Backing Up
It had to be all those bags of mulch. I mean, they each weigh 40 lbs, and I must have lifted a ton of them on that Saturday before Labor Day. A warm and long weekend, last chance maybe to landscape our side lawn. And in one week, I was to go visit my daughter in Virginia, and hike a bit of the Appalachian Trail with her.
Courtney (trail name “Mogo”) had through-hiked the entire AT in 1998 Georgia to Maine, summiting snow-capped Mt. Katahdin on a bright November 8. She had planned a three-day hike for us, heading north from the Tye River in Central Virginia, assuring me it was a particularly nice section.
But I’m getting ahead of my story. Those bags. I have to be a little careful with my back, and you really have to think when lifting those 40-lb items. Simply put, by Labor Day I could barely walk. I spent most of the day lying on my side, doing my best to keep out of pain. The thought began to rise, “How am I ever going to be able to hike in the mountains with a 30+ pound back-pack six short days from now, when I can’t even walk?”
Well, I missed a couple days of work that week, and had the sinking feeling that I might have to cancel the hike, but at the same time this inertia somehow impelled me to go against my better judgment. When I stepped onto the plane to Dulles that Saturday evening, my distinct thought was “This is insane.” But I didn’t want to disappoint my daughter, and even more, I didn’t want to disappoint myself.
Mogo met me at the airport and we drove to the hiking center she caretakes along the Blue Ridge. In the flush of the arrival moment, I forgot about “…insane…” for at least seven minutes, but after that, the brain drumming began to morph into my stomach. I did not sleep well Saturday night.
On Sunday, we attended Mogo’s church. Prayers were said over my back, and for wisdom as to how far to go. Then it was time to gather gear, and prepare for the drive of 140 miles or so to the Tye River trailhead. At one point as we were packing, I overheard part of a conversation between Mogo and the overseer of the hiking center, another avid long-distance hiker: “You’re doing THAT section for his first hike?” amidst laughter and teasing. I fully understood that comment a few hours later.
As we completed our packing, I began to drift into a zone of unreality. “I’m not really going through with this, am I, with my back on the verge of…who knows?” And it would be so easy to hurt myself again. Well, I tried on the pack for the first time right before we left. It didn’t feel that heavy. We then weighed it — 32 pounds. This for sure was a 3-day and not a week’s worth of walking. But 32 pounds on a bad back? “This is ins…”
Before the thought could proceed further, we were in Mogo’s truck, heading for I-81. As you travel south on this interstate, you are in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, and the Blue Ridge is to your left. Proceeding south from Winchester down to Harrisonburg, what you are seeing on the left is the Shenandoah National Park. By the time you reach Waynesboro, the Park has ended, and you are near Rockfish Gap, where I-64 cuts through from Charlottesville, and the 400-mile Blue Ridge Parkway begins, ending in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina.
Now that we are in the Waynesboro area, I need to pause and tell you about Rusty and the Hard Time Hollow. Back in the old days, there was a magazine feature entitled “most unforgettable characters:”—Rusty would definitely be a candidate. He has the only property with an actual street address on the entire Blue Ridge Parkway. Somehow the National Park Service years ago overlooked the acquisition of this 22-acre plot of land.
Rusty has a yen for gaining access to a property that is in shambles, and restoring it to a livable situation, but with a twist: he absolutely and resolutely resists modern technology—especially the electronic kind. At the Hard Time Hollow, there are four or five buildings, one of which includes Rusty’s living quarters. There are eight springs on the property, no electricity or telephone, and plenty of wood for the stoves. There is enough bunk space to accommodate 20 or so people. There are goats, dogs and chickens. And a large garden with potatoes and other vegetables. Also, some apple trees and blueberry bushes. All in all, a pretty self-sufficient place.
The people that usually stay there are hikers—long-distance and through-hikers, and occasionally bikers. The Hard Time Hollow is legendary, at least in the AT hiking community. Over the years, hikers have become Rusty’s real extended family. Each one who stays has his or her picture taken with a Polaroid camera and posted on the walls or ceilings of the porches, organized by year. There are hundreds—no, thousands—of pictures, some even sent in by past “guests.”
