Amanda's AT Journal

“Hiking the Appalachian Trail with Matthew and Eric”
6/28/06 – 7/2/06
By Amanda Morris

We pulled off the highway leading into Harper’s Ferry and turned on that familiar road leading to the Hilltop Hotel and, more importantly for that day, the Appalachian Trail Conservancy Headquarters. We were going to meet Matthew and Eric, a month after they had set out to hike the 2,175-mile Appalachian Trail. I stepped out of the car with Cookie, our young black spaniel, who was getting excited as if she recognized the place even though it was her first time there. While Mom found a parking space, I walked with Cookie to the front door of the ATC and peered in but didn’t see the two familiar faces I was looking for. Instead, an old thru-hiker was seated on the concrete step outside the front door with his dog that Cookie had a hard time getting along with.
It was exciting to be there during thru-hiker season because hikers made the ATC come alive. Harper’s Ferry was where they celebrated the completion of half of their AT journey. They sat around the ATC and filled the picture album of thru-hikers with their freshly taken portraits. I had seen some of the people from the pictures just a moment before walking down the street! There among the pictures was one of Matt and Eric. It was inspiring to see them there among the ranks of one thousand mile hikers, particularly in an album that I knew well but never expected to have a direct attachment to. I had visited Harper’s Ferry and the ATC several times when I was younger, and my friends were strengthening that bond by reviving my childhood memories and creating yet another link.
A helpful ATC staff member pointed out Matthew and Eric’s packs leaning against the wall, and the realization hit me of how close we were to reuniting. Matthew and Eric had gone to find showers at a campground a few miles away. Mom and I knew this ahead of time, so as a joke we brought hospital gowns for them to change into, but underneath the gowns we hid a new set of quick dry clothing for each of them as their birthday presents. Matthew’s new shirt was red and Eric’s was green to suit their tastes.
Not long after 2:30 pm, the designated meeting time, I heard my cell phone ring and knew Matthew was calling. I looked out the window of the ATC and saw Eric standing there. “They’re here!” I exclaimed. I walked outside, gave Eric a hug, and saw Matthew standing across the street on the corner. I suddenly felt as if I hadn’t seen him in a very long time, and meeting him again made me feel happy and peaceful. It was like I had nothing to worry about anymore even though I had felt fine before. Matt and I hugged, and we both looked at each other thinking, “It has been a long time.”
After they changed into their new clothes, we drove back to our house so they could eat a homemade meal and sleep in beds for a night to recharge. The first thing they did when they arrived was to dry out their soaked gear. For the past week while they had been hiking in the Shenandoah’s, it had rained the whole time. The wet weather had made me reconsider whether I wanted to hike with them because I knew that the rain would make hiking difficult and maybe even frustrating and I didn’t want it to spoil our fun. However, I decided to hope for the best and hike with them anyways since I really wanted to get to know the AT a little better and learn what Matt and Eric went through.
Matt and Eric stuck several hiking poles into the ground in our yard then tied rope between them to construct a makeshift clothesline. They hung some gear on the lines and laid the rest on the lawn. I admired their resourcefulness and considered this my first taste of daily life on the AT. It began to rain later while their gear was still out there, undoing their efforts, so we all ran outside saving what we could and bringing it inside to the basement. Matthew stood in the garage looking out in the rain and threw an annoyed hand in the air. “You know, I’m not even surprised. This rain doesn’t even faze me anymore,” he said. I hoped that the rain wouldn’t dampen our spirits while we were hiking during the next few days.
Late in the afternoon the next day, we were finally ready to set out for the trail. We had bought plentiful food supplies, which Matthew and Eric had shown me how to choose and pack. With food, water, a sleeping bag, sleeping pad, and clothes, my pack weighed about thirty-five pounds. Matthew and Eric’s packs probably weighed near sixty since they shouldered more of the food and the tent. Mom drove us back to Harper’s Ferry to where the woods met the road behind the ATC and said “I know you’ll have a great time.” Hearing her say that gave me confidence because I felt assured that I would have fun.
Matthew invited me to lead, so I walked first down the steep trail followed by him and then Eric. We stayed in this order for most of our hike. The steepness of the trail made my confidence waiver a bit, and I wondered whether I would be able to accomplish what I had set out to do. At that moment of worry, Matthew encouraged me by saying, “This is the hardest part of the trail,” and I became ever more confident by telling myself to just take the hike step by step and enjoy the beautiful surroundings.
