The Franconia Ridge, one of the more spectacular sections of the AT in the White Mountains
I just finished my latest section of the Appalachian Trail: Glencliff, NH to Grafton Notch, Maine; a total of 130 miles through the entirety of the White Mountains. I completed this hike in 11 days, and it was the most continously physically demanding thing I have ever done in my life. The hike included an ascent of Mount Washington (worst weather in the world — the wind was gusting up to 60 mph when I summited), several miles of the Franconia Ridge, most of which were above tree line, and a trek through the Mahoosuc Notch, reputed to be the most difficult mile of the AT (it took me 2 1/2 hours to negotiate 1.1 miles of house-sized boulders).
I would rate this hike as not only the most physically difficult, but also the most dangerous or frightening piece of the AT so far. I was often descending very steep rock slabs with no steps to speak of. Several times I did so in the rain, and a couple times in fading light. Once or twice I found myself on an exposed ridge with a thunderstorm rolling in. Often on my AT hikes, I am able to pray pretty effectively over the course of each day for a short list of family and church needs. On this trip, I found that i spent a fair amount of time praying for God’s protection (from the weather) and direction (on those steep, slick slabs where one misstep could have resulted in serious injury or worse.
Notwithstanding the challenges and downright scariness of pieces of my hike, I enjoyed this trip as much or more than any other other. The views were spectacular (when the weather was cooperative), I saw alpine wildflowers and other plants that grow only on the high peaks of the New England mountains, and I saw wildlife that I had rarely (if ever) seen in the wild — porcupines, foxes, snowshoe hares, spruce grouse, and others. It was a time of giving thanks to God for having created such things as these in His world.
Posted by Lon on July 28th, 2008 in Hiking | 4 Comments »
Many of you know that I spend a week or two out of every year hiking a section of the Appalachian Trail (AT), a 2,100-mile footpath from Springer Mountain in northern Georgia to Mount Katahdin in central Maine. I’ve been doing this for about seven years now (a bit more than 900 miles), and I thought I’d post a few reflections on what the experience is like.
It’s somewhat demanding physically, but not terribly so. Yes, it helps to be in decent shape when you start (I hike a couple weekends every month throughout the year), but it’s not essential. Lots of folks start hiking the AT with no experience whatsoever — it just takes them a bit longer to get their “hiker legs”. I think that the greatest challenge is psychological — you have to be prepared to do pretty much the same thing every day: Get up at dawn, eat, pack up your stuff, and walk until the next campsite, set up camp, eat, go to sleep at dusk. And you repeat this almost every day, regardless of the conditions. Raining? Keep hiking. 95F and 85% humidity? Keep hiking. Muscles and joints yelling at you? Keep hiking. Boring section of trail with no views? Keep hiking. And most of the time you’re not even looking at the views or natural beauty anyway: you have to keep your eyes focused on the path so that you won’t stumble over a tree root and fall on your face, which I’ve done many times. The sameness can get pretty dull, so it takes some mental discipline to keep going.
But one of the things that I’ve discovered over the years is that my spiritual life improves a whole lot while I’m hiking. Not that I pray more — it’s just that it’s better. Since I spend most of my days going up and down mountains, I usually pray through several of the Psalms of Ascents (Ps. 120 - 134) every night. I start and finish each day with a recitation of the Sh’ma Yisrael (Deut. 6:4-10). And as I’m hiking — dodging tree roots, hopping rocks, and occasionally looking around to see what there is to see — I pray through a relatively short list of intercessions (basic personal, family, and church needs). So as you can see, there’s nothing special about what I’m doing, and I can assure you that I’m not having any profound spiritual experiences or anything like that. I think that the improvement that I experience in my spiritual life has mostly to do with the extended solitude. Even though I occasionally interact with other hikers over the course of the days (especially at the campsites, where there can sometimes be 10 or 15 folks in for the night), for the most part it’s just me, God, and the trail.
So consider this post a plug for solitude, particularly extended solitude. And yes, I recognize that not all of us can pull it off — for many of us the demands our current state of life may make such solitude an unaffordable luxury. But states of life don’t last forever — if at some point your schedule permits, give it a shot.
Posted by Lon on August 29th, 2007 in Hiking | 5 Comments »
