White Blaze - Stories from the Appalachian Trail

I hiked the first time when I was 18 and three of my buddies went out to Colorado and I just loved it and then I didn't back back again for a while started reading trail journals actually about people hiking and hiking the 80 and it just kind of got under my skin and something I needed to do so I figured it wouldn't be taught to retired but then when the between jobs came about I got to do it then and now it's 11 years later and I just decided to see if I could still hike I grew up hiking sections of it in Virginia doing some short backpacking trips stuff and it kind of been in the back of my mind is something gonna be fun to do one day and I was taking some time off school wanted to go out and do something different so decided to go for it I'm hiking just to figure out where I belong in the civilian sector you know I didn't really enjoy my time in the military for my job so I'm trying to figure out where I can go from there I had a lot of opportunities to go to other federal agencies like the FBI to stuff like that but it's just not for me so I'm trying to do this hike and figure out where you know my niche is in society the trails I've always kind of wanted to do it's been a lifelong dream of mine my parents are big outdoor enthusiasts and they've always sort of pushed me outdoors and I really embraced that and I really wanted to get on the trail after high school but logistically it wasn't sort of the right opportunity but I was fortunate enough to graduate from my undergraduate at Alabama a semester early which has given me this timeframe from March to August or September to go and hike it and then I'll start wasp and the fall [Music] hardly anyone I guess that's involved in outdoor activities are hiking or certainly backpacking we're familiar with the premier of all of our national scenic trails there's 11 national scenic trails the main trail the premier trail to the Appalachian Trail this is the place for the Appalachian Trail you follow these blazes from Georgia all the way to Maine and every day you just pass them if you out one blazed you should be able to see the next blazed if it look up there you'll see the next wave on that tree there and you just keep walking and following the blazes and follow in the blaze [Music] well as far as the trail itself goes it was in the I think sometime in the 20s probably that a man named Benton Makai had the idea for an Appalachian Trail a way for a trail that would link huts or small villages along the eastern seaboard so that people could get away from this heavily industrialized city and go out to these places for renewal he never had the idea of anybody hiking the entire trail but that's become a popular thing now in Georgia we'll probably have about 4,000 people this year that will start an attempt to do the entire 2200 miles and probably maybe 1,000 of them will actually do it the trail has changed because when 1960s and 70s there was no books to tell you how to do this it was just there there was no equipment no female things and there was no clothing like they have now so now we have the ultralight there were also no girls hiking I found my first through hiker and late eighties female I started the hiking trail in 1977 so it was amazing to me when I saw my first through hiker that was a female this is our type of girl tonight so we did it with each other for each other our man's environment if you're north of here it's called the Appalachian Trail but down here it's called the Appalachian Trail it begins in Springer Mountain Georgia and goes through the mountains and valleys of 13 States to Mount Katahdin Maine and probably not much would have ever happened beyond the dream that Benton had if it hadn't been and this is the gentleman I really like to talk about his name miss Myron Avery Myron Avery so on pretty much the history of any of these sorts of things the trails and currently today the extension of the trails or what's going on to expand or make the trails better you have folks that are dreamers but you have people that are doers so Benton MacKaye was a dreamer and mountain Avery was a doer it's gained notoriety over the years it's it's it's it's kind of the passage now the way of passage if you're gonna claim that you're a hiker or backpacker that you're gonna somewhere along the line you're gonna hike the Appalachian Trail the thing about me is I got caught in after the recession I went from being $30 an hour to ten I struggled for years to try to figure out and it has I'll do my age not having credentials so I'm one of those disenfranchised folks that just got caught in this just scott cotton and there's no way out there's not like oh there's no more ladders to climb this is it and I didn't want to spend the next I mean what I can get a job for 10 $15 an hour to find our room and somebody else's house budget weld to get Netflix and call that life I just couldn't go there so when I was 55 I decided I would hike the Appalachian Trail when I'm 60 and we'll just hang in there and that's what I'm gonna do it and and I can't really afford to do it I'm doing a name and so ultimately as a human what I would like to do is be able to do this and get to a point where I can be somehow facilitate people of lower income to come up here and do this I want to see a group of kids from America's ghettos I want to see kids from these trailer parks that for decades something like this isn't even in conversation and so because it's on it's out of reach that's what it is I mean and that's what our country I believe is doing that's that split you know the haves and have-nots you know and I just wanted to you know try to welcome you know cuz it will change them it will change their paradigm of what we're and what's out there you know and there was a dad death I would like to do that I would like to get up there I would like to do that I would like to get a group of unfortunate lead you know poor folks and it can't get up here and do a hundred miles with the biggest obstacle I guess would be convincing my mom that I'm not gonna die so she was nervous about me starting but I convinced her to let me go so without so melodramatic a few years back I