Hiking the Appalachian Trail during a Pandemic

Spring break at the university I lecture at in North Carolina was scheduled for the week of March 8th. I had been planning to hike a short section of the Appalachian trail with a colleague through the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. This section of the trail begins at Fontana Dam and goes until Davenport Gap, where we were planning to hitch into Hot Springs, NC.

On March the 7th, Aaron and I set out and were dropped off by his parents at Fontana Dam. Things were already getting weird at that time globally with the increasing spread of coronavirus. An outbreak had risen in Washington State, California and Oregon, there were a handful of cases in NYC. At that point the biggest concern was to stay away from the elderly as we were aware of people carrying the virus and silently spreading it amongst the vulnerable populace.

I was also distracted mentally, waiting to hear back after my fourth round of interviewing for a prominent tech company in Berlin. I had spent most of February preparing myself for this new role and transition in life to finally move back to Europe where my heart still lives. But all of that was about to change after a few short days in the woods.

The first day Aaron and I only ran into two other people, both of them were AT thru-hikers. One was called Snorlax, and we would end up hiking with him regularly before I exited the trail in five days. With Snorlax we didn't discuss the virus but we did with the second character we ran into while refiling our hydration packs. Conversation around the virus was raised and the other guy, whose name we never learned, blew it off and even seemed annoyed.

He said, "I'm not worried about it" and "it's just a flu." By this point in time, comments like this seemed incredibly tone deaf and dripping in denial of the mounting reality. We were in an uncomfortable historical window where we all had a collective responsibility to take the virus more seriously. But at that point, Aaron and I still believed we were in the best possible place to face the pandemic--mostly alone in a thick, dense national park where we felt more physically taunt and alive than any where. Once you do your first long-distance hike it becomes an addiction and your life is increasingly about when the next time you'll be on trail will be.

As we walked away from him, Aaron said to me "I guess he doesn't care very much about the elderly." In early March, many of us still believed that it was exclusively the elderly that were in any kind of real danger. I was anxious about my grandparents but not as much about myself, despite having had chronic bronchitis nearly my whole childhood and teenage years.

That evening we camped in the wilds of the Great Smokey Mountains, technically you're required to camp in a shelter provided by park rangers (or what AT hikers call Ridge Runners) but during the pandemic, rangers had announced that if a thurhiker felt uncomfortable sleeping in the barracks style accommodation of the shelters then they could camp. This isn't why we ultimately camped but it did give us peace of mind. When I was clearing my area for my tent I noticed in the distance, in the woods a bear cage, which is for putting yourself in if a bear comes after you. The Great Smokeys are inundated with bears, especially in early spring, that are just coming out of hibernation. I wasn't particularly afraid of black bears, and I felt pretty seasoned of a camper at this point so I went straight to sleep after eating instant mash potatoes that evening. Aaron, from his tent, told me the next morning that he had heard bears in the night wandering around our campsite. I heard nothing, but am not surprised.

The next day we hiked on, sustaining ourselves off of dried prunes and almonds for most of the day. I appreciated that Aaron was a coffee drinker, so we at least began each morning with a hot cup of coffee to hold in those extremely misty, moody and damp woods. I can see now why the Great Smokeys have the name they do. We were shrouded in a near-constant white smoke, that made me feel like we were in sleepy hollow or a Grimm's fairy tale. A scene that I thought would be repetitive and uninteresting was beginning to move me. Especially after Snorlax later revealed that he had found two real arrow heads on trail. There are so many little details to notice when you're trekking through a dense forest, from mushrooms on trees that look like lamp-posts, to tiny red birds that flicker from tree to tree.

I am originally from North Carolina and so have perhaps taken for granted the thick, old forests that we have. I have never been much for brush, thorns, and humidity but after only a couple days of steadily going deeper and deeper into a mystical forest you start to appreciate it for what it is.

That second day we summited Rocky Top, which is known for having a country music song named after it. We were skirting the line between Tennessee and North Carolina for the whole trail journey. Almost everyone else we encountered were thruhikers and they were on their third week, roundabouts, from when they started at Springer Mountain in Georgia. Most of the them had, as of yet, no thoughts of quitting the trail because of the Coronavirus, but everyone was talking about the virus at shelters. I met a young kid from Louisiana whose mother had the virus in New Orleans and was very sick. There was also a high school teacher who was in the same boat as me and now having to return to work purely with online teaching.

On the second day of hiking I found out that I would be spending the rest of the academic year teaching from home. I had never been an online teacher before. I also found out that our spring break had been extended for a second week to give the university time to respond to this new challenge and to buffer the changes with time. And on top of this I found out that the company in Berlin would no longer be hiring anyone for the role I had been so close to, because of the uncertainty of the future. They tried to reassure me by telling me they wouldn't be hiring anyone company wide for a month, but I felt heavy with sadness at an escape so closely envisioned and now disappearing away like the fog that was lifting in the forest, giving way to blue sunny skies. In some ways, I was relieved because it meant then that I would be able to hike longer, unfettered by milage gains or failures.

