Appalachian Trail

It was fairly early on a Sunday morning, maybe 7:30am, when we finished the one-hour drive to Richmond Airport. Ingrid stepped out and grabbed her things. The sun was peaking out through the trees, barely over the horizon. The dampness and rain from the previous day were being replaced with a dry, brisk northwest wind and a clearing sky. Ingrid took out her bag and set it on the ground away from a water puddle, and then gave me a big hug. She was shipping off for a trip to Phoenix to visit her friend and her friend’s snowbird grandparents, replacing the humid and densely forested Virginia coastal plain for the dry, open Arizona desert. We said our goodbyes and she entered the airport, leaving me alone with a low tank of gas and a short grocery trip.

After taking care of the necessities, I hopped onto the interstate, bound west for the mountains of Shenandoah National Park. As I cruised easily through light Sunday morning traffic, I passed by the downtown Richmond area, and was immediately reminded that the next day was the huge Pro-Second-Amendment rally on Martin Luther King, Jr Day. I marveled at how something so big could be happening so close to where I lived, and I even toyed with the idea of going there myself. Alas, I continued on.

Interstate 64 from Virginia Beach to Charlottesville is a fascinating drive. The road undulates the entire duration and is usually bursting at the seams with traffic that considers speed limits merely a suggestion. Focusing on the rapidly changing traffic is relatively easy, because the road on both sides is lined right up to the road with tall, dense, and magnificently green trees; there’s really not much to look at because you can’t see anything. The common joke in the West is that if you blink, you might completely miss the town you drove through. On Interstate 64, it’s impossible to tell if a town is nearby or not, because any line of sight from the road is met with a wall of wood. The median is also covered with trees; as a result, it feels like you’re driving through a tunnel at warp speed, bouncing around the road while slowly climbing towards the great wall of the east- the Appalachians.

As the highway opened up in Charlottesville, I saw two state troopers drive in the eastbound lanes, and a few miles later another trooper with a following unmarked trooper passed by. Within minutes I had counted more than 15 marked and unmarked state troopers, all headed eastbound, and none with their lights on. My mind drifted back to the gun-rights rally the next day in Richmond, wondering if maybe all these fine folks were headed to be security for that.

My car was then slammed in the side with a massive gust of wind that about pushed me into the next lane. Department of Transportation signs had been warning us of high winds on the mountain, and now that I was ascending rapidly into the United States’ oldest mountain range, the wind was clearly picking up. I climbed almost 1000 feet out of Charlottesville before pulling off at the Shenandoah National Park exit. The only road through the park, the Skyline Drive, was still closed due to icy conditions from the night before. My attention was immediately drawn towards the line of vehicles parked along the road right up to the gate blocking the entrance. People were walking right in. I parked my car in the line.

As I sat in my vehicle, I could hear the 30-degree air roaring against the west side doors. I thought about my recent knee pain that had flared up due to a relatively strong increase in running mileage over the last month or two. I messaged Ingrid, who was likely thousands of feet above ground, and I stepped outside. The incredible noise of the bustling interstate below me filled the air; a middle-aged family with dog walked past, seemingly oblivious.

I started jogging over the bridge towards the entrance gate. I caught a glimpse of two runners getting ready to run into the park, and I instantly improved my running form to demonstrate that I was the alpha male here. When I crossed the gate into the park, I started searching for the fabled Appalachian Trail. Supposedly, the bridge I had just run across was part of the AT, and somewhere early in the park it disappeared back into the woods. My breathing increased rapidly as the hill carved up the mountainside into the trees. Each step forward became more difficult as the road turned slowly towards the east, in the direction of the visitor’s center.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw what looked like a little dirt path turning sharply off the road and steeper yet up the hillside. As I realized I was staring at the Appalachian Trail, I hopped onto the trail and started climbing. The terrain was steep and wooded, with large rocks and exposed tree roots covering the trail. Movement was slow going as I approached 2700 feet in altitude. I went past a National Park Service sign detailing proper trail regulations, with a man standing there reading it; I hoped he didn’t listen too much to my huffing and puffing as I trotted past. My watch beeped- my first mile was completed, and in about 11 minutes, or about 3-4 minutes slower than my normal easy run pace.