got I came to her with multiple myeloma which is a blood cancer and that this was in 2003 and at that time anybody who got multiple myeloma died in three to five years it just happened they were coming up with new treatments that worked on me up until 2012 when I had to have a stem cell transplant and then the stem cell transplant worked so here I am feeling really good I put my two kids will and Haley through hell because I was sick all that time and we got divorced around the same time that I got sick interestingly enough so I kind of I guess I'm doing it one to make a statement to my kids sort of like I'm sorry you know this is my penance maybe think of me and the other is that I like to have one more adventure in my life and this seems like adventure it is an adventure yeah actually I've been this is something I've wanted to do my whole life but I may be about three or four years ago I started really talking about it seriously and unfortunately I started talking about it and then the next year I was still talking about it and the year after that I was still talking about it I can't keep talking about it so I just came out here and decided I'm gonna walk home to New Hampshire and then I might as well walk the rest of the way to Maine after that you know I've been on Appalachian Trail many times within the past 40 years but I've never started in Georgia and I'm going to see how far I can go I mean I'm retired and I won't if I keep waiting I won't be able to do it at all it's here man so I'm just gonna do it that's that's really my only reason I love being out here a buddy of mine rich he he will he's it's always been his dream to through hiked the Appalachian Trail and he's talked about it for years but unfortunately he's got stage 4 kidney disease and he's got a new constant dialysis and he just recently lost his leg due to that and so he's dealing with being an amputee right now so I was like you know what I'm gonna do this for him you know I'm gonna go all the way to Maine he's section hike parts of it but uh well yeah it's for you rich yeah uh I love long distance hiking because I've done a long distance hiking Europe and I was looking to see if there are other long-distance hikes in other parts of the world and that's how I came a little bit to the movie the book world and then the southbounds Burford sisters books and I was like it sounds pretty good to explore a distinction to do a long-distance I could go hiking's always been a passion of mine you know growing up in Maine and you know I lived in Savannah Georgia and I'm from Maine so I figured it was perfect you know I could start down here and start my track home it's more just the collective experience of the trail than it is any particular overlook or spot on the trail or any mountain or any valley or anything it's the challenges and it's how we react to our our own mental demand and our own mental challenges I don't like shelters because I'm an old man and I and I also pack a guitar with me yeah so I play a guitar so I need my space I need my tent yeah there's an extraordinary thing to do indeed and you're challenged every day and you get done every day gone oh my god I can't believe I did that and it feels good and you know and after I gotcha last year I felt stronger than I've ever felt in my life you can't buy it so I lost 40 pounds and you know I was climbing mountains so and I thought of that too I had a couple GoPros when I first started out and you know being an entertainment business it's all he was in back my mine look what I could probably do but when you're out there hiking idle quickly learn that there is no time for that you know like I got gets an extra four starts downpouring whatever yeah I'm tired of and the last thing I want to do is get on social media or whatever you know there's three levels that are that are involved in a long-distance hike that you have to deal with if you're going to claim to be a long-distance higher you've got the physical demands the mental demands and then if you want to open up your mind in your heart in your spirit you have the spiritual aspect of what a hike is in all of us that have hiked that trailer have tried to hike that trail or involved in that sort of an experience are going to deal with those three levels of demands or three levels of what a trail experience involves there's the physical the mental and the spiritual and most people are going to say and this is straight out of the three wise men that the biggest challenge of all is a physical I'm okay I'm okay I'm taking this real slow okay I got a bum knee you might have more arthritis and cartilage I think but but you know I care for it and you know you injured a couple times last year but I'm going I think it's got 1,400 miles down left yeah yeah the right knee I'm like left buttcheek the first two days I did 16 miles and I didn't have any trekking poles and I thought I was gaining some time downhill I would kind of like hop and skip down the hills to gain time for for mileage and I'm feeling it now definitely feeling into my knees my northbound hike in 98 I was with a group of young people hiking on a day to day basis and they all had their Maps as the Appalachian Trail and the maps would have the contour so you could look on there and you can see any given day well we're gonna hike from point A to point B and look at that thing my goodness it's up and down and up and down this is going to be a really difficult day and so I'm looking over the shoulder maps and look at the contours and everything we get out on that trail that day and we're halfway through and way into the afternoon and we're just bopping along and having a fine old time and we're all wondering where's all this what is all this and then the next day they'll you know you looking over their shoulders again and here's this nice little straight-line trail going down through there and you say we're gonna breeze down through there not the trouble we'd expect and you get out there and bust your butt climbing up and down through that stuff so from a scientific standpoint I didn't think that that was working very well so I come up with an incredibly scientific way of determining how much effort it took to