There’s also a hot-tub fired by wood. You might not be surprised to learn that a hiker’s feet and legs take a beating during a 2160 mile walk carrying 30-40+ pounds, ascending and descending anywhere from a few feet above sea level to a number of peaks over 6,000 feet, and many over 5,000. How about a long soak in a hot-tub in a hollow just off the trail in central Virginia?
Oh, and one other thing. Important. The Hollow is littered with signs. Professional quality, from a signmaker friend. “No connection to the Internet of any kind allowed: cell phones, lap-top computers. This is my property, and you will respect my privacy. Or leave.” Serious stuff. But there are just as many that are just plain funny: “”I may be hillbilly but I ain’t dumb—I’m just Southern!” “Do you want some cheese with your whine?” And then there’s Rusty himself, the architect of all this cacophony of visual and conceptual sensations. A genius, totally southern, totally rural. Open, friendly, unsophisticated, sensitive, crude, PERCEPTIVE, off-the-wall one-of-a-kind.
However, I am now getting ahead of my story. Except that the intention of our hike was to end up at Rusty’s. I was looking forward to the visit as well, but I first had some mountains to climb and rivers to cross. And I had a bad back.
We arrived at the trailhead as dusk was approaching, having negotiated quite a few miles of switchbacks while driving up onto the Blue Ridge. My thoughts turned from anticipation to reality as we affixed “gaiters” to our boots and calves, and snapped on our packs. “Dad, pull that strap really tight—that’ll save your back.” And we were off.
Heading northbound, we crossed a little wooden suspension bridge over the Tye River, and then headed…up. We basically had about two miles of climbing at the outset, with a 1200-foot altitude gain; then, down 0.8 mile to the Harper’s Creek Shelter, losing about 500 feet of what we gained. For the next day, we had a 2000-foot altitude gain to reach the Hanging Rock Overlook, and then it would be all downhill to Rusty’s. Tomorrow’s hike is about 7 miles. In the first few minutes of the ascent, Mogo said “Whew, Dad, you’re setting quite a pace.” I gratefully slowed down.
Now, if you’ve done any hiking at all, just skip to the next paragraph — this is child’s play. Nevertheless, walking unrelentingly up for two miles is a quite an experience for a complete novice. By the time an hour is up, you can’t believe that it hasn’t yet leveled off. When I wasn’t thinking about my back, I was musing about how Mogo and fellow through-hikers could do this kind of thing for months on end, and love nearly every minute of it. I mean, walking 2160 miles on the level would be a pretty good accomplishment. “In these situations, you don’t do much better than a mile per hour,” Mogo remarks. We finally reached the summit of this hill. By now, we had been in total darkness for close to an hour, the trail and the white blazes appearing somewhat dimly in our headlamps.
At this point, I can sense real weakness in my back, and as we head down towards Harper’s Creek, I’m beginning to think, “How am I going to get out of here, if my back starts feeling like it did six days ago?” But downward we continued. As we neared the bottom and the trail leveled out, we looked for the side trail off the left to the shelter, but saw nothing. We reached the creek and crossed it, but no signs or blazes or anything, despite the fact that the shelter was clearly marked on the map.
We headed back up, back-tracking for about fifteen minutes. No side trail. It was really dark—no moonlight to help. We headed back down, and this time, near the bottom, Mogo says, “I think it’s off to the left right about here.” She started bush-whacking down a questionable path while I waited dubiously on the white-blazed trail, wondering how the night was going to end. Maybe we’ll sleep under the stars. After a couple minutes, she detected the shelter site at the end of the winding and over-grown trail. I thought I had discerned a most familiar and welcome odor—a privy was nearby! I joined her, and soon the shelter appeared in the beam of our head-lamps.