Over the next mile, I passed many families as the sound of interstate traffic slowly disappeared into the wind through the trees. My attention bounced back and forth between the technically difficult trail, and the beautiful scenes surrounding me. Large rock formations protruded from the hillside above me and to my right. The park highway was hundreds of feet below me to my left, but silent. Through the leaf-less trees to my left I could see all the way down the mountain onto the surrounding lowlands- towns, houses, trees, water towers- all seemingly hundreds of miles away. My knee was starting to ache when I had to increase elevation rapidly, a commonplace on this trail. I stopped and walked.

The Appalachians remind me of my family’s farm back in North Dakota. The gently rolling prairie, devoid of trees and human life, suddenly opened in small gorges created by rivers- mostly notably the Little Missouri, the Missouri, the James, and the Sheyenne. Tucked into the trees that cover these large hillsides is land that I grew up hunting, shooting, and working on. I would sit at the base of a tree and listen to the water in a nearby creek, running down the rocks. Squirrels and deer would walk past, kicking up the leaves and making an absurd amount of noise in the quiet woods. As the sun receded in the west, the first of the stars would appear in the night sky, shining brilliantly above this little oasis on the prairie.

AARRGGGHHHH. I fall to the ground. I had started trying to jog again, but my knee received a jolt of pain while going up some rocks. I go back to walking. My watch says I’m a little past 2 miles, and I am not ready to turn around. It’s such a beautiful day outside in such a beautiful place- I don’t want to waste this long drive. I decide to gently jog the flats and downhills, and speed walk the uphills. I pass by small waterfalls of ice bleeding onto the trail, untouched by the rays of sunlight fighting a losing battle through the trees. The trail forks ahead, but I’ve learned that the trail has trees occasionally painted with white spots to denote the path, and so I follow whichever route has white dot trees. I haven’t seen a person in over 30 minutes, and with my breathing quite low due to the slow pace, I find myself silently gliding along the trails, feeling great, enjoying myself, and wondering if this is how ultramarathon trail runners feel.

As I start feeling better, I run a little more, just in time for another jarring knee pain on an uphill, hitting me to the ground again. I look at my watch- 2.9 miles. In my head I had been holding on for 3 miles, but I realized that worrying about exact distance when I’m on a remote mountain may not be the best idea. We as runners get so caught up in exact distances or times that we forget basic humanity. We have to run exactly 7 miles on the GPS, or the watch has to say 30:00.00 when we are done. I swallowed my OCD and started back down the mountain. I used the ‘ultra’ style of running, where I mixed walking uphills with gentle jogs on the flats and downhills, averaging about 16 minutes per mile on mountains terrains with occasional stops to enjoy the peace and serenity around me. My instinct was to be stressed about my pace or my body, but my heart was fully invested in enjoying the moment. Despite everything, I was truly inhaling every breath with joy, and landing every step like it was sacred.

I pictured what it must have been like, thousands of years ago, for indigenous people to use the mountain range for food, water, wood, shelter, war advantage, or even a journey. I wonder if it would look much different than it does now, minus the trail signs and the road way down the hill. It’s crazy to think that the local wildlife would not be able to recall a time without cars, but it’s possible that some of the trees standing on the mountain have watched the landscape change from trails to roads. There’s something inside of me that awakens when I am furthest from technology and closest to the real world. I am even tempted at times to say that there is the awakening for all of us at some point, whether in the woods, on the mountain, in the water, or away from this tangling web of cars, internet, and insulation from nature.

Towards the end of the Harry Potter series, Harry receives the snitch that he caught early in his school days and inscribed on it are the words: ‘I open at the close’. It seems like when we find ourselves in the parts of the world that we have closed off- true nature, wilderness- we open up and awe at what we have really been given. The world is a gift that we often take for granted. We have used every means of technology and our brain and will power to try controlling the forces of light, wind, water, and landscape; and yet, we choose to find natural places where we willingly give up our comforts to experience what is raw and real.

As I continued down the mountain, I became acutely aware of the increase in noise from the interstate I was approaching. My time of peace was coming to an end, and within minutes I was back on the bridge over Interstate 64, jogging over the traffic blazing past- drivers plowing towards wherever they needed to be. Within a few more minutes, I was back in my car roaring onto Interstate 64, shooting down the mountain at almost 80 miles per hour, heading home. It was amazing how what had felt so real and natural 30 minutes previous, now felt like a fantasy or a dream. I resolved, the way I always do, to visit the national park more often. But first, I had to figure out what was going on with my knee, and check facebook, and call Ingrid, and grade papers, and