get up and down the trail or any given mountain on a given day and that was how many Snickers board you had to eat get up that puppy and that's it and I got no pushback from that everybody was thinking well hey then well well how many Snickers is this going to take us today and by golly at the end of the day you said they'd say you know that was about right so their contours they'd say oh you know just go talk to nimble will he'll tell you how hard let's go oh absolutely Blood Mountain was really difficult actually the hardest part so far was the approach trail the approach for it was just absolutely brutal it was almost all uphill and once he got to the top he still had to go down a little bit and then you had to summit Springer once he were once you were down frost mountain and that was just that was hard that was really hard it's always a challenge it doesn't matter if you're old or young it's a challenge in places Blood Mountain yesterday was the hardest on my knees for sure just because at the summit it's super rocky and there are a lot of ways you got a maneuver you know so yeah that was the toughest just on I fight I've actually hiked Katahdin before so and that's a pretty difficult hike but it's Blood Mountain would have been alright if I was fresh you know had fresh knees but on this knee it was tough it's a challenge but not so much I mean the knee pain and all that I can put up with what it's just physiologically I'm not sure my body's recouping fast enough to make it as far as I want to go but I'm gonna keep going you're out there for days and weeks and months by yourself where you have nothing to deal with other than then your own thoughts and your own dreams and especially who you are as a jerk okay the way you've conducted your life and the way you've treated people because the trail is indeed a life changing experience for everyone if they'll open up and talk to you about it and that's one of the mysterious things about hiking the Appalachian Trail is the impact it has on people's lives but the real demand is being able to live with yourself out there for days and weeks and months and to deal with the reality that that your frail and that you have that you have faults and the normal day-to-day activities we can put that aside and when we start thinking about it we can turn the TV on we can get in the car and go downtown we can do any number of things to distract ourselves from having to deal with reality of who we are and this is a mental aspect of it I'd say in the beginning getting out of my sleeping bag when it was cold no stuff you don't really want to get out so cozy in there well at the start it's physical you know you gotta get in shape to be able to hike the miles and then eventually when you're in shape then it becomes mental it's because it's long trail it is it's long so but it's neat you know I love the hiking I love camping I love nature and the trail community is pretty amazing out here so the mental what happens is you you you become physically become tired and winded and you start to imagine there's something going on that it's probably going to be bad for you or whatever and it's not the brains touch telling your body okay it's time to quit and in this you gotta have that little thing in the background that says just take one more step as they say but it's true just keep taking one more step one more step that opens up the opportunity to explore the spiritual aspects of what a hike is and I've been there and I've enjoyed that and it's obviously changed my life you're here to talk to me because of what you've heard about me as a person and not that I'm bragging about it but the years bring a lot of things and one of the main things we all seek as humans as wisdom wisdom is not something that we created something that's that comes to us through a medium and that medium is it's a gift and it comes through the forces that we see and we experience every day but don't understand and that's the gift of God and that's where wisdom derived in that's how that's how we come to realize what it is and deal with it and hopefully take it in and make it part of our lives and I'm trying to do that I think so I haven't talked to you about any real fancy places or neat places or beautiful over looks or anything like that about the Appalachian Trail I've talked to you about what it involves in each and every one of our lives that delve into taking on that sort of a challenge and I've succeeded I've succeeded I'm thinking that certainly in the physical aspects of what a long hike is the mental aspects I've pretty much mastered that on dealing with myself and who I am and realizing that I'm just a little sparked and all of this but the spiritual part of it I think that permeates my being and I think it comes out where you can see what that is those are the changes that I've seen in my life not just from hiking the 80 but living in this sort of an environment like I'm in today what motivated us to hike the 80 well together this is our second second section hike and we've done pretty much a week twice this is our second week on the trail and so we both had our own personal reasons to to hike the trail but I had hiked the trail with my mom prior to this and it was kind of it was a great insight into just the world of the trail and hiking and I loved it so much that I thought Jordan would love it we've been friends since high school and so I figured that she would love the trail and as soon as I got off with my mom I called her and I said Jordan you need to come on the trail it's awesome and here she is and we both had personal reasons the first time to go and so we just picked up where we left off before for this section hike and here we are yeah and I'm glad that she definitely cleared me because I've loved it so far I love outdoors and just getting in touch with nature I feel very grounded that way closer to God and like she said we had personal reasons so for me like my parents had just gone through divorce through my first section hike and it was just I would have done this anywhere was the perfect time to just kind of like reset in nature and just kind of go along the trail and this is definitely challenged but I left away