We first passed Jefferson Rock, so named because Thomas Jefferson had stood there to admire the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers long ago. Matthew and I had been there the past winter to witness a spectacular red and purple sunset. Matthew told me and Eric to hop onto the large boulder with our packs on for a picture, and I chuckled at the memory of how Matthew had climbed easily onto Jefferson Rock in the winter like a mountain goat while everyone else had struggled. After posing for a photo, we continued on the trail into the town of Harper’s Ferry. We walked past the old stone church and Civil War landmarks, such as the federal arsenal storage house that an abolitionist named John Brown had raided, one event that helped lead to the Civil War.
I remembered the many times I had walked down the same cobblestone street. I reflected how every time I had been there for a different reason, and each time I couldn’t have foreseen the reason for the next visit. One of the first times I had been there was with my parents on our 186-mile bike ride on the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal, which paralleled the Potomac River and overlapped a few miles of the AT. Another time was with Mom and Matthew when we had stayed at the historical Hilltop Hotel and hiked a short section of the AT. Finally, I had on my backpack and was hiking thirty miles from Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia to Smithsburg, Maryland.
Believing that Dad was somehow with me gave me confidence. The weather was finally sunny after days of rain, and the dirt on the C&O Canal, the first three miles of our hike, still seemed to contain the impression of my father, mother, and my bicycle tires. As Matthew, Eric, and I crossed over the footbridge from West Virginia to Maryland, a train rumbled past us, a surprising treat, and I had never seen as much wildlife on the canal as I did that day. We saw algae-covered turtles resting on logs in the still green water, a blue heron landing on the banks right beside us, and orange lilies blooming on the sides of the trail, one of which Matthew picked and put in my hair. In some way, I felt as if all the beauty around us was a gift from Dad to welcome me onto the trail.
After about seven miles of hiking, we arrived at the Ed Garvey Shelter, a two-story, brown log structure that had been built by the generosity of either a past thru-hiker or someone who knew how to please thru-hikers. The ground floor had walls on three sides and a smooth wooden floor that was raised about a foot off the ground. A wooden ladder on the outside of the shelter led up to the second floor loft. Matthew and Eric let me know that the shelter was rare and luxurious by AT standards. A group of young thru-hikers sat around a campfire outside, and I was curious about them. Thru-hikers seemed to me like a strange but fascinating group of people. I wondered why they had chosen to hike more than two thousand miles and spend months living in the woods. For some reason, however, I felt shy and didn’t ask.
For Matthew and Eric, hiking the AT was an adventure that they had begun envisioning on their childhood hikes on short sections of the trail. Now approaching their twentieth birthday, they were ready for the long-distance challenge. I think the trail also offered them a chance to exercise their independence as young adults and assume more responsibility of themselves. At the same time, the AT seemed to be a way of holding onto their childhood because it gave them a reason to stay in the woods like old times and delay more conventional summer jobs to another year.
For me, the AT was a chance to spend time with Matthew and Eric and experience part of their journey. I had never continuously hiked thirty miles before, so I considered the trip a sort of test of my ability and an opportunity to learn from my experienced friends. I was also excited about the particular section we were hiking through. The thirty-mile section traveled from one end of my home state Maryland to the other, and since we were going through at walking pace, I knew I would discover more about my area. Unlike my friends, hiking the entire AT in one haul wasn’t one of my goals because of the tremendous distance and the days when bad weather or trail conditions would drain the fun from hiking. I preferred to pick my hikes for better weather. Nevertheless, I was prepared to hike on the AT with Matthew and Eric, rain or shine.
Matthew and Eric started cooking dinner on the wooden benches beside the group of thru-hikers. Eric was the primary chef, and within ten minutes he had thrown together rice-sized pasta, dehydrated tomato sauce, and yellow peppers on the camping stove and had prepared a warm and satisfying meal. I discovered that being in the woods and being limited by what they could carry didn’t prevent Matthew and Eric from indulging themselves to dessert every night. That night we ate Oreo pudding. After dinner, I learned how to clean my bowl and protect our remaining food from bears. Matthew tossed rope with a weight at the end over a high branch away from camp, and together we hoisted the bags of food as high as we could. For washing dishes, Matthew squirted a little bit of water into my bowl and pointed out the best broad-leafed plants for scrubbing. Brushing my teeth was my next lesson. That wasn’t too different from what I did at home, but it required less water and a willingness to use a hand instead of a towel.
Sleeping in that shelter was a memorable experience. Laying on the ground of the loft on top of our sleeping bags (because it was warm) next to my friends and a rough-looking, solitary hiker who I didn’t know, feeling the comfortable breeze flow through, and listening to the soft sounds of sleeping people, I felt at peace. I also felt closer to my friends because of our shared experience and mutual reliance. Thus, I understood how thru-hikers could find a strong sense of peace and camaraderie in the woods.
