Called Again (30 page)

Finally, after about fifteen minutes and a few dozen vanilla wafers, I heard someone hiking toward me, and I called out, “Hello?! Brew? Rebekah?”

“It's me,” my husband responded as his headlamp appeared through the trees.

“What happened? Where have you been? Where's the tent?”

“It's just a little farther,” he said. “I was making such good time that I accidentally hiked more than I was supposed to.”

I couldn't decide whether to be happy that his knee was feeling good or suspicious that he was trying to increase my mileage for the day.

The next evening, after a long, hot day that started just south of the James River, I found myself crisscrossing the Blue Ridge Parkway near Roanoke. I'd hiked up and down steep mountains
all morning and afternoon, and now my legs and chest felt weak. I knew that I had another twelve miles, almost entirely downhill, until I would reach the outskirts of Troutville.

I'd already put in forty miles, and I didn't know if I had another twelve in me. Brew suggested that he could meet me at a forest service road after another six miles. There, if I wanted to, I could collect my backpacking gear and hike a few more miles before camping out in the forest.

I enjoyed the gentle descent off the parkway, but after a few miles, the trail started undulating up and down steep inclines. Where did these hills come from? And why were they so hard?!

The only two things I remembered about this section from previous journeys was that once I had seen a bear here, and the other time, I had hiked while watching the sunset. Why didn't I remember all this climbing? It was as if someone had just put these hills on the trail within the past two years. Up down, up down, up down. My calves burned and my thighs quivered. When I reached the overgrown forest-service road where Brew was waiting for me, I was completely spent.

I sat down and he handed me my dinner—spaghetti stuffed inside a tortilla wrap. A look of disgust came over my face, though I knew full well I'd brought this upon myself.

Since leaving Maine, I'd asked my husband for foods that I could hold. Small finger foods or anything requiring a utensil took too much time and attention. But at this moment, my need to feel civilized outweighed my desire to be efficient. I refused to eat spaghetti inside of a burrito. Even a hiker had to draw the line somewhere. So I unwrapped the tortilla and buried my face in the noodles like a pig at a trough. That's dignity for you.

While I worked on slurping up my dinner, Brew filled my large overnight pack with a tent, sleeping bag, nightclothes, more food, and more water. He also included a large foot-care kit with disinfectant, Vaseline, powder, corn cushions, athletic tape, and clean
socks. After wiping the marinara sauce off my face with a Wet One, I stood up and put on my pack.

In reality, it weighed no more than twenty pounds, but it felt like a hundred. I adjusted the straps, but it still felt like a wooden yoke resting on my shoulders. Once I'd walked forty or fifty yards, Brew called.

“There isn't any camping out near Troutville, so I'll probably get a hotel room tonight in Roanoke. If you make good time, maybe I can take you back there in the morning for a quick shower.”

“Okay. Love you,” I yelled back. Then I kept walking.

My pace decreased significantly due to the pack weight. I thought about Brew. Then I thought about the hotel room.

After hiking just over a mile, I started to whimper and my eyes felt damp. I had been so tough for most of this trip. But in this moment I felt like a wimp, a wimp who wanted sympathy. I took out my cell phone and called Brew.

As soon as he picked up, I wailed, “I wanna stay in the hotel,
tool”

“What did you say?” asked Brew. “What's wrong? Are you okay?” The reception was bad, so he was yelling.

I wiped my snotty nose with my forearm, leaving dirt streaks from my elbow to my wrist, then I tried again.

“I want to stay in the hotel,
too.
I want to take a shower tonight and sleep in a clean bed with
you.
Carrying a pack was a BAD ideal I should have just hiked to the next road.” I took a deep breath, then finished on a shrill note, emphasizing the last few words as each came out: “This is an
inefficient—use—of——my—energy
!”

Then I started whimpering again.

“Look up,” said Brew.

I lifted my head and rubbed my eyes. He was standing about fifty yards ahead.

Suddenly, I no longer felt the pack pressing into my shoulders or weighing down my legs. I started jogging.

“Slow down. Don't fall!” he said.

But I was afraid if I didn't get to him fast enough, he might disappear.

I threw my arms around his neck.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Well, I saw a short side trail by the road when I was driving up here earlier. I thought it probably led to the trail, but I didn't want to tell you about it in case I was wrong and I didn't get to see you again.”

“I don't want to camp out anymore,” I sobbed.

Brew smiled. “Yeah, I gathered.”

