What I Didn’t Know I Was Carrying: Pain on the Appalachian Trail

My departure from the AT in March 2024 never happened. It all came apart one day in February when I went shopping with my dad.

He used trekking poles for balance, but that day he brought his walker. The foldable one, so you can put it in the shopping cart. I helped him load the walker into the cart. I couldn’t raise my arms above my shoulders: something new. I followed him up and down the brightly lit hallways, resisting the urge to help. I had to see how he managed. It was good until the milk. He struggled with both hands to get the jug of skim milk into the cart. Then, at the checkout, his credit card came out of his wallet. I picked it up off the ground and handed it back to him, surprising him.

Dad needed help getting into the car. I took us back.

He called after dinner the following Friday. He said he couldn’t use his right arm. Stroke, I thought, and said it.

«No, it’s not that, the rest of me is fine. I just can’t move my arm.»

I drove the 2 hours to his condo and took him to the emergency room. A room was opened after midnight. It was his rotator cuff. The orthopedist showed me the MRI.

«Do you see this?» He pointed to the screen. «There should be muscle there.»

In rehabilitation, his edema returned. And dad finally knew. Three weeks after that first ER visit, I took him to an assisted living facility I found 10 minutes from my house.

His first morning there, nurses found him on the floor wrapped in blood-stained sheets. The staff had put his naval graduation photo on the veterans board. He was handsome then. Now he was frustrated and embarrassed.

He spent two nights in an assisted living facility. The rest of his time was spent in hospitals. The edema worsened: legs and arms swollen until his parchment-like skin was taut like a balloon. I started a sentence but couldn’t finish it. He grabbed my hand with remarkable strength. Like iron. I held on tight.

He died when the sun rose. His room had a beautiful view of the river. Golden light on the wall. The pauses between breaths became longer. Then it stopped. I was lying in bed, with my arms around his shoulders, telling him how much he meant to me.

His last exhale was me squeezing the air out of his lungs.

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Dad’s funeral was in early May. Family I hadn’t seen in years. I wrote his eulogy with a pen. Since then, the smell of ink on paper feels different. A few days later, my sister, brother, and I watched workers at the Fort Snelling cemetery roughly place Dad’s urn in the ground along with Mom’s. The highway noise didn’t belong.

I wondered if I would do the AT. Certainly not that year.

But there was weight to it.

My retirement goal was to complete the Triple Crown when I was 65 years old. I told friends and family and I was 65 years old.

And there was dad. Dad was there.

Stopping because of him would have broken his heart.

So I went.

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I missed my March start. The window of a NoBo closed quietly as I sat with Dad in the hospital rooms. So I took a turn. Katahdin would simply be my change of direction. The summit and then back down the rocks and boulders, with the weight of the kilometers still ahead. Only. No tribe I can call my own.

Pittsfield, MA had AmTrak service and was only 6 miles from Dalton where the AT crossed. I would go there.

I got a roomette on the AmTrak that took me east. Having my own private compartment was like being in a womb, but with coffee. I closed the sliding door and drew the curtain. I couldn’t take my eyes off the forests, fields and towns that blurred by. At night, in my folding bed, the uneven sections of the road jostled me. I didn’t care; I was safe.

Traveling eastbound Lakeshore Limited, July 2024.

I arrived at the end of the afternoon. Another guy got out. The station was abandoned. I walked two miles of concrete and pavement to the cheap hotel where I had reserved a room.

The people studied me and my pack before looking away. I was a novelty. When I got to my hotel, my shirt was soaked under my armpits and where my backpack pressed against my back. This was not the dry west. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did.

I dropped my backpack and lay down on the bed. My room was cool and dark. My first thought: maybe I could stay another night.

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The next morning was gray, cloudy and humid. I wanted to go back to the station and take the train home.

Once I get back on the road, I told myself, I’ll shake this off.

I walked to Kelly’s Diner, down the street from my hotel. Booths with high backs, stools along the counter and pine paneling. Like the Western cafes where I had found refuge in the CDT. That helped. Some.

FarOut took me to a sidewalk in Dalton. I looked down between my feet and saw a bronze medallion with “AT” and the words “Maine to Georgia” stamped on it.

This was my beginning. So. Don’t worry.

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I took a selfie at my first white fire. I try to smile, but my eyes betray me.

First white fire, Dalton, Massachusetts, July 2024.

The trail was smooth, rolling and lush. I crossed streams, stopped at quiet ponds and watched the leaves move gently. It wasn’t enough. I had been listening to a book about nuclear war, I was worried about the November election, things that wake you up at 4:00 a.m. This, despite the birdsong.

I didn’t think about dad. Maybe I should have.

I would arrive at a shelter and feel like the juice had been squeezed out of me, my shirt and shorts would drip, leaving a dark stain on the wood where I was sitting. I posted video updates on Instagram. They were happy, optimistic and told a lie.

I kept trying.

Kid Gore Shelter, Glastenbury Wilderness, Vermont, July 2024.

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I met many older hikers along the way. Nothing like the PCT and CDT. Talking to them was like pouring yourself a cup of coffee. Easy, warm and welcome. They were what I wanted to be: happy.

‘Dragonfly’ was a cheerful 80-year-old man. She said she was NoBo, but both times I saw her she was going south. He told me that I would reach the end of a section, travel north, and then return south. «I like to see people’s smiling faces,» he explained. «Not their backs.»

‘Greyman’ was my age and had a pat-on-the-back Southern accent. He had just retired, had a package marked, and had long since found his groove. He would join his daughter to walk the next section together. He smiled when he talked about her.

His company eased my sadness, but the connection did not work. Maybe it was me.

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As I crossed the narrow suspension bridge over Mill River, I saw a place where I could climb down and cross the rocks to reach the water.

I left my watch and shoes on a flat rock and walked delicately over the gravel and rocks until I reached a chest-high eddy. It was cold like bath water. The sweat and stench dissolved and disappeared. My muscles relaxed, the tightness in my stomach did not.

I had been negotiating with myself since I arrived in Vermont. If he overcame the whites, he could reach Katahdin. It’s not a walk, but a LASH. It helped that it had a name.

Or maybe this: I was on the Long Road, what if I walked it to the end? That would be a genuine hike. And you could save up the AT miles for next time.

When I came back.

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When I was 5 years old, dad took me fishing. He woke me up before dawn, we went to the lake and rented an old wooden boat with creaking oars. It was cold and fog hung over the water. I shoved my hands into the sleeves of my coat, leaned over the bow, and watched the aquatic plants slide beneath us as Dad rowed. There were valleys and tunnels and dark places that were scary, but I could hear Dad pulling the oars.

Vermont was like that: the underwater forest. The difference was that I couldn’t hear the oars.

I was my father’s son. It was a bigger part of me than the trail. How did I miss that?

I had only gone 100 miles and I changed. I felt like I had walked a thousand.

When I got to Route 4 in Killington, I got a room at McGrath’s Irish Pub & Inn. The plan was to wait out the coming storm, but once it passed, I couldn’t bring myself to leave. The decision had been made to get off the road. I just didn’t realize it until then.

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It’s been two years since dad passed away. Over a year since my hip surgery. My new knee is five months old.

I bought the train ticket. I’m going to Pittsfield again and will be leaving in June. Like last time. I will walk the same kilometers and that seems right to me.

And this time dad will come with me.