Appalachian Trail, Part 1

Walk With Ghosts

Hey there!

This is the 1st installment of a series about my recent 550-mile section hike on the Appalachian Trail. I’m writing the essays as I go, so I am yet uncertain how many pieces it’ll amount to.

Reflecting on completed journeys most always enriches the overall experience. So far, that’s been exactly the case.

Thanks for following along. And hey, if you enjoy this essay, please share it with someone who might also enjoy it.

I appreciate you all so much.

- tom

---

As I prepared for my next section of the Appalachian Trail, I consulted the Tarot as I often do before big life events. I shuffled the deck until it felt right to stop, then fanned the cards with my eyes closed, tuning in to how they felt in my hands. Did I sense any warmth? A resonance with one card more than others? Did one intuitively feel right in the way an unknown path beckons to be followed? I thumbed the card’s sharp edges until I settled on one. I removed it from the mix, set it face-down on the table, tucked the deck back into its sleeve, then flipped over my choice. On it was a silhouette of a tree backlit by a fiery sun. The Emperor. A card I’d never before chosen.

Over the past year I’ve pulled probably a dozen cards at various times. Mostly before trips to New York to assist my mom, but also while in the throes of moments when I needed a fresh perspective. In almost every instance I’d chosen a feminine, and often maternal card. I attributed these draws to my current focus on helping my mom. To this era of conundrum. Of care and strife. Of tenderness and, at times, rage. This span of time has sent me deeper and deeper inward as I’ve more fully refined the person I am, and the person I am becoming.

Tarot knows

The Emperor is the father. My father, or maybe the culmination of my masculine ancestry. It represents the intrepid side of me that’s protective and stable. The Emperor is also clarity of mind, actions, and decisions. It can be interpreted literally, but it also can be a metaphor and, as such, encourage reconnection to the innate father within. What do I know is right? What is the truth? What am I apprehensive to trust? The Emperor is a reminder that I am the result of a long line of endeavoring people. I am a product of their momentum. One of a tree’s rings. A snake’s rattles. A layer of stratum. I am a bloom in a soil of countless lives. Of countless deaths.

---

The last time I was on the trail—June 2023—was just weeks after my father’s passing. I hit the Appalachian Trail to escape. It was mid-Spring, and there was no discerning between my tears and the torrential rain. The air was unseasonably cold, and for days I walked a somber path through mired trenches, catching myself every few steps from falling over a hidden root or jutting crag. All while questioning my choice for a respite destination.

My intention was to distance myself from the tumult caused by my dad’s abrupt passing. But nothing could shake his ghostly presence. He was there as I hammered shelter stakes into wet earth. As I brushed through webs of orb weavers. As I habitually checked my phone for messages that proved I existed. My being brimmed with versions of my father I both loved and hated.

As I walked, low clouds concealed gentle bends in the trail, and water-heavy foliage reached across my heaving chest. At some point I came to a stop, took a seat on a downed ash, and put my face in my hands. My spectral father then whispered his own eulogy into my ear. I later sang it at his memorial to a room of his family and friends, after which, and on my cue, a piper squelched the first chilling notes of Going Home, and my father’s spirit disembarked, star bound. I imagine he became a younger man, slender and mustached, clad in blue jeans and a strong leather belt, a tucked-in t-shirt. His voice returned to a natural baritone, as it was before cancer made it soprano.

These days, memories of him are memories of previous memories. The sharp stories lose their bite. I find solace in this softening that comes with time.

---

On Monday, April 21, I returned to where I previously left off on the AT. I intended to walk alone, to move according to my own plan and at a pre-planned pace. But I also knew this isn’t how it works. The trail is in charge. It doesn’t mince words or confuse with clutter. It gives what a hiker needs and eschews the superfluous. Whether we accept its offerings, however, is an entirely different story.

Sometimes the trail’s gifts are obvious and material—I’ve often wished for specific items in the morning only to somehow have them delivered, as if by a miracle, before nightfall. A bungee cord in one instance. A chocolate donut in another. This manifesting is not lore, it is life. The trail provides, is a cliche hiker refrain. And it’s not hyperbole. Everyone on the trail has an anecdote about how they came upon something they yearned for.

But the trail has more to offer than objects. If I hike with an open heart and an honest willingness to accept receipts for my favors and demons, I am handed insights with abandon. They show up unpredictably, and have a tendency to bring me to my knees. And frankly, this is precisely one of the main reasons I so adore long hikes. Because they crush me. They confirm my triviality, and underline my complete and utter inconsequentialness.

