Chris Adventure, Life Lessons

My First Shelter on the Appalachian Trail

Stover Creek Shelter

If you have never hiked much on the AT, you probably wonder what it must be like to hike for 10 or 12 miles and then setup camp. About 10 years ago, I hiked a few miles into Maryland from Harper’s Ferry (West Virginia—what some think of as the half-way point on the AT though it’s technically not). That was first time I ever saw an AT shelter so I had a vague idea of what to expect along the way. But after several days on the trail, you realize how important these shelter locations can be. This is the Stover Creek shelter, the 2nd shelter you come across if you begin to hike northbound (not counting the Black Gap shelter on the approach trail from Amicalola Falls) from the southern terminus at Springer Mountain.

Whether or not you actually sleep in a shelter, these locations provide a good place to get out of the rain, cook a meal, and meet other hikers. On Day 1 of my AT hike, I got to this shelter around 4pm after hiking nearly 12 miles. A light had just concluded so I hung my sweaty damp clothes to dry while I setup my tent about 15 yards away from the shelter. And this became a daily routine.

By about 7pm, 3 other hikers had joined me at this shelter and then “May” showed up as I was settling into my tent for the evening. “May” and I would leave together the next morning and share much of the first 16 days of this hiking journey. Most days, we would pick a shelter that was anywhere from 10-15 miles away as our next campsite.

So shelters represented a daily destination. A place to rest, eat, and experience community.

As I continue to reflect on the trail experience, I think about the “shelter” experiences we have in our every-day lives. For most of us, our shelters are our homes…the place we land at the end of day to seek solace from work, play, or whatever activities we might engage in away from home. But our “shelter” is a place of safety and a place where we can get comfortable, share a meal with family and prepare for the next day’s adventure.

My first good view of the mountains

Being on the trail and sleeping at or near shelters gave me a much greater appreciation for the comforts of home and the joy of spending time with my wife and kids. Returning to life “off trail” came with a deep sense of gratitude but strangely, I find myself missing the trail. And that seems to be a tension that we all live with at some level. There are things that draw us away from daily life. Many of us crave adventure and variety…new terrain with incredible vistas. But the need for safety and shelter and the love of our domestic blessings also provide so much goodness. Although I am beginning to plan out my next section hike of 100-200 miles of the Appalachian Trail, for now I will make the most of my “shelter” and my time with family.

“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Psalm 23:6

Chris Adventure, Community, Faith, Life Lessons

Trail Names & Faces

Me & May

Some people seem confused when I talk about my Appalachian Trail experience, that I’m throwing in lots of stories about community and the people I was hanging out with on the trail.

“Didn’t you go hiking alone?” they might ask.

So here’s the deal. Lots of people hike the Appalachian Trail. Some for a few days, some for a few weeks, and even some for a few months. There was only 1 night during my 23 days on the trail that I was completely alone at a shelter or campsite at the end of the day.

In the picture above, “May” was one of the people who joined our “shelter family” that first evening at the Stover Creek Shelter. I didn’t know it at the time, but he and I would hike together for a little over two weeks. His trail name was “May” because when he was 19, he shattered his femur in an accident and one of his doctors said “You MAY never walk again.” Over those two weeks, “May” and I got to know each other pretty well and spent several hours each day chatting about his life in Charlotte and my life in Cincinnati. So the relationships on the trail really became a substantial and great part of the experience!

Trail names are also an interesting part of the hiking experience and community on the Appalachian Trail. Some people can get a trail name when they do something weird or interesting. Like one thru-hiker we met was “Subway” because when he started hiking at the northern terminus, he had several Subway sandwiches in his pack so he didn’t have to cook anything for the first few days. Folks started calling him “Subway” and it stuck.

JavaMan & Catfish

One of the other guys I hiked with (actually the first hiker I met when I was signing in at the visitor center in Amicalola Falls) whose real name is Jim almost got the trail name “Boyscout” because I noticed him wearing a Philmont t-shirt. But then I learned his nickname in the Navy had been “Catfish” because of his mustache…so we called him “Catfish!”

