Called Again (22 page)

I had seen numerous wild animals since leaving Katahdin. In fact, one of the unique and unexpected benefits of trying to set the record was encountering so many. Already, I had seen more moose, porcupines, and skunks than I had on my other two Appalachian Trail hikes, and my bear tally was climbing almost daily. The long days, combined with plenty of solitude and a heightened awareness that comes from spending so much time in the wilderness, did wonders for my animal count.

The advantage of routing the trail through an actual zoo is that it provides the perfect opportunity to take all those wildlife pictures that don't naturally present themselves in the forest—and still include them in your A.T. slideshow with a clear conscience. On that particular afternoon, however, all of God's more sensible creatures were hiding in their habitats and keeping out of the rain.

The trail to the top of Bear Mountain had been rerouted and now followed stone steps that looked more like rockwork at a mansion in nearby Greenwich, Connecticut, than the primitive Appalachian Trail. When I reached the monument on top of the mountain, Melissa met me, and we began hiking in the rain over more PUDS, then across the Palisades Parkway and into Har-riman State Park. The rain and fog prevented us from seeing the Manhattan skyline from Black Mountain, but I was hardly disappointed because I was enjoying my time with Melissa so much.

It was clear that she and Brew had had a talk. Even though Melissa and I both knew she would soon be spending another night at New York Steve's, she did not mention anything about the house, or the car with heated seats or the Tempur-Pedic mattress. Instead, we focused on the trail, and we evolved—tempo-rarily, at least—from two people trying to set a record into two little kids who loved sliding on wet slabs of granite, splashing in
puddles, and skiing down muddy descents. We came to the next road crossing, laughing and yelling for Brew and Steve.

Even though it was almost dark, Steve and Melissa did not leave. Instead, Steve decided he was going to night hike—for the first time ever.

Together, we put on our headlamps and headed off into the woods. We traveled as fast as we could until the sun went down, then we navigated slowly and cautiously across the rocky terrain. It was a difficult section because there was a handful of bouldering obstacles, such as the Lemon Squeezer—a narrow passage that forced you to turn sideways, suck in, and shuffle between two large rocks.

If I had not completed the trail twice before, I would have had trouble staying on the correct path. I also never would have believed that the trail disappeared over and in between the imposing boulders that surrounded us. At one point, I had to hug the base of a tree and lower my body to a ledge five feet below. I realized midway through that I had picked a bad route and needed to reposition myself because I couldn't see anything beneath me or get a foothold. I was suspended in the air with no place to go. I looked up at Steve's headlamp.

“Steve, I need you to grab my hand.”

He reached out and held on to my wrist, allowing me to slide my body to the right and touch my toes to solid ground.

“Okay, I'm good now. You can let go.”

When we arrived at the next road crossing, Steve was so proud of his night-hiking adventure that I could hear him providing play-by-play of the entire stretch to Melissa as they climbed into his car to drive home. That night, it didn't bother me that Steve did not spend the night on the trail. What did it matter if he went home to relax in a hot tub? He had been there when I needed a hand.

That night, Brew and I camped together in our tent a few hundred yards away from the road crossing. One of my biggest fears before the hike was that I wouldn't be able to adapt to the lack of sleep on the trail. At home, I was used to getting eight or nine hours of sleep at night, and even then I had trouble getting up in the morning. This summer I was lucky to get six, but it was surprising how well my body had adapted to the change. During the day, I usually drank one or two caffeinated drinks to help stay alert and energized—nothing scary like the small, brightly colored energy shots near the cash register at a gas station—just a coffee at breakfast or Coke with lunch.

The main drawback of getting less sleep was that my body didn't recover as quickly as it usually did. In addition to my lingering soreness and swollen feet, my scrapes, blisters, and bruises took longer to heal, too. Wounds that I had sustained in Maine were still trying to scab over. My body did not have its usual reserves set aside to repair itself.

One of the biggest threats to my hike was infection. So far, I had spent only one night in a hotel, and I could count the number of showers I had taken on a single hand. Every night before I went to bed, I either had to take a sponge bath or clean myself with wet wipes. Between that and still having to wrap my shins each morning, I was losing half an hour each day to upkeep and preventative care. And that made sleep seem even more precious.

I tried to do everything possible to maximize it. Recently I even asked Brew to “cook” my freeze-dried dinner earlier in the day. If the meal was cold or lukewarm, I figured I could ingest it faster than if it were hot and steaming.