hiking makes you not think about too many other things that life is very simple while hiking it's about food it's about sleeping it's about going from A to B but still enjoying the journey it's very simple life and I like that yeah it's it's yeah it's good meditation you get a kind of like let go of all your thoughts especially when you're you know trying to breathe are your legs kill you so I was not a real spiritual guy before but I am now I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do the hiking community the trail is a great leveler of humanity it's it's it's it brings us all down to that same point as far as day to day life who we are what we are our status in in the social aspects of our life the trail is a great leveler you have gentlemen out there and ladies out there with PhDs you got truck drivers out there you got positions out there you got scientists you have kids you have students you have people that are in a sabbatical for one reason or another in their life but the trail is the one common thing that we all have and it's so intense and we focus so intently on it on a day to day basis that it becomes our life and that's that's the crux of what the community is so like you may never meet me or talk to me or give me the time of day on the street because you are superior to me in society you have a degree or you have a some influence you're into politics you're you're the owner of some huge corporation or something on the trail that absolutely means absolutely nothing people think I'm a bum and they avoid me because they think I'm a bum and that's fine but you see how this all fits together so I can sit and talk to you person to person and not try to to display or bring forth or show you any facade or try to create anything that's not real or true because I'm sitting here sweaty dirty the bugs are eating on me I got blisters on my feet my back hurts like hell and you know I'm thirsty and I'm out of food same as you are same as you are and that that ties us together that welds us together and we are together on the trail we can hike through it's a social experience for a lot of people where you're going to be maybe a buddy is going with you but you may make friends along the trail it become much more your buddies and the guy you started a trail with simply because of the glue that's holding all of us together and the glue that binds that is just think it's the here we go again it's a physical the mental and the spiritual activities that come together to form our being our make up who we are as a person and how that whole envelope how that whole dome fits over us as a group as a community that's that's it shelters are great because you meet people who like a California guy that was just over here who they give you hints techniques and also an inspiration because they've finished like I finished the PCT and the other CDT I think it was and the feeling when you finish is just so phenomenal that it drives I think he said there's no fun in than doing the fun comes into telling afterwards so that's kind of focus again I've met people I've been walking I met a guy he knew his song we both knew we started singing it later that day we were sharing a hotel room together never met this guy before but a couple hours later you're sharing a hotel room with some but you don't just takes weeks and months to build up some kind of relationship like that in the real world somebody like hey man you want to split a hotel room like now that's weird everybody gets their own room over here one hiker two hikers now be cheaper let's get eight hikers in here so due to the bed everybody on the floor if you're out of food out of water and everybody's always willing to help you ask any question somebody's willing to give any sort of advice you need so far it's a totally different way of life everyone is very kind to each other I haven't seen any kind of negative energy it's very positive on the trail everyone wants to help each other out give it give each other advice it's very nice so far so I'm hoping to it it carries on throughout the trail once everybody gets settled in at the shelter we all just kind of gather around talk share stories talk about gear that's pretty much all we talk about gear and weather we all talk about how hard it was you know getting up a mountain you're getting down a mountain our sore ass feet all that stuff it's I really like it but it's been really cold so far so everybody goes to bed really early to get warm but though nights that were a little bit warmer people got our together at the fire usually someone lights a fire and he goes chat a little bit and you go too bad if you want to read a little bit if you want to that's really relaxed but still nice everybody has been friendly I have known actually there was a guy I was hiking with a shout-out to mark we were hiking together for the first sense Hawk Mountain shelter and we kind of were keeping the same pace and he had actually sent a mail drop to himself here at Neil's Gap and he was like look I'm gonna stop at Neil's Gap he was like I packed way too much food he didn't know if he was he didn't know if he was gonna keep going or not and he ended up coming here and putting my name on the package so when I got here I had free food which was great it's a community I'd say you got some that are just you know might just want 10 15 minutes to themselves but usually everybody gathers round and talks about who they are where they're from what they're up to how the day's been and gets together for the night for a good hour or so and then we all just kind of all right see in the morning that there are still a lot of really good people in this world and a lot of them are along the Appalachian Trail it's kind of amazing you you get up in camping and you're talking with people and having a great time and there's probably no place else you'd ever have a diverse group like you have around a campfire on the 80 no if somebody asked me oh you got a Facebook or a blog and for me it's like I let that stuff down there the last couple range that I was on you know that I've had I kind of sat out because of the nights were 30 degrees I'm not interested and because I'm not in a hurry