The next morning we knew it was bound to be a good day because Matthew got his contacts in on the first try, as he put it. The sooner Matthew could see meant the sooner we could start hiking, or maybe it meant that being able to hike and behold the beauty around us were the reasons for a good day. We hadn’t been hiking for very long by the time we reached our first of many Maryland historical landmarks. The Gathland State Park dedicated to Civil War correspondents, the only one of its kind in the country, contained a tall stone archway for a monument. There was also a large stone building in ruins that had served as a farmhouse back in late nineteenth century. We rested there for a short time, using the water pump to fill our water bottles and to wet our heads to cool down.
Our next break was for lunch, which we had on a rock with a view of the ridge that we had traversed. The ridge jutted of the flat pastures and curved back and forth like a snake’s back, giving us a clear idea of the path we had taken. Near us the ridge was green, and the farther away it got, the more blue it became. Lunch consisted of a wrap containing beef jerky, Muenster cheese, and orange peppers complemented by some dried fruit. I was glad that Matthew, Eric, and I had taken the time to pack a variety of tasty and nutritious foods. Ripe blackberries growing beside the trail also provided sweet snacks throughout the day, reminding me that the trail sometimes provided nourishment, also known as “trail magic,” for its hikers.
We had to hike eleven miles in all to reach our destination, the Dahlgren Back Pack Campground. To make the miles go by faster, we sang “Ants Marching” and tried to come up with different rhymes. My favorite one was when I was trying to stump Matt and I made the ants go marching infinity by infinity instead of a more familiar version like three by three. Almost without hesitation, Matt answered, “The last three stopped to form a trinity.” It was difficult to persuade Matthew to sing along, but I’m glad he did a few times because he could carry a tune and his comebacks were always entertaining and clever. I had never been able to persuade Matt to sing before, so perhaps he felt freer in the woods than in civilization.
We reached the campground early in the evening and found there to be many amenities including running water, hot showers, and a personal picnic table and fire ring for every campsite (all for free)! Matthew and Eric emphasized that the campground wasn’t a real AT experience because it provided too many luxuries when camping was about fending for oneself, but I encouraged them to take advantage of the rare comforts. They insisted, “We just took a shower a few days ago and aren’t dirty enough for another one,” so I tried arguing a case that they would identify with: “If I was given a second dessert, would I turn it away because I had already eaten a first? Or, would I gratefully accept the second dessert?” I knew that in this case they would accept the second dessert. By the end of the night, all three of us had taken a relaxing shower and were playing cards on the picnic table by a warm fire.
As we were getting ready for bed, a troop of boy scouts arrived and began setting up tents next to us. Each scout had his own hammer to drive down the stakes. Matthew and Eric told me the troop should have brought fewer hammers to share so they could have carried less weight and that they didn’t need stakes on such a calm night. I felt a sense of pride for knowing how to get by in the woods, and I felt fortunate for having Matthew and Eric as my wilderness teachers. The troop’s presence disappointed us because we wanted quiet and privacy. Matthew thought that I would have more success in getting the boy scouts to be quiet than he would, so I agreed to talk to them. Soon afterward, they climbed into their tents, and we all got some rest.
We were awoken too early in the morning by our boy-scout neighbors preparing to leave camp. Other sounds, such as the whirring of a chainsaw somewhere among the trees and the sounds of cars on a nearby road, reminded us that civilization was not far away. In fact, this would be our last full day of backpacking together. That morning we crossed over I-70 on the footbridge that I had seen many times from the road. Being inside it for the first time was momentous, and as we hiked through it, people driving below us honked their congratulations. It was so much more fun to walk over the highway than drive on it!
On the other side of the bridge, the trail was sunny and bordered by pink wildflowers and blackberry bushes. A lone black dog trotted by. As he was approaching, he looked like a black bear, which scared me, but after realizing he was a dog, I still found him intriguing. He was unaccompanied and didn’t have a collar, but he looked at home on the AT. What a lucky dog to have this as his backyard, Matthew said. After he passed us, Eric saw the dog glance at us before turning onto the bridge.
Hidden among the fallen leaves on the sides of the trail were small brown toads, which Matthew always happened to be the one to notice. He picked one up and pointed out to me that no matter which direction he turned his hand, the toad’s head remained facing the same way – the direction the toad wanted to escape. Matthew observed many interesting things to the sides of the trail that I missed because I kept looking at the ground to watch my footing. Matthew and Eric tried to teach me to have more awareness on the trail. Their lesson proved to be valuable when we had a close encounter with a rattlesnake that day. Matthew and I walked within a foot of it, unaware! Eric pointed it out just as it slithered into the leaves, rattling its tail. I felt lucky that it hadn’t struck as Matthew and I walked by and felt protected somehow.
