“The mind can exert an extraordinary effort upon the body.” – David R. Hamilton
Our section hiking season kicked off Easter Weekend with a section hike in New York. While planning this trip using the FarOut app, we read about the potential camp sites along the way, and one person wrote “Cool tree alert!” and we knew we needed to get back out on the trail and walk along the well-loved Appalachian Trail path surrounded by like-minded people. We also took this “Cool – alert” and applied it to everything we saw on our 26.4 mile trek. Ken and I have been section hiking the AT since August 2021 and so far we’ve completed all of Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia and we are about a third of the way done with Virginia. My goal is to close the gap between CT and PA this year, before heading back south to add more Virginian miles to our list. As with every return to the trail after a lengthy break, we got our asses handed to us with a not-so-subtle reminder that we need to train more specifically for hiking AND we need to learn to pack lighter.
I love the AT shuttle driver community. They are some of the most interesting, resourceful and warm individuals I have every met. FarOut furnished us with the name and number of Christine, who was our shuttle driver for the weekend. She met us early Saturday morning in Fahenstock State Park where we left the truck and loaded our super heavy packs into her car and got a ride north. Christine has done some lengthy section hikes herself and she told us about stealth-camping (new trail term alert!). At first I thought she was talking about hiding her tent deep in the woods, but it’s about setting up a tent site away from shelters, priviies, places where food is eaten and other possible things that would attract animals. This was our first time camping in the woods since May, when we encountered our first bear. I know we were both anxious about animal encounters and sleeping outside again.
As pretty much is always the case, we were dropped off on the side of a road, and had to climb up to get to the ridge. It wasn’t too bad but enough to tap the legs and calves to say yoo-hoo, remember how this goes? With our winter section hikes we had done “platnum blazing” and slept in hostels and hotels, and were able to therefore slack pack. We were not used to carrying full packs with the tent, food, battery packs, etc. The pack felt very heavy on that first up. As we made our south back towards the car, I noticed that New York wasn’t too rocky (so glad to be done with Rocksylvania!) There are a lot of roots in New York, and boardwalks too. It was also very muddy. At one point a root caught my toes and I fell down into a thorn bush and mud and got a few scrapes. We stopped in the pastures around mile 1455.4 and set out our camp chairs in the sun. A chickadee came bouncing out of the woods, coming curiously close to us. Ken decided to download a birding app to identify the birds we were seeing and hearing. Cool bird alert! We know we are middle aged now! After an hour or so in the sun identifying birds, we walked through a few more muddy fields, down to a road with a Malaysian food truck. Although we had lots of food, we didn’t want to pass up the opportunity for a new experience so we walked up Route 22 a bit and got DC Malaysian food and ordered 3 appetizers. Not far after crossing Route 22 there is the Appalachian Trail Train Station before a long boardwalk that snakes through a marsh. Luckily New York had many boards down along the trail, so far the biggest difference I noticed about the state has been the mud. As I digested the Malaysian food, entering back into the woods, my blood sugar started to drop. I think filling up on food before the last three miles of the day was not the best idea.
“The ancestor of every action is thought.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Our day ended with a 700 or so foot climb to Telephone Pioneers Shelter where we set up our site for the night. In the weeks before we set out, I was experiencing some mild blues mixed with some intense anxiety. Around the time I separated from my ex-husband, I developed a fear of crossing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Through therapy and some Dr. Googling I know that this anxiety stems from a fear of being abandoned when I need medical help. I was getting less anixious about crossing the bridge and then the Key Bridge in Baltimore was struck by a cargo ship and collapsed. The video of the collapse was all over social media and the topic of conversation everywhere I went. My anxiety spiked yet again, and I could not get myself to cross the bridge alone. Working with a therapist, I was reminded that the amygdala (the oldest part of the human brain, responsible for keeping us alive) will fire up when it senses danger, even if that danger isn’t real. Once that happens, the body goes into the fight-or-flight mode and the panic starts to set in. I was instructed to start not allowing my amygdala to over-power my frontal cortex. “It’s important to note however, that initially, you’re going to feel quite a bit of fear or anxiety, you can’t wait for the anxiety to go away first before facing your fear- that leaves you helpless, because we can’t directly force feelings to change.. Instead, you need to allow the anxiety to be there, face your fear, and then afterwards your brain learns “Phew, that was safe, I can decrease my human’s anxiety in that area”. The intense emotions actually prime your brain to be more plastic, to rewire.” (source) So back in New York, as we are setting up our tent away from where we had eaten, I felt much calmer having had a lot practice overriding my hyperactive amygdala. I kept reminding myself that I was safe, and most importantly, that my favorite part of sleeping out on the trail, is waking up already on the trail.