It is precisely this sort of humbling that enriches. Because when I am in such a state, I see potential for joy in everything. A solitary pink lady’s slipper orchid on the side of the trail, for example. A porcupine quill. Waking up to the shrill of a whippoorwill. The embracing canopy of a rhododendron tunnel. A forest of old growth hemlocks. A rocky trench that holds winter’s snow until mid-summer. A late night text of random emojis from my mom. A friend’s jovial voicemail. My fears. My aggressions. My short-fallings. And also an espresso shot in a trail town with fellow hikers while our packs sit outside, frothing and rearing in a deluge.

I am ever better for having giving myself over to these joys. And though such delights are available everywhere, the trail cracks my chest open wider, allowing me to accept and absorb them all more readily. I am anxious and greedy for what the trail has to give.

---

With a brand new backpack and strikingly clean shoes, I depart Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, and immediately start ascending. The AT spends less than three miles total in West Virginia, so I promptly cross the border into Maryland. This ambiguous landmark suddenly increases my psychologic distance from real life, and by nightfall I feel near-feral and acclimated to trail life. I pitch my duplex on a gravel pad at Dahlgren Campground, empty my gear onto an adjoining picnic table, and give a cordial wave to two other hikers who also stopped here for the night. This section’s first fifteen miles are in the books.

Yearning for dirt

After setting up camp, I prepare dinner and eat it like I am famished. I treat the trail as if it were a plane trip to a different time zone—I settle immediately into local time. Which, on the trail, means I eat my calorie-dense dinner ration, then hit the hay by hiker midnight. I’ve found the body falls quickly into an ideal cadence if I refuse it any other options.

After downing my cold-soaked ramen, dehydrated beans, an organic beef stick, and a Snickers bar, I pull out a small Ziplock bag from the hidden pocket on my fanny pack. The item within—a strand of military dog tags—is one of the few superfluous items I’ll lug for the next uncertain number of weeks. I remove the collection of IDs from the baggie to give them a closer look. One is stamped with my name, social security number, blood type, and religious preference. The other four are inscribed with the names of relatives. Specifically, my dad, his father, and both of my paternal great grandfathers. Three tags are etched with my name. There are lots of Thomases in my family tree.

I run my fingers over the tags’ raised letters and search my brain for flashbacks of previous world wars. Of the Korean conflict. Of Vietnam. I know these details are in my tissues, but I can’t muster up anything besides stories I’ve heard over and over. “Keep me safe,” I say aloud. I speak not only to the men on the metal tabs, but also to their wives and mothers and children, too. My great grandma Ethel—a woman I never met but whose strength rings certain in my being—is named on my grandfather’s tag as next-of-kin. I call her by name and ask her to watch over me. “Not just now, but always,” I say. How could I possibly know she’s up to the task? I simply do.

I then tuck the strand of dog tags back into the baggie and return it to my pack. I figure I’ll pull it out regularly during the coming hike, if for no other reason than to hear its definitive jangle which I find so soothing.

More than 100 years of dog tags

Once fed, I wander the campsite to introduce myself to the adjacent hikers, now four strong, all of whom are fully pitched and soon to retire. We collectively exchange pleasantries, then take inventories of each other’s AT aspirations. You thru-hiking? How far you going? Where did you start today? Where will you go tomorrow? Got a trail name? Such questions are standard fare, but still I feel kind of like a poseur. I’m not thru-hiking. I’d barely even started. My mileage today was meager. I don’t have a trail name. And to top things off, today I didn’t even have to filter water or dig a cathole since I’d chosen to camp at a proper site. I’d arrive here clean, and leave clean. No grime or stink or any other defining marks of someone who’s serious about being out here.

Upon completion of day one, and with a state behind me, I am still nobody on the trail. In the past this might have bothered me, because I enjoy being somebody. I enjoy being known—either by name or by reputation (“that older fast guy!”). But this time around, I really don't give a shit. I trust that being anonymous and forgettable and average is fine. In fact, it feels just right.

I hang my bear bag, then watch as the first northern long-eared bats whirl above tall treetops. I listen briefly for their sonic echoes, then lower myself to my knees and crawl into my tent. I settle into my bedroll, and as I get comfortable, I reflect on my good fortune. “I am not alone,” I say to myself. Then continue with out-loud statements of gratitude. I am grateful for my good health. I am grateful for my focus. I am grateful for my friends. My family. And the more I name, the more specific my list becomes. I am grateful for well-cared for trails. I am grateful for the sound of a woodpecker. I am grateful for clear 60°F days. I am grateful for Spam Singles. At some point in the middle of my list and before the sun has even set, I fall asleep.

Tomorrow I will leave this place behind. The next day I will leave another similar one, and more still after that. In gaining distance northbound, moving closer and closer to a dubious end, I will remain enfolded. By my purposeful effort, yes, but also by the souls, living and not, that walk this trail. I know not who they are, but I give myself over to them all.