The night of our second day, we stayed at a shelter with about 20 other people. I set up my tent outside and was grateful for the wanton sun-beams that were able to dry off my consistently wet tent. We prepared our meal, I built a fire from the watery sticks which pulled in the crowd. We made friends, socialized. The day slowly faded into evening and I retired exhausted and sore to my tent. I had no trouble sleeping in my tent, in fact I love it passionately but my air mattress deflates every night. I wake up throughout on the cold, hard ground and my back muscles and ribs ache for it. I tell no one about the air mattress because as the good protestant girl that I was raised, I enjoy suffering as a sign of personal strength of character.

In the morning we hiked on, through further opaque forests. Everything I owned was slightly wet. I was wearing my full waterproof gear as drizzling rain wet my face, my hands, my feet. My shoes and lower pants were caked in mud but it smelled very fresh. Even when it was down-pouring, it felt pristine to be part of the forest sanctuary. We met an older man hiking the same section we were, his thruhiker name was Tortoise. He was very kind and had been waiting until he retired in order to do this journey. Now that the AT association has asked everyone to leave the trail I think about people like him who had been waiting so long to undertake this adventure, only to have their dreams crushed by an unprecedented plague.

The days blurred together, but always ended with us in a shelter, amongst familiar faces. The trail itself was a series of steep ups and downs over roots and mud and wetness. Birds, fog and tiny creeks punctuated the scenery, as did occasional, surprising open views of the mountains from tall, narrow ridges. We summited mountains and ate as many carbs as we could. I even ate some of Aaron's sustainable and high-protein cricket powder in my ramen. Aaron's trail name inevitably became "cricket" due to his promotion of the powder to all thru-hikers. I became "Grandma Tomahawk" because my poles were bent in arthritic knobs and also because I carried a large, military grade knife that I used to chop firewood in the evenings.

On the fifth day we made it to the main highway that cuts through the Great Smokey Mountains and my senses were immediately assaulted by the number of people that were waiting there at the lookout where the trail comes out at. I was frankly shocked by how many people, touristically-clad with their whole families in congregation were lingering about, as if there wasn't a virus churning through the country. I felt overwhelmed by the people I saw as I stood on the roadside waiting for Aaron to catch up. Then we gathered with our other hiker friends and I asked the first man I saw if he happened to be heading towards Gatlinburg. It turned out that not only was he heading to Gatlinburg, but also he had a huge van with enough space for us all. What unbelievable luck.

The man and his girlfriend and their three small daughters crammed us into their van with them and we hurtled towards civilization to resupply and get a hotel room. I had been planning to split a room with Aaron but upon getting to town (which at this point had not yet been put on a lockdown and still even had all its restaurants and bars open) we learned that the hotel rooms were half-priced. I was able to get my own room for 45 bucks. We eagerly walked to our hotel, like five champions through the crowded streets. Everyone stopped and stared at us in town like we were gods or aliens with our packs and walking poles and disheveled, war-like appearance. I was proud to be a woman with grit, for not the first time in my life. There had been notably fewer women on the AT than men. I also thought fewer women were on the AT than had been on the JMT.

At the hotel, I washed everything. I showered three times. Mud was everywhere. Then we went out for drinks and burgers. I didn't realize then that this would be the last time I would go to a restaurant for an indeterminate amount of time. Nonetheless, I did feel uncomfortable with the amount of people on the streets. Gatlinburg was bustling. That night the guys and I partied hard in our hotel rooms and prepared to go back into the woods the next morning.

In the morning, I bought all the groceries I still needed and a new waterproof sack for my clean clothes. I packed and readied my bag. We ordered a shuttle back to trail. I walked to Subway to get a footlong to go. It was a gorgeously warm spring day. I felt very cheerful and eager to get back on trail. I thought I might call Áine who was living in Bordeaux, France and catch up with her while I waited for our shuttle, which wouldn't go for another hour. Little did I know that that fateful conversation would change everything.

Áine was living under martial law in France. She hadn't been allowed outside for any reason other than to leave once a day to go to a grocery or a pharmacy and was regularly stopped by the military who were patrolling the streets and asking to see papers. She was very scared. The death tolls were soaring. I felt sick. My heart was in my throat and I felt feverish. I sat talking to her by a stream for the whole hour and then I hung up and cried. I knew then that I couldn't responsibly or ethically go back into the forest. I had to go home and look after my family. The ethical choice was to quarantine myself. I broke the news to the guys and I called Kristina who came and picked me up that very day within a few hours.