We unloaded our packs, and began digging around for the sleeping bags, food bags, tooth brushes, etc. Within a short time, we had hung up our food for mouse-proofing and were in our sleeping bags, ready for the night. Note that these shelters are actually three-sided lean-to’s, with a wooden platform for sleeping. Probably sleeps about eight people, if they didn’t mind being in quite close proximity. Shelter-using hikers definitely forfeit privacy. And put up with quite a variety of odors.
I lay there trying to get to sleep, exhausted. My back felt that same weakness from a few days earlier, although I was not incapacitated. As the night wore on, I slept fitfully, and the “…insane…” of yesterday was replaced with “How am I going to get out of here?” And yet, at the same time I was exactly where I wanted to be: with Mogo, in a shelter, on the AT, with all the beauty and solitude. Talk about being of two minds!
At some point in the night, a very practical and non-fearful conviction came to me: in the morning, we should hike back to the truck. I’ve taken enough risk with my back. We can always return on another trip and do this full section. There’d almost be an incentive to return here, and then I would know what was involved. But I’d be healthy, and that would be the difference. Once I internalized that thought, I fell for the first time in a week into a peaceful sleep.
When morning arrived, I awoke to a scene of unparalleled beauty and serenity. A great awning of forest trees enveloped us in a canopy of green and brown. And even though it was after 8am, it was still quite dark—almost dusk- like. Across Harper’s Creek, I could see a lone tent. Was that there last night? Or did the hiker arrive really late? My guess was that he was a southbounder, but only time would tell for sure. Namely, when he left.
Mogo was already up and about the morning rituals. Breakfast consisted of hot cereal prepared on a tiny camp stove and some snack food. At this point, I got up my courage and said something like the following: “I think the prudent thing to do considering how my back feels right now is to hike back to the car, and go visit Rusty’s.” To my relief, Mogo was understanding. She sensed too that we had been pushing the envelope a bit—and we had accomplished one thing for sure, an overnight on the AT, at a shelter.
At about this moment, I looked down-stream and as the forest curved downward, I saw my first glimpse of sunshine: at this moment, illuminating the very bottom of my view. We began packing up (the injunction is “leave no trace”). Ten or so minutes later, I looked up again. The sun-illumined tree tops were getting closer. What a marvelous event to participate in—the arrival of the sun! When I looked back across the creek, the hiker was gone. Without a noise or a trace. Was he ever really there? Yes of course. But there was something wonderful even about that sequence. We put our packs on, looked around once more for stray gear, and headed back to the AT. Upon re-inspection, even in the daylight, the side trail was hard to locate!
The climb to the summit required about forty-five minutes, and was beautiful. We had a big drop-off to our left, and a rise to our right. But we were in forest—no open vista for a long-range view. We then began to head down towards the trailhead. For the first time, I fully understood the value of walking sticks. With the weight on your back and the hill gradient, you need the sticks to take some of the pressure off your knees. Plus, you don’t want to fall. Four legs are better than two.
Note that the descent took less than an hour. Seems you can go quite a bit faster heading downhill! When we got back to the river, Mogo suggested we sit over on a large, flat rock on the bank, sentimental of a break taken at that spot on her through-hike. After all, we had no schedule to keep. Just be alive, breathe deeply, and unwind. We stayed there for more than an hour, talking, napping, sampling Snickers, dangling our feet in the water, and watching schools of little fish (or was it little schools of fish?) go after our crushed crackers. Mogo said that when she was there before, she had gone swimming near the rock. A few hours later she was talking with a fellow hiker who had also taken a break on the rock, and he related a story about a water snake heading aggressively his way after peering at him, head poised like a periscope. Well, no snakes this day!
After a wonderful rest, we crossed the wooden suspension bridge, and back across the road to the truck.. We were in no hurry, with no agenda. Just eventually get to Rusty’s. He doesn’t know we’re coming, so he’s not expecting us, as with all his hikers. They just drop in. By the time we got on the Blue Ridge Parkway, it was mid-afternoon. Along the way we stopped at a scenic overview. The B.R.P. provides hundreds of miles of wonderful vistas, facing both east and west. We could see off in the distance where we had been climbing, and where we had intended to go. A hot lunch courtesy of the camp stove, lying in the grass, reading, talking, snoozing. Then on to Rusty’s.