The trail led past the original Washington Monument, so we took the opportunity to visit it since we would be going to the newer one in D.C. in a few days for the fireworks. It looked like a large, old fashioned milk bottle made out of stones. We climbed up the spiral stone staircase two-stories to the top, where we admired a view of West Virginia and Maryland farmland. We could spot our destination Smithsburg, Maryland and Highway 40, a historical and scenic drive where Dad had taken me and Mom many times.
It was hot that day, and halfway through the hike Matthew realized that he had drunk all of his water. Fortunately, the trail crossed over a small stream that had several little waterfalls and a log damming one part of it, creating a clear pool. A few rocks jutted out on one side of the pool forming a convenient place to sit while we purified water. Matthew and Eric demonstrated how it was done – they attached a cylindrical device on the top of their Nalgene bottles and pumped water into it through a tube that ran down into the stream. I watched the water flow into a chamber at the top of the cylinder when the pump handle was lifted then gush down through the cylinder into the bottle when the handle was pushed down. We hypothesized that on the inside of the cylinder, porous ceramic material filtered germs and dirt from the water. I was surprised that it only took about twenty pumps to purify one liter and realized that it wasn’t so hard for hikers to stay hydrated as long as Nature provided a stream.
The final stretch of our fourteen-mile hike was marked by rocky terrain. We stepped from rock to rock because that was all the path consisted of, and our pace slowed down as a result. A fortress-like stone wall, designating the top of the ridge, remained at our right for most of the time, and the land to our left sloped downward, making it difficult to find a flat place to camp. Eventually, I spotted what looked like a promising campsite, and Matthew jumped on a log to survey the land. He spotted a large flat rock a little ways off the trail, so we walked over to it and agreed that it was an ideal place to camp. After days of sleeping in luxurious shelters and campsites, we were going to have an authentic AT camping experience.
Our tent reminded me of a Hogan, a traditional Navajo dwelling that I had seen in the Grand Canyon a week before. A Hogan was more or less circular to avoid having corners where evil spirits could hide, and its main entrance faced east so that the morning light could enter the house to bring spiritual balance to its inhabitants. Similarly, our tent was circular and the doorway opened to the east, which to me symbolized the sense of peace and concord that our AT journey had brought. I looked forward to seeing the sun rise through our tent doorway in the morning.
The date was July 1, the twentieth birthday of Matthew and Eric. It seemed fitting that we were celebrating their birthday in the woods since that was one of their favorite places to be. After a dinner of couscous, we made cheesecake with cherry topping. It was easy – Matthew prepared the crust, Eric made the cheesecake, and I provided the cherry topping. To be complete, their birthday cheesecake needed candles, so I lit two matches, one for each of them, and they blew them out to make a wish. By the time we had successfully captured the event on camera, however, we had gone through six matches, so Matthew and Eric got to make many wishes for their twentieth birthday.
Afterward, both boys made their rounds of calls to family and friends who wanted to wish them a happy birthday, while I called Mom. It was funny to see them split off in opposite directions from camp because suddenly they needed privacy after we had spent the whole day together. I was sitting on our campsite rock, and to my right I could see Matthew lying on a distant log and to my left I could spot Eric perched in a distant tree. I was amused by how they found such comfortable places to make their calls and wondered if this was what it was like when I was the one who Matthew was calling. I felt happy to be with him at that moment and knew nostalgia would follow later.
Sure enough the next morning the sun shone through our tent entrance, and we arose to get ready for our hike. We were planning to meet Mom at the intersection of the AT and Wolfesville Road, a couple miles down the road from Smithsburg and only a mile hike from us. During that mile, I was aware of the rhythm that I had acquired with my steps and hiking poles and remembered how awkward hiking poles had felt when I was introduced to them during my early hikes with Matthew and Eric. I reflected on the many pieces of hiking knowledge that Matthew and Eric had imparted to me, like purifying water, hanging up bear bags, and keeping sight of the trail and its surroundings. I felt that hiking on the AT had helped me get to know my own state much better. Before, my main way of getting around Maryland had been by driving. Now that I was walking on its trails from one end to the other, Maryland seemed smaller and more intimate. When we finally emerged from the woods onto the road, I felt a strong connection to the trail because of the good memories it had given me. As we walked down Wolfesville Road away from the AT, I wore my backpack with pride and was ready to walk many more miles.

Websites with more about Matthew and Eric’s AT journey:

http://ericmatthewat.blogspot.com/
Their dad’s daily account of their trip

http://mitoc.mit.edu/gallery/album341
Pictures taken on the trail