The Appalachian Trail and it's long termed Effects

“About midnight the sky cleared and stars shone as clear as gems on jet black velvet. A cold wind swept the mountain, and I shivered in spite of fire. Such a night is guaranteed to install profound respect for the power of nature and the vastness of the universe.”

~ Earl V. Schaffer

The AT had a profound affect on my life both prior to 9/11 and certainly after. Prior to thru hiking in 2000, I was working in Georgia at what should have amounted to the summation of my professional culinary career. I got the Chef/Manager position working for a German Billionaire at a new Southern Country Inn where money seemed to be no object. The only things that mattered was the quality of the experience. Bernard Schneider had given me an 80 acre parcel of land in which to grow organic vegetables, fruits and flowers for our Inn. I hired a retired organic farmer named Walt who spoke so highly of the Appalachian Trail. He had led so many boy scouts troops on overnighters in the Georgia