My manual coffee grinder

My trail name didn’t take long to stick because I woke people up each morning with the sound and aroma of grinding fresh coffee. “JAVAMAN” quickly became my moniker.

One of the younger guys we found ourselves trying to keep up for a few days was “Boots.” He seemed to be intent on experiencing maximum pain & suffering because he had a 50lb pack and boots that must not have been quite right. There were several times when I saw blood as he removed his hiking boots and socks to doctor the feet. But he was an ROTC-engineering student at Princeton who was just trying to develop his ability to withstand intense physical struggle in preparation for future military training. Super smart kid and fun hiker connection! Here he is with May & I shortly after (or before) we cross the state line from Georgia to North Carolina.

Boots, JavaMan, & May set off for the day’s hike

And there were lots of other hikers we spent time with along the way…like Sherpa, Smiles, Duct Tape, Veggie Delights, the Gossip Girls, another “Sherpa”, Stone Legs, etc!

The Appalachian Trail has this power to create community. It brings together a diverse group of people who share this passion to be outdoors and challenge themselves physically. Any amount of suffering (sometimes what hikers may call “embracing the suck”) tends to create some extra relational bonding energy that catalyzes community more quickly than what we usually experience in our normal day-to-day lives.

Chris Campus Ministry, Faith

Why the Pilgrimage?

Heading to Max Patch

After discussing briefly the “What?” in that last post, let’s back up a bit to the Why?

Why did I feel it was necessary to spend several weeks in the woods hiking a few hundred miles on the Appalachian Trail?

Sabbatical. Pilgrimage. Spiritual Quest. All these descriptors for my journey could help explain the “Why?” as I reflect on what necessitated such a drastic undertaking. And it was a bit drastic or desperate by some standards. Since I had never spent more than 3-4 days hiking or backpacking, suddenly deciding to spend about 40 days on the Appalachian Trail (my original goal) certainly made some folks wonder about my mental state, especially my mom.

But after 15 years of youth & worship ministry…then another 11+ years of college ministry at the University of Cincinnati, I found myself at an interesting crossroads of sorts. For one thing, I was emotionally & spiritually (some days physically) exhausted. This is why sabbaticals can be so critical for those serving in full-time ministry. I’d say that after every 5-7 years of vocational ministry, one needs to take 4-6 weeks for spiritual refreshment and renewal.

On top of what you might call burn-out or ministry fatigue, I was also dealing with some personal spiritual demons. About 5 years ago (give or take a year maybe), I began to have some major battles with skepticism and doubt. It may sound strange to some, but there were some foundational assumptions and beliefs that started to feel a little flimsy really for the first time in my life.

When I made the transition from high school to college, I was actually experiencing a peak season of spiritual growth. I felt a call to ministry during my freshman year of college, changed my major from chemistry to biblical studies and never really looked back (much) for about 25 years. But something happened over the past few years and I entered a (mostly private) season of deconstruction. For the first time in my life, I was giving myself space to take some beliefs and ideas apart and decide in my early 40s what really made sense to me.

So I won’t go into the gory details here, but if one has a “house of cards” model of faith (which I don’t recommend), I was definitely wiggling a few critical cards which could jeopardize the whole arrangement. And for a couple of years now, I have been in a holding pattern with my own spiritual growth…unable to heal, grow, and reconcile some of those doubts and questions. Something deep within me seemed to know that I needed a fresh time of spiritual immersion.

Like learning a foreign language, you can learn a lot from books and language apps, but nothing works like immersion. Jumping into the deep end so to speak…so that you have no choice but to learn and survive. For me, I knew that jumping back into the ”deep end” spiritually might look like 40 days of hiking on the Appalachian Trail (or something similar).

That is why this journey was necessary. I found myself, as a pastor to college students, with a less than vital and vibrant spiritual experience…questioning some core things about Christianity. I am embarrassed to admit that many of the questions were encouraged more by my own stale Christian experience than by legitimate issues which might undermine one’s faith. And what happened during the first week of my trail-sabbatical was quite surprising!

We will get into that next time.