and there are “section hikers” like me. Everyone’s first question was, “Are you a thru hiker?” I always felt like I let them down a bit when I told them we were just hiking a couple of sections. It’s like we were just learning to read Chumash when everyone else is learning a Rav Chaim, lehavdil.
A “zero day” is when you take a day off the trail in town to do laundry and re-supply food in town. A “water source” is water you can filter and drink, but not from a tap; “gaiters” are something like a sock with holes at both ends that go over your shoes to protect them from the dirt; “hot spots” are the spots on your feet that start to burn when there’s something rubbing the wrong way in your shoe. A “blaze” is a trail marker; and getting your “trail legs” means you’ve hiked enough not to feel totally exhausted and in pain at the end of a regular 17-20 mile day. And the lingo goes on and on. I was too self-conscious to use trail language, the same way some people are embarrassed to speak in Hebrew even if they know how to. It felt like being an outsider. But like any language, it gave people a sense of commonality. It made them feel like an insider, like they belonged. This made me reflect on the way language is used at school, and the way it can make people feel connected or disconnected. It helped me clarify how a consistent use of terms and idioms are important in creating culture and cohesion.
Also interesting was that thru-hikers had trail names, and introduced themselves as such. They even seemed reticent about using their birth names. We met Recharge, Vector, and Beautiful Day over our two days. Recharge was a sad looking fellow from the South who was between jobs and decided to hike the trail. He was slow, he told us, so he was behind the “bubble” (that’s the main group of hikers who start in Georgia in April, and end in Maine in September/October). We passed him and he passed us many times over the two days, but I never saw a smile on his face. Beautiful Day was a 64 year old retired Delta Airlines mechanic who took an early retirement package, and has lived in an RV with his wife (after selling their house), half the year in Arizona and half the year in Colorado. He started the trail when his daughter suggested they walk it together, but she bowed out after 200 miles because of foot issues. His wife follows him in the RV, and they meet up every so often. He was a religious Christian, or in his words, “a believer,” and liked to listen to Bible podcasts, as well as The Lord of the Rings while he walked. Vector was from Oregon, raised by religious Christian parents in a sect called “Sabbatians” who try to keep the literal Torah. This sect’s rest day was on Shabbos, and they did their best to follow the Torah’s dietary laws. She was homeschooled because her parents didn’t trust the public school system, until she couldn’t teach herself the math anymore and went to class in public school. She’s since rejected her parents’ religious practices, and is now a computer programmer who quit her last job to finish the AT. She seemed happy, self-confident and self-reliant, and walked incredibly quickly.
I was acutely aware that, especially in contrast to the thru-hikers, I was hiking a very short distance. Despite the fact that we were doing such a small part of the trail, there was a real sense of accomplishment that came after those two days. To be clear, it’s more than the distance. It’s going up and down a (relatively small) mountain range (each peak was between 1400-1600 feet of elevation – the empire state building is about 1450 feet at its tip), on uneven terrain (what hikers call a “technical” trail), carrying about 30 lbs of gear, which is like carrying 15 one-liter water bottles around on your back. Most things in my life are open-ended, which makes beginning and ending something particularly satisfying. But more than this is the sense of going past my own imagined boundary of personal capacity. I had a pretty good idea I could do this because of my last hike, but the distances were longer, and let’s face it, I’m now 50, so all bets are off. It felt good.
Even after speaking to thru-hikers, I’m not sure why they do it. Each of the ones who stopped to really speak to us were hiking solo. That means 4-6 months of a lot of alone time. People say you get your “trail legs” after about a week or two. You get used to the daily grind, your muscles stop hurting, and calluses build up. I guess it also means you get used to being alone a lot. Not everyone hikes alone, of course, and we were behind the Bubble, but still – it’s a pretty solitary sport. Like my experience, there is certainly a feeling of accomplishment, and some, like Vector, dream of being back on the trail. For me? I’m content with my short trips. I don’t see the draw.
One of the things I didn’t get past was my sense of time. Being on the trail, Akiva kept reminding me, was the awareness that city time didn’t apply. We could stop or start as we chose (more or less, as long as we got to our destination by nightfall), walk faster or slower, stop to take in the views, swim at a small lake, or just lie on the grass and stare at the sky. I couldn’t escape the sense of getting to the end, knowing how far we’d hiked and how much was left, not because I wanted it to finish, but because I’m programmed to get things done and “accomplish” things. Only when it’s done can I relax. But that’s not exactly how hiking works. I’m not sure if it’s something that comes with time on the trail (maybe that’s why people thru-hike?), or is just a mindset one can choose to adopt. Either way, it felt like a kind of freedom just beyond my horizon, and I’m not there yet.
Finally – Hashem. I’m sorry to say that I didn’t feel any more or less religious insight out in nature than I do in everyday life. Maybe that takes time as well. But what was true, and maybe this is the secret of Rebbe Nachman’s hisbodedus (alone time), is that time walking clears the mind, at least temporarily, and creating this space is a real gift.
I’ve come to enjoy hiking more and more over the years. It’s worth the trip.