Well, I’ve already described some of the Hard Time Hollow. The entrance off of the B.R.P. itself is impressive. A heavy iron gate blocks access — I thought it might have been padlocked when we arrived, but it wasn’t. We passed through the gate and bumped down the rough road towards the buildings. Soon, we began to see THE SIGNS. You know in about 15 seconds that you have entered an “and now for something completely different” zone. You automatically slow down to read each one.
As we pulled into an area near the first buildings and parked, we could see Rusty off in the distance at the bottom of the hill behind his buildings. He was plowing up part one of his potato patches—exposing the potatoes so that they would be easier to harvest. We also saw a young woman working with Rusty, but couldn’t make out who it was. The young woman turned out to be “Mitch”, a through-hiker Mogo knew from the previous year. She had been staying with Rusty for a week or so, helping out. Mogo and Mitch were delighted to see one another.
Then there was Rusty. It takes about 3.5 seconds to recognize that you are in the presence of someone quite special. There is a charisma about him that is tangible, and at the same time there is a vulnerability and openness which is quite unexpected and refreshing. Even though I was a non-hiker, with no credentials, he immediately made me feel welcomed and accepted. Note that Rusty is very protective of the Hollow; outside of the hikers and bikers, it’s only their friends and family that Rusty lets down his guard with, or in fact lets on the property at all.
As we talked and traded stories and got oriented to this new order, suddenly somebody noticed a couple deer down in the potato patch, gratefully harvesting what Rusty had just unearthed. We grabbed some buckets and hurried down the hill to gather what was left. Whatever we didn’t get now would be eaten by morning. At age 59, I had never picked potatoes before, and it was great fun … except that with the bending, the pain in my back began to reappear. So, my budding career as an itinerate farmer was cut short—at least for the time being.
While I was alone back at the main building, a hiker appeared—a southbounder. We talked for a bit, and he revealed that he had started on June 1 and was clocking along at about 20 miles a day. Part of me was quite impressed, but another part thought, “Why bother if you can’t take time to smell some roses?” At 20 miles a day, roses can not be a priority. He seemed friendly enough, however, and soon joined the potato pickers.
As dusk came upon us, everyone retreated to the main building. Those poor “deers” will be very disappointed when they come back for the potatoes. Rusty lit some gas lanterns, and we sat on the back porch looking down toward the potato patch, the hot tub, and plot of land where the hill rises on the other side of the hollow. It had a fence, with a large white cross. Rusty explained that that was his cemetery, and he wanted to be buried there, along with any of his inner circle of hiker friends who so desired. Talk about being self-sufficient.
We talked and talked with Rusty as night came upon us. About hikers, his future, God, needs of the Hollow, jokes, southern wisdom—the time swiftly passed. At some undefined moment he decided it might be a good time to eat. He boiled a huge pot of potatoes and cabbage on one of the wood stoves, and we soon sat down to eat—with plenty of margarine to spread on the potatoes. A feast. Incidentally, Rusty keeps perishables and soda in his spring house. Even on the hottest summer days, the cool mountain spring does its job. After eating, Rusty lay down on the couch inside his tiny living room, and we continued to talk until quite late. Then to bed. Mogo and Mitch in the bunks on the back porch, the south-bound hiker and I in the adjoining bunk room, Rusty upstairs in his loft.
Rusty was up early making a large number of huge pancakes. Hikers require lots of carbohydrates, and Rusty obliges big-time. After breakfast, we all helped clean up. The hiker packed up his gear and hiked out, hopeful of doing 22 this day! Mogo and Mitch decided that they would clean the winter kitchen. It was in rather cluttered condition. Rusty suggested that I pick apples from the apple tree. A long pole with prongs on it—not too bad on my back. Meanwhile, Rusty drove his tractor back down the hill and began more plowing on another field—I think this was potatoes as well. As I picked the apples, I would catch a glimpse of him now and then. He would get off the tractor, and walk slowly, like a man discouraged, shoulders down, and listless motions. It seemed evident that something wasn’t sitting quite right with him.
