Magic on the Appalachian Trail

I don’t know how to explain it.  The Appalachian Trail is magical.  Perhaps the whole world is magical, but you appreciate it more in the woods.  With the fairies and gnomes and elves so close by and all.

No, I’m serious.  Perhaps the magic is just appreciating every little wondrous thing.  Here’s one magical story from this hike.  And if you’d like to read more about “trail magic” on the AT, you can go here.

On my second night on the trail last week, I was tenting near the Harper’s Creek Shelter and hanging out at the picnic table with some thru hikers.  That’s all pretty normal.  It was dinner time and everyone was getting out their assorted cooking paraphernalia.  That means lots of little stoves and ziploc bags full of pasta or other dried food.  Plus packets of tuna.  It was Memorial Day weekend and so there were plenty of people hiking through and tenting around this popular area, not just AT hikers.

blurry thru hikers with all of their cooking paraphernalia

Five hikers arrived at the shelter and the first guy introduced himself as Powder River and said that he hiked the trail in 2007.  He introduced his friends and girlfriend who will be starting a southbound thru hike very soon – starting up in Maine.  So, what’s magical about that, you say?

Well, at the time I’m zipping through my mental Rolodex because I remember the name Powder River, and it doesn’t take me too long to land on the memory.  Here’s the cool part.

When I was finishing up my hike in 2009, with less than a hundred miles to go, I was holed up in a motel in Franklin, NC, waiting out the remnants of a late hurricane that was bringing a bunch of rain to the area.  I was so done hiking in cold rain.  I was a little moody – ready to be finished.  The northbound hikers had the Hundred Mile Wilderness and Mount Katahdin in Maine to look forward to at the end of their thru hike – I had what seemed like the hundred mile “nothingness” – just a leafless woods in November.  A leafless empty woods.  I was feeling a little sorry for myself as I sat in the motel lobby blogging and catching up posting photos.  You can read the post I wrote that day here.

In comes a guy who’s stopping by to say hello and thank you to Ronnie Haven, the owner of the motel and a true “Trail Angel” – he must give hundreds and hundreds of hikers rides back and forth to the trail and budget rates at his several motels.    The guy introduces himself as Powder River, a thru hiker from two years ago, and we end up chatting for a little while.  While we talk, I’m probably sounding less cheery than is typical.

Fast forward a few days to my last hostel on the trail – just two nights from the end.  I arrive at Neels Gap to find out that there’s a package for me.  Treats from this guy, Powder River.  I’m so surprised – he didn’t have to do that for me! He left me cookies and some other goodies on his drive back through the area. With them was a note signed “Powder River”, but no other contact info.  He must have picked up on my “poor me” mood and wanted to do something to raise the spirits of a fellow thru hiker.

I enjoyed the food and packed the note, sad that I wouldn’t be able to thank him as I had no other information to reach him.  (After my hike I sent probably about eighty or ninety thank you notes to various people who helped me along the way – hostel owners, people who gave me rides, people who fed me – anyone whose address I had.)

So here it is, two years later, and I run into Powder River on the trail and am finally able to thank him – to let him know that I indeed finished my hike and to tell him how much I appreciate him thinking of a fellow hiker he had barely met.  What a cool and magical coincidence!

Powder River with his girlfriend and other friend. HIs girlfriend made the pattern for and designed and sewed her own backpack!

More magical stories tomorrow.  This is longish and it’s getting late!