I spent 4 days hiking the Appalachian Trail to escape the pandemic and met ‘Tarzan’
It was at 5,487 feet above sea level, somewhere on the North Carolina-Tennessee state line, when Tarzan walked past. That was not his real name, but the one he’d received when he began hiking the Appalachian Trail. Thru-hikers have their trail names, and Tarzan was his.
For a minute or two he provided some company. Me and Tarzan, sharing one of the finest views in Great Smoky Mountain National Park, looking out over the endless ripples of mountain ridges that stretched into the distance. Me and Tarzan, standing a mile high in the fog and the clouds on a cool Thursday morning.
I’d seen him the night before, at the Pecks Corner Shelter along the Appalachian Trail. The shelter, like many that line the trail, is something like an open-faced log cabin — wooden platforms in the back to sleep on, with benches and a skinny wooden railing near the front. The railing had made for a fine kitchen, and the shelter a welcome gathering place after a long hike.
In addition to Tarzan, there was a young couple who’d come to the trail from Philadelphia; four old friends, in their 60s, from Virginia; and a long-haired man who, after dark, pulled out his harmonica and began filling the lulls in conversation with music. He said he wanted to “mellow everybody out,” and then, among other songs, provided a soulful rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
Up above, in the space between the trees, the sky shined. There were no clouds, and in the remoteness of the wilderness, the stars dazzled. The man with the harmonica pointed out the Milky Way. I hadn’t considered what the night sky might look like in the Smokies but, looking up, I realized that it, too, had to be among the reasons I’d taken this long walk.
For several weeks I’d planned this journey. First, I aspired to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail through the national park, a length of about 70 miles or so. The logistics of a shuttle — or leaving my car somewhere — proved cumbersome. Then I settled on a 50-mile loop hike through the Smokies. By the second day of a four-day hike, I realized that was too much.
The elevation gain was part of it, undoubtedly. My calves burned the farther I walked up the mountain. I also learned that it was not possible to pass an enviable view without stopping to admire it. Sometimes it was an unusually tall tree with a thick trunk and bright turning leaves. Sometimes it was the yellows, oranges and reds of autumn that hung over trails like a canopy.
A lot of times, it was just mountains unfolding far as you could see.
Seeking solitude
I’d come for the views but also the solitude. In this, the longest and most difficult and strangest of years, I’d come for a sense of peace and still. I knew that a long solo hike could be the ultimate socially distanced activity.
I hoped that it could provide, too, something of a mental reset. Or at least a necessary pause to the otherwise inescapable drama of 2020.
For four days, I became thankful to have phone reception that was only briefly intermittent. The world could have been ending — more so than it usually seems to be, anyway, these days — and there’s a good chance it would have taken a day or more to find out.
Time usually occupied with Zoom meetings or habitual Twitter scrolling was instead filled sitting on rocks in the middle of streams, or (slowly) making my way to an elevation of more than 6,000 feet.
Constant noise, literal and figurative, has become part of our modern world, and an especially incessant part of 2020. It is the mental noise of constantly breaking news and social media ranting. It is the noise of restless inner-monologues; the uncertainty of what next week or next year might bring.
My first night in the woods, the loudest noise was that of a stream rushing over rocks. It provided some comfort, as did a bit of time without modern comforts.
For four days, there were no political ads telling me who to vote for. No news of what some politician said about this, or that. The virus and its toll did not fade in the mountains, nor should the thoughts of its consequences. If anything, the grim details of the human cost — the 200,000 and counting Americans dead and the endless infections — made me more grateful to be outside.
I opened the logbook in the Icewater Spring Shelter, right off the Appalachian Trail, and found a similar sentiment:
“On a day hike from Newfound Gap to the Bunion. First time ever and it’s beautiful, so refreshing to be out in nature.
“Covid has shut down so many options, glad to have this adventure!”
A first-time adventure
As I skimmed through the entries in the journal, a group of three young guys, who looked to be in college, sat in front of me and ate lunch. A family stopped in for a rest. An older couple shared a picnic on the grass out in front of the shelter with a view of distant peaks.
The Icewater Spring Shelter was where I’d spent my second night. In the morning, the sun rose over a faraway ridge, and the sky became a vivid orange. I’d met a young couple hiking from Maine to Georgia. They only had about 200 more miles to go. Another man had hiked with a tripod and his camera gear to capture the night sky. Another regaled us with the tale of how mice had chewed into his water supply the night before.
I’d first met the four men from Virginia at that particular shelter. They’d graduated high school together in Fairfax, class of 1976, and every year unite for a long walk through the woods. One of them asked if it was my first time on a days-long backpacking trip. It was. Perhaps the regulars could sniff out a newbie.
That last full day in the woods began with a short hike along the Appalachian Trail to a side trail called The Jumpoff. For 45 minutes I had its most desirable vantage point to myself. On a clear day, like this one, it was possible to see the little Tennessee towns on the horizon in one direction, and in the other the outline of the Appalachian Trail rising and falling along the ridge. A few miles away, Charlie’s Bunion jutted out like a gray, rocky wart.
Soon I was among the day-hikers on the bunion, where the views proved limitless. A little farther north, the crowd quickly thinned. Over a stretch of about seven miles along the AT, I saw three other people — two friends who’d recently graduated college in Tennessee, and the long-haired man who played the harmonica.
The trail dipped and climbed and, in-between, the flat spots revealed gold-tinted slopes and valleys that made me forget about the weight of my pack.
It was the sort of walk that could make you forget about a lot of things, if only for a moment. I reached the shelter at dusk, pitched a tent and ate before dark. I listened to the stories from strangers in the shelter, and to the sound of the harmonica and then to the rustling of little critters moving past my tent. I fell asleep to the sounds of leaves gently settling on top of it, and awoke ready to hike a mile-and-a-half back to what became my new favorite place.
I knew it was 5,487 feet above sea level because that was what the marker in the stone said. I’d hoped to see the sunrise, but a thick layer of clouds hung low.
Soon, Tarzan walked past and continued south. I sat atop a rocky ledge for 30 minutes or so and admired the serenity. In the nation’s most-visited national park, I was the only one here. I walked north, and eventually down the mountain, and for several hours I walked alone.
This story was originally published October 22, 2020 at 12:01 PM.