On our last night in New York, I scarfed down a cold package of lasagna; wiped myself down with water, a bandana, and biodegradable soap; and exactly twenty-eight minutes after I stopped hiking, I pulled my sleeping bag over my head and fell asleep.

I rarely woke up in the middle of the night. There were a few instances where I had to wake up to pee, and once in Connecticut I was stirred when Brew meekly asked me to relinquish one of the two sleeping bags in our tent. But beyond a handful of exceptions, as soon as I closed my eyes, I entered another realm.

Unfortunately, my unconscious state was not always restful. I dreamed about hiking. The repetitive motion of putting one foot in front of the other continued in my head even when my body was at rest. As is often the case with a dream, it didn't make sense. I usually felt lost or rushed. A lot of times, my mind pulled images from places that I passed earlier in the day, and I would feel as if I were turned around, headed in the wrong direction. I also had frequent nightmares about sleeping through my alarm in the morning.

That last night in New York, I fell asleep and immediately started to dream that I was lost and needed to get back on track. I was falling behind schedule. I knew Brew was going to worry about me and I wasn't going to be able to set the record. I wondered where the path was and why everything was so dark. Then I heard Brew's voice.

“Honey? Honey! What are you doing?”

“I have to keep hiking . . . I have to find the
trail
!”

Then I felt Brew grab my arm and shake it, and suddenly I realized that I was on my knees, pawing at the tent like a caged animal.

“It's still night-time,” Brew told me gently. “It's not time to hike. It's time to sleep.”

I was thankful he explained this to me as if I were a three-year-old because I was still struggling to put the pieces together. Finally, after a few more seconds, I realized that I'd been trying to “sleep hike.” Before this summer, I had never been accused of snoring, talking in my sleep, or sleepwalking—but now I was doing all three.

As soon as Brew stopped me from breaking out of the tent, I lay down and immediately fell back asleep. Then at 4:44 a.m., I woke up—as I did most mornings—exactly one minute before my alarm sounded. Thankfully, that was the only time that I remember trying to sleep hike. But after that, Brew realized that he couldn't fully rest at night, either. He was on duty even in the darkness. From then on, he interrogated me whenever I left the tent for a midnight bathroom break.

The next day, my delirium had not completely dissipated, and I was cautious to stay on the right trail, headed in the right direction. Still, almost every turn gave me a slight sense of déjà vu. That was one area where having completed the trail twice before and in different directions was actually working against me.
This wooden footbridge looks really familiar,
I would think.
Did I cross over it two hours ago or two years ago?
It was amazing how many mental images my brain had locked away from those previous hikes.

I was at a place now on my journey where I absolutely marveled at the human body and mind—how those two anatomical partners sometimes seemed like close allies, and yet, at other times seemed directly opposed to one another. I couldn't believe that my body and mind (with a little prodding from my husband) had been able to overcome all the pain, injury, and sickness that I had faced during the past few weeks. It was amazing that I could hike forty-five to fifty miles each day on just six hours of sleep. It was equally incredible that my digestive system could process 6,000 calories every day. And I didn't understand how I kept waking up one minute before my alarm sounded, especially since I was absolutely exhausted and I went to bed at a different time each night.

My first thru-hike on the Appalachian Trail had taught me to feel confident and beautiful because I realized that my body was
part of God's breathtaking creation. But on this hike, I valued my body on an even deeper level. My physical potential seemed almost incomprehensible—a miracle and a mystery.

One of the reasons I wanted to keep going was because I was curious how my body would respond. Trying to discover your maximum potential is an exhilarating experiment.

My first full day in New Jersey brought with it one of my favorite stretches of trail. Near Vernon, New Jersey, there is a one-mile boardwalk that spans a protected wetland where beautiful red-winged blackbirds swoop above and below the tall, thin cattails. On any hike, I would appreciate that the entire stretch was flat, without a root or a rock to obstruct the path. But on a hike where my husband was not allowed to walk with me for 99.9% of the trail, it was even better. The boardwalk offered a twenty-minute section where we could simply be together. And the fact that it was wide enough to walk hand in hand was a great bonus.

Usually when Brew and I walked together, we didn't talk about the hike or logistics. We focused on other things. Sometimes we were just silent, and sometimes Brew sang. Okay, almost every time we hiked together, Brew sang. I loved it. He asked for suggestions and when he refused to sing Mumford and Sons for the umpteenth time, I would usually request “Mighty Clouds of Joy.” It is a gospel song that I first heard on one of Brew's mix CDs. It made sense that I wanted to hear something soulful. This hike demanded every ounce of my being, and I wanted to hear a song that reflected that.