Kevin Runolfson - The Things You Find on the Appalachian Trail: A Memoir of Discovery, Endurance and a Lazy Dog

All photographs are from the authors collection.

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Runolfson, Kevin, 1973
The things you nd on the Appalachian Trail : a memoir of discovery, endurance and a lazy dog / by Kevin Runolfson.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-4767-1
1. Appalachian TrailDescription and travel. 2. Runolfson, Kevin, 1973 TravelAppalachian Trail. 3. HikingAppalachian Trail. 4. Runolfson, Kevin, 1973 Relations with women. 5. Man-woman relationshipsAppalachian Trail. 6. DogsAppalachian Trail. 7. Human-animal relationships Appalachian Trail. I. Title.
F106.R88 2010
917.404'43dc22 2009051645
British Library cataloguing data are available
2010 Kevin Runolfson. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: Rufus, taking a much needed break on the Appalachian Trail (2001); background 2010 shutterstock
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

After four years in the Marine Corps and three years of an angry marriage, I am done with both. Im leaving everything behind and hiking the Appalachian Trail, a 2167-mile footpath that extends from Georgia to Maine along the Appalachian Mountains. The only things I am taking with me are a backpack full of gear and my newly adopted dog, Rufus, a one-year-old Shar PeiChocolate Lab mix. Together, Rufus and I set off into the mountains.

I expect a long, quiet walk in the woods occasionally interrupted by a fellow hiker, but instead I discover an entire hiker community where everyone is loosely related by the common goal of reaching Maine. Almost every day I meet someone new. I receive trail magic, the name for random acts of kindness bestowed onto hikers, and meet trail angels, people who perform such acts.

Hiking with Rufus becomes an adventure on its own. I adopted him as stalwart companion, but it turns out I have acquired a lazy bundle of fear wrapped in fur. I quickly learn that Rufus is afraid of bridges, fire, rain, thunder, lightning and most wildlife. He also doesnt like to walk when its too hot, too cold, too early, too late, daytime or nighttime. A rock would make a better hiking partner.

I meet a beautiful hiker named Teresa, and after bumping into each other for several hundred miles, we become hiking partners. The trail takes us through towns, over mountains, and across 14 different states as I encounter weeks of rain, record breaking heat, bears, snakes and killer cows. I grow as a person, my relationship with Teresa becomes romantic, and Rufus evolves into an unstoppable hiking machine (unless, of course, he encounters rain, heat, cold, wildlife, or pretty much anything else). The end of the trail nears, but does that mean my relationship with Teresa must end with it? Only Maine will tell.

I wrote this book a couple of years after completing the trail. I kept a nightly journal while hiking, and the journal proved invaluable in writing the story. I also carried a camera, and some of those photographs are in this book. Let it be known, however, that the pictures dont adequately capture trail life. Most of my pictures show happy hikers under blue skies. They dont show the miserable days, or the week of constant rain. Truth be told, it was usually only on the nice days that anyone had the energy to break out a camera.

Hiking the trail was one of the best experiences of my life, and in this book I hope to share that experience with anyone willing to listen.

I cant believe it! Here I am at Amicalola Falls State Park in northern Georgia, ready to embark on my dream adventure: hiking the Appalachian Trail. My ride is driving away, red taillights disappearing into the black night, and I am left with only my faithful dog, Rufus, for company. The visitor center has been closed for hours, its yellow security lights emitting a soft glow across the deserted parking lot. The forest makes its own sound: a soft wind moving through the tree limbs, the scurrying of tiny nocturnal feet, and an occasional hoot from an owl. My guidebook says there is a shelter a couple hundred yards up the Appalachian Trail, so I throw on my backpack and walk towards the visitor center, hoping to find a sign pointing the way. As I walk around to the back of the building I see a single brush stroke of blue paint on a wooden post. Only four inches wide by eight inches tall, roughly the size of my hand, this simple blaze of paint marks the beginning of my six-month hike. Guided by the glow of my headlamp and the lights from the building, I head towards the faint silhouette of a stone arch beyond the wooden post. I take my first step through the eight-foot-tall portal and begin my journey.

The Appalachian Trail, commonly known as the A.T. or simply the trail, begins in Georgia and is a continuous footpath that stretches for 2,167 miles over mountains and meadows, crossing rivers and streams, through towns and along ridges before finally ending on the summit of Mt. Katahdin in northern Maine.

I first heard about the trail around 1998 while stationed at Marine Corps Air Base El Toro near Los Angeles. I lived the first twenty-two years of my life in Spokane, Washington, and had never heard of the A.T. One day the travel section of the local newspaper, The Orange County Register, had a three-page article about the A.T. complete with a map depicting the trail as it crossed through fourteen different states. I read the article twice, engrossed in the authors account of climbing over mountains, making friends with fellow hikers, and conversing with the locals as he hiked towards Maine. It grasped something in my soul, a sense of adventure, and I knew I wanted to hike it.

After I finished my four-year tour in the Marine Corps, I didnt have a job, and my rocky three-year marriage had finally gone over the cliff. Luckily, we didnt have any kids, but it still was a messy, bitter divorce. While separated from my wife during the last year of our marriage, I saved meticulously for this trip. Once out of the Corps, I moved back to Spokane and stayed with my parents for a few months. I read everything I could about the trail, taking some advice and leaving the rest, and ultimately planned to hike it my own way. Come March, I had the money, the time, the knowledge, and a dog willing to follow me anywhere. I was ready.

Cmon, Rufus, I say as we step through the shadowy arch. I make a mental note to come back in the morning and preserve my start with some photographs. Right now I need to find the shelter and get some sleep. Ahead of me the path begins to climb and the woods quickly absorb the faint light coming from the visitor center. I start up the trail, plunging into the darkness with nothing but my dim headlamp to show me the way.

Ive been walking less than ten minutes when a voice booms out, Whatre you looking for? The unexpected noise shatters the silence, and I almost have a heart attack. Visions of inbred mountain men with no teeth race through my mind, and my first instinct is to get the hell out of here fast, but Ive waited too long and worked to hard to back out now.