I can say I'm just gonna stay in my tent and practice my guitar and hang out and wait until the rain stops because there's 30 degrees at night after in there you know the way it was last week so you walk are dating raining then you're in a tent at 30 degrees is that good combination so I avoid that kind of stuff but a lot of people start off and here's what happened meanwhile she's taking me so long I took the approach trail from Anna McCullough Falls and 4 miles up the trail I was just gone 5 miles to the next shelter taking it easy on myself I got to this camp stealth camp and there was a woman there in this little one layer 10 and I went oh maybe I'll stop here hey can i camp here and she said oh my god she peeped out and said I wish would it turned out that she took her two days Bureau woman she was the way she had gear that wasn't appropriate and it took her two days to get that for miles and when she got there she couldn't go anymore and she stayed the night before by herself and said I don't understand why my tents wet it says it's water-resistant and I'm saying honey no no it has to be waterproof and I said so and she cousin by piece Brown and do you have water and she held up this big smart water bottle full of water as a honey Twinkie walk drinking but she was afraid that if she drank her water there would be no more so she was ordering well she was a mess so so I stayed with her that night and in the morning it was another cold cold night and in the morning she was in the beginnings of hypothermia so in the morning she started she got to shivering and she never stopped and so I got to my blanket in the morning got her out of the tent my first intention was to give me your path I'll put her down we're gonna walk you out of here yeah you know and I asked you to walk around the campus she couldn't do that so i'd call 9-1-1 luckily red service and there was a road that a TV could get up there get her couple other emergencies until four o'clock in the afternoon but my whole day with the celebrity woman and we got her down but she was dehydrated she was at hyperthermia and she need to get off the trail so that's my first day and she's called me since and I've never been able to get back as I didn't know perception or my battery's dead and I just got it she's been calling and it's been really sweet I guys I'm going to the doctor today to make sure everything is all right I want to you know down here it's hit miss when you're up in Maine you don't have I don't count on it to be with me at all times you know I use it for music are used to see pictures I use it when I get reception that protects the grandkids and all that so I don't yeah it's pretty simple pretty simple but that's the idea about you know walking on to see if I if I had this all planned and here's how much food I got here's my drops and I need to be here down in there you know that's a vacation itinerary that's not a journey you know and it's all about this and who's gonna meet me and go you know and all that stuff it's like me I'm just walking and it will be the journey because I don't know how it's gonna turn out I don't know you know I mean I got boxes I want to get to and I have destinations goals but and if I was on his itinerary there was one other guy camp there he just want to make sure everything is ok then he took off you know but I you know totally would do that because I'm not her and this is what I'm doing this is where the journey brought me where will it bring me tomorrow who will I meet and that's what's exciting about top of Georgia hiking center is a half mile off to basically to the west of Dick's Creek gap we've turned into this place where you get a shot in the arm positive affirmation a little bit of common sense you can do it to give them a shot of sugar and they're all ok we offer laundry services we we have scrubs back here we give people for free and and Washington laundry for them so it's one less chore and they have something to wear we have a very clean hostel with bunk beds but we also will drive for a fee all the way down to more to North Spring station that takes them into the Atlanta Airport and all the way up to the north side of the Smokies well the only the old famous phrase there it's not to do it's not the destination it's the journey and when you reach the destination then your journeys over in my case I couldn't handle that so what did I do I kept on going I get accused of being like Forrest Gump I get accused of being forced Gump and I said oh no no now you saw the movie about Forrest Gump oh yeah well you're you're Forrest Gump I said no I'm not I said Forrest was smart this force was very smart he quit and went home I'm still going and that's what you're going to get from the physic most people look at as a physical demand and as a physical reward and as a as a physical accomplishment that's not what the 80 is it's to come to it's coming to the realization of what life deals us and how we handle it and that's the whole thing on any given day we have to deal with all the the stuff stuff all the things that are happening around us all the distractions that we have to live with and the better you can deal with that as a result of your experiences and in learning who you are what you are physically mentally and spiritually the better your going to have the better experience you're going to have on a daily basis in your life you know and I'm I'm living it in spades here man this is it we we place ourselves on a pedestal we place ourselves on a pedestal and on that pedestal we control our lives we control what goes on around us and and when we try to make our life into that sort of an experience you can't be involved in the spiritual aspects of it you simply can't it's the people the places the pain and the trials it's a joy in the blessings that come with the miles it's a calling going out to a fortunate few to wonder the fringes gods a zebra okay is still in any further [Music]

Channel: Godfrey T

Views: 85,308

Rating: 4.9084196 out of 5

Keywords: hiking, appalachian trail, forest, camping, backpacking, nature, mountains

Id: m-UMoA-QmZU

Length: 37min 11sec (2231 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 25 2018