Then he offered a solution.

“I can take your pack, but that means you won't get down to the road until close to eleven p.m. If you get in that late and stay at the hotel with me, I still want you to get six hours of sleep. So you can't start until five thirty or six in the morning. Is that a deal?”

I slung the pack off my shoulders and laid it at Brew's feet. Just then, we saw Rebekah hiking toward us. She had started at the road near Troutville and hiked in to camp with me. We told her about the change of plans, and she happily unloaded her overnight gear on Brew, as well. Then Brew left us, and together we continued downhill. The only upside of temporarily carrying a pack was that once it was off, I felt like I was drifting effortlessly down the trail.

The hotel and shower were worth the late night and the extra miles, but the next evening I found myself in a similar predicament. It became clear that Rebekah and I would have to pack in together and camp out on the trail if I wanted to achieve my target mileage. After my whinefest the night before, we decided that Re-bekah would hike in ahead of me, carrying a pack with all our gear. All I would have to do is wear my daypack and catch up with her.

I said good-bye to Brew at dusk and hiked into the forest to find Rebekah. Within a few minutes, I had to turn on my headlamp. After spending so many dark hours walking with Dutch and after receiving his ankle braces, I was now a more confident night hiker. But beyond Craig Creek Valley, the A.T. proved hard to follow. There were multiple times when I thought I was on the right path and then discovered that I was lost in a maze of rhododendron trees.

It took me longer than I'd expected to find Rebekah, which made me worry that she or I—or both of us—was lost. When I finally did see her, it was clear she was struggling under the weight of the pack. She looked like a spinning top wobbling out of control. We'd planned on camping at a spring near the ridge, but at the rate Rebekah was traveling, it would have taken us a long time to get there.

“Rebekah, let me carry the pack,” I said.

“No, you're not carrying the pack. That's my job.”

“You've already carried it most of the way. It's my pack and it doesn't fit you well. Trust me, we can go faster if I carry it.”

She still refused, and we continued slowly in the dark. After a long while, we realized that even though our pace was sluggish, we still should have arrived at the water source. The darkness and decreased pace had me feeling disoriented. I could no longer sense how far we had come or how far we had to go to reach the spring. Then a light rain began to fall.

By this point, we were on a rocky ridge where the path was becoming slick and dangerous. Between the two of us, we had only a few sips of water left. Still, we decided that as soon as we found a flat spot, we would stop and set up the tent. It was too risky to keep going or look for a water source.

Five minutes later, the trail offered a small level shoulder, and we stopped to set up camp. I was so thirsty that I honestly thought about licking the outside of the tent to lap up some of the
moisture that had collected on the thin fabric. Instead, I drank a protein shake that Brew had packed with my dinner, and I went to bed feeling parched. Rebekah, on the other hand, went to bed without drinking anything and saved our few remaining sips of water so I could wet my mouth in the morning.

“Rebekah,” I protested, “you need to drink something. Just finish it. I'll be fine. I promise.”

“There is no way I am drinking that water,” she said. “You have to hike fifty miles tomorrow. I have to hike five miles, downhill, to my car, and then I am going home. You need it more than I do.”

I was going to miss Rebekah. She was refreshing in so many ways.

The next morning, I drank a swig of water, said good-bye to Rebekah, and left the tent at five a.m. It was six miles to the next road crossing. As soon as I arrived, I walked over to our filthy car, opened our trunk, and was immediately struck by the smell of dirty, wet socks. I grabbed some water and juice and started to chug. Brew was still in the tent a few yards away, and it looked like he was cleaning the ground cloth with soap and water. As was evidenced by the inside and outside of our car, it's not in my husband's nature to clean, and it certainly isn't in his nature to scrub.

So I asked, “What are you doing?”

“Well . . . something funny happened last night,” he said coyly.

“What was that?” I asked between gulps of fruit juice and water.

“Um, I think a groundhog peed on our tent,” he said.

“What?” I exclaimed.

Then he looked at me with a sheepish smile, and I started laughing. I quickly figured out what had happened. I could see that Brew had camped on a slope. He always took a bathroom
break at night, and last night he must have peed uphill. Our poor tent! Everything we had—our car, our gear, our bodies—it all told the story of the past 1,500 miles.

“Where are we now? How many miles do we have left?” I asked. It was meant as a rhetorical joke. But when I thought about it, I wasn't sure I wanted to know the answer.