Our second day didn’t go as expected. We woke up Easter morning and my neck and shoulder were absolutely killing me. Turns out it was giant root that I had been sleeping on that had caused all that pain. We had planned to get 14 miles in that day, so breakfast was going to be a quick cup of coffee and a protein bar. Telephone Pioneers Shelter is a little ways off the trail, with a stream running between the shelter and the trail. It’s high enough on the mountain, that there is not the same concern of farming run-off contamination in the water, as is the case with some other streams in the area. We were boiling our water for the coffee when Ken heard a rustle and looked up and said, “Hey, that has got to be somebody’s dog.” Then he started to call the animal over to us. I quickly corrected him, and told him we should not be calling over a wild coyote. Luckily it ignored Ken’s whistles and disappeared back into the forest. We had a few hundred feet of climbing in the morning to wake us up.
Similar to Connecticut, there was not much ridge walking in the northern part of New York. Once we finished our ascent, we pretty quickly started a slow descent. We walked along Nuclear Lake, with all it’s warning signs that camping, fires, and drinking from the lake were strictly prohibited. In the 1970s, a chemical explosion occured at a nuclear power plant on the lake. We jokingly dared each other to try a sip to see if we obtained spiderman skills. After crossing both Route 55 and Old Route 55, we had a pretty steep 800 foot climb, which hurt. We were struggling. We slowed down a lot on the ridge and planned to stop at Morgan Steward Shelter for some lunch and rest, but we didn’t make it there. Ken was walking like he does when he is drunk, almost swerving. We still aren’t sure if it was the lack of sleep, some bad water, or what but Ken was in rough shape so once we got to a viewpoint around mile 1443.8 we decided to call Christine for a pick up. I had also continually gone low and was running low on glucose tablets to treat myself with. After some rest, sharing of my water and food, we walked 3 more miles to Old Stormville Road and got picked up. It is hard to feel ill on the trail. I have lived it from vomiting, to feeling like I couldn’t take one more step, to limping on blistered feet. Sometimes the best thing is to put any ego aside, and get off the trail. We were able to find a hotel in the area, napped, ate Greek food for Easter Dinner and went to bed early. We say it every time, but it is true- we need to train better and pack lighter.
“You cannot be lonely if you like the person you’re alone with.” -Wayne Dyer
Monday we both felt revitalized and Christine was so accommodating and drove us back to Old Stormville Road. We hiked 6 more miles, which was a much easier day, especially without the tent. As we climbed Hosner Mountain I was so glad we hadn’t pushed on Sunday. We had planned on staying on the mountain, but there were no clear spots that would have worked. Maybe as the thru-hikers make their way into New York they will pack down the spots better, but I am pretty sure Sunday night would have been a disaster had we tried to camp out. It’s fitting that we saw a coyote on Sunday, according to this source, “When you see a coyote, it can be a reminder to look at things you may have been avoiding. Imagine the coyote as a reflection of yourself. He says, ‘Look at me. I’m adaptable to my environment. I am serious and even cunning, yet playful and fun-loving.’ He wants to remind you to see your full reflection and focus on your whole life instead of just one part. It’s no fun to be all work and no play, and the coyote knows this.” So much of our lives is consumed by work, responsibilities, goals, etc. Adaptability and fun are so important. I slipped on mud, tripped on roots and fell several times on this trip but I was never seriously hurt. The primitive brain can process and correct this before the cognitive brain can even have a chance to process what is happening. Yet the cognitive brain can also tell the primitive brain that in order for goals to met basic needs can be sacrificed. I know I’m scratching the surface on what the brain can do and how it works. It has been so important to me these past few weeks to understand its role in my life. I need my amygdala, but I can also over-ride it’s warning signs and take risks, have adventures, be a grower and someone who would rather push themselves (within safe limits) to new heights.
-Liz