“I’m going to walk the Appalachian Trail!” my 70-year-old younger brother Ron announced in January 2018 while I was hiking with him on a trail outside of St. George Utah, where he had lived the last four decades

“Since Edie died a few months ago I have been overwhelmed by sadness and I need to get out of here,” he said.

Oh my God! My baffled brain thought. The Appalachian Trail is almost 2200 miles through 14 eastern states with something like 450,000 feet of elevation changes. From Springer Mountain, Georgia to Katahdin Mountain in upper Maine. There is no way in heck we can do that, not at our advanced ages!?!

My brother and I are both combat veterans from the Vietnam war. I enlisted in the Marine Corps and he enlisted in the Army. We are both pretty tough guys, but have some baggage emotionally and physically from that experience. So I wasn’t too surprised that he wanted to hike the AT, but I thought it was fanciful, almost certainly impossible. I hiked in the Smoky Mountains into my 60s and I knew how hard it could be –– and dangerous. Once on a solo hike in Pisgah National Forest, I played hide and seek with a very determined black bear for over an hour and that was not pleasant. Every time I thought I had gotten away from him, he reappeared. He did some fake charges and I did some fake charges. Eventually I was able to get away from him.

“Well, then I will go too,” I told Ron, but I was thinking two weeks max and then he will change his mind, it will be way too hard.

But that’s not what happened. We were both in good routine-hiking shape but also physically challenged. Ron had some pretty serious foot and leg issues and I have an artificial left knee and my right leg is a half inch shorter than my left leg, causing me to walk with a pronounced limp. Maybe they have an award for the person who limped the whole Appalachian Trail? I mused.

But despite all my misgivings, on March 22, 2018, at 72 years old and my brother now 71 years old set sail on foot from Springer Mountain, Georgia on our new adventure. It was incredibly difficult. Definitely more arduous and challenging then I thought possible. Physically it was exhausting and frequently painful. I fell at least once a day. It was also amazing, with frequent, wow, look at that amazing vista God has created for us! moments.

At one point I left the trail for a week because of incredible leg pain caused by an infection caused by bleeding hammer toes. But despite injuries, we managed to average a little over 11 miles a day and in one stretch we hiked over 30 days straight without a zero day. Perseverance and dogged determination somehow pushed us on and on and on – one step at a time.

It was challenging and invigorating and frequently an emotional roller coaster and occasionally severely depressive. Sometimes cold, nasty rain propelled by wild winds buffeted us for days. One night a foot of snow fell in the Smoky Mountains, forcing all of us hikers to seek shelter and temporarily escape by climbing down off the mountains on to old logging roads. There were other dangerous pitfalls, including bears, snakes (many poisonous), cliffs, slippery rocks, and treacherous water challenges. And we soldiered on. We had some genuine, spiritual awakenings and every aspect of our life took on a new meaning.

I realized on the AT that the wilderness was the real world, not the world I had been living in with all the electrical and other man-made aspects. I was astonished to be able to stand on a mountain top without a soul around, raptors swooping in front of me and realize everything I could see in front of me was primal wilderness except for the very tops of the skyscrapers of New York City, approximately 50 miles away.

 

My God, how amazing and wonderful our creator is! It filled me with a sense of wonder, gratitude and humility which I still carry with me today, beyond anything I had ever imagined. Suddenly life had a new meaning and purpose. I realized that all my difficulties, troubles and worries were just feelings and not real. What was real was being alive, being challenged and overcoming obstacles. That I could be the man that God always wanted me to be. I could face life with a new determination, hopefulness and ability to be productive and helpful to others, without undue fear or even dread of the unknown. Spiritually, it is never too late to be reborn –– at any age.