In the early afternoon, we were sitting on the back porch, Rusty in his rocking chair, and we engaged in extended conversation. Rusty began to pour out his heart: about the loneliness, about soon reaching his 60th birthday with what he sometimes felt was little to show for his life. He talked about family rejection, disappointments, hopes for a future that seemed out of his grasp. All this with a soft spoken utterance, tears occasionally forming. He talked about fighting serious depression particularly after a yank-all-your-teeth-and-immediately-put-in-the-false-teeth-before-healing-takes-place procedure he had undergone a month earlier. His mouth was still very sore, and he could eat only mushy food. Not to mention he’d recently stopped a years-long habit of chewing tobacco cold-turkey just before the procedure. A man of faith despite circumstances, he told us he kept pouring out his troubles to God, believing the strength to pull through would eventually be given.
As we continued talking and then praying with him, a car pulled into the Hollow; it was driven by a young black man identified as “Tunes.” Rusty attends a small black congregation near Waynesboro. On Sundays, all the hikers who stay over Saturday night are invited by Rusty to accompany him to his church. Many of the hikers—who are almost exclusively white—have never been inside a black church, so it is a real eye- and sometimes heart-opener for them. It’s one way Rusty bears witness to his faith. And “Tunes” gets this nickname because he sings at the church.
After introducing all of us to Tunes, we went to the back porch, where Rusty continued to talk about his desire to follow God, but his difficulty in sensing His presence, due to all the issues that seemed to be caving in on him. Suddenly Tunes interrupted and spoke directly to Rusty, standing up with the backdrop of the Blue Ridge behind him. He spoke words of encouragement with increasing fervor, and in a seamless transition began singing “I feel like travelin’ on…” His beautiful baritone voice echoed across the Hollow as he turned sideways, as if to proclaim the truth of God not only to Rusty, but to all of creation— the birds, the animals—all of us. We sat transfixed by this wondrous gift. No instruments, no harmony, just a single voice, singing out that God was trustworthy, and that He would be there for Rusty, for all of us. It was a most memorable and profound experience.
Not too long after this defining moment, another south-bound hiker appeared, breaking the intensity. Tunes left for an errand, but he returned later that evening. After another wonderful dinner complete with an abundance of bakery-thrift Little Debbie’s for dessert, we all talked late into the night. Then it was to our respective sleeping quarters for the night. As I drifted off, the thought came to me that maybe God had used my back problem to give us that extra time with Rusty at a crucial point in his life when he needed someone to talk to, to pray with.
In fact, I now had a new friend and brother; someone that I sensed needed support and affirmation in a most unique ministry. Rusty at one point told me that it was not uncommon for one or more of the hikers he took to church to become believers in Jesus Christ. For his part, he had led a hard-drinking, tough-guy kind of life until one day he came to the realization that God loved him, and in receiving that love, his live was transformed. So much so, that a couple of winters ago when there was record snow in central Virginia, and he was stranded for two months (the B.R.P. was closed and the snow on his access road too much for his plow), he read entirely through eight different versions of the Bible. That would have been unthinkable prior to his conversion.
Rusty had given me one of his Hard Time Hollow business cards; it has a scripture reference at the bottom: Heb. 13:2. The verse reads, “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by this some have entertained angels unaware.” I understood that Rusty lives within the context of that verse.
Wednesday morning we awoke to leave. Mitch was in need of a ride to her home in PA, and Mogo and I were going in that direction. So, we said our good-byes, hugs, kisses and we were off. As we headed back north, I was bathed in the richness of the events I had been privileged to experience. Indeed, it was an amazing week. And my back had survived!
The combination of my first hike with Mogo and the subsequent meeting of Rusty remind me of the words of an old Southern Gospel song:
Living below in this old sinful world, Hardly a comfort can afford,
Striving alone to face temptations sore: Where could I go but to the Lord?
Where could I go, oh where could I go, Seeking a refuge for my soul?
Needing a friend to help me in the end, Where could I go but to the Lord?