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Blog No 13 Lore of the Appalachian Trail

The Appalachian Trail (AT) was first envisioned by the forester and planner, Benton MacKaye and his proposal was published in the Journal of American Institute of Architects in 1921. After 16 years of trail construction, the AT was declared completed in 1937. Since then a rich lore of traditions has been written about and transmitted orally from one hiker to another. You soon learn about “trail magic,” an act of goodwill or a serendipitous event that occurs, often under unhappy circumstances. Examples of trail magic are when hiking AT on a hot summer day, dehydrated and out of water, and you come to a road crossing and someone has left beer and sodas in an ice-cold container. Or you may find cold drinks stashed in a spring flowing from a rocky orifice near the trail. This is the essence of trail magic.

Those kindly souls who have placed those drinks are known “trail angels.” From experience they have learned what hikers cherish the most. Trail angels also offer to take you into town to buy supplies, allow you to take a shower or laundry on their premises, or provide a free shuttle. They may live close to the AT, although many are previous hikers. One summer, my brother Garner and I were hiking in Virginia (the State has 544 miles of the AT) when we came upon an erstwhile thru-hiker who had set up a grill, handing out hamburgers, drinks and potato chips. He offered this service over a number of days, and word spread rapidly up and down the trail. Hikers sped up to reach him before he closed shop.

No practice is more fundamental to hiking the Appalachian Trail than acquiring a “trail name” that you use exclusively when interacting with other hikers on the trail. Often a trail name suits the hiker, but not always, as some trail names seemed weird and baffling. To force a trail name on yourself is a mistake. It's better to plod along without one, until an event or circumstance gives you a trail name that fits, and besides, a weak trail name is not likely to stick.

My son, Alec, acquired his trail name after hiking a number of sections on the trail. For some reasons, the soles of his hiking shoes had a tendency come loose and on one occasion his shoes were almost new. We wondered if it had something to do with his gait. I had organized a section-hike with a small group but had difficulty figuring out the right mileage for the first night. We were bound for a brand-new shelter and the mileage to the shelter was not yet available. We got a late start, and it turned out the distance to the new shelter was over twice the distance I had anticipated. After hours of hiking in the dark, we arrived at the new two-level shelter and as luck would have it, it was fully occupied. We set our tents up in the dark as it began to rain.

Hours earlier, after we began our hike the sole of one of Alec’s shoes came off! Hector rigged up a makeshift sole that allowed him finish our hike. Troublesome and irritating to say the least, but Alec made the best of it my taking on the trail name of of Broken Sole!

I hiked only one section of the AT with my wife, Michele, a portion of the trail through the Shenandoah National Park that has a reputation of being easy and fun. Here the AT takes a course parallel to Skyline Drive (often crosses it) that consists of 105 miles of scenic highway. Certainly not in deep wilderness, as stores and a campground are found along the way, and yet black bears are often seen on this section. We camped near a shelter on a pleasant, sunny afternoon, but our problem was there was no good spot to pitch our tent. I finally had to settle for a flat area with much more incline than I preferred. After supper and siting around a campfire, we snuggled into our sleeping bags and slept uneventfully.

In the early pre-dawn hour, I was awakened by sharp piercing bite of the toes of my right foot! I yelled out, not fully awake. I hastily opened the side door of my tent and saw a smallish black bear, a year or two old, ambling away into the forest. During the night, I had slid down inside my tent so that the toes of my right foot pushed our tent wall outward. The curious bear saw the protuberance and decided to sample it with its teeth. The bear did not perforate the tent wall or break the skin of my foot, but it succeeded in getting my attention. Up to that point I was intermittently called Birdman, not exciting and too generic, but now I acquired a distinct trail name that I liked: Bearfoot.

In the New England states, Garner I met an energetic, robust man in the late 20’s or early 30’s from Belgium with the odd trail name of "Baker Be Free." He would get up at 4 am to bake fresh bread in a Dutch oven. He did this daily for weeks, carrying the oven and supplies for making fresh bread that he considered essential for breakfast--a Belgium tradition. His trail companions finally convinced him that baking fresh bread each morning was not essential, at least not when hiking the Appalachian Trail. Finally, he relented and his friends coined his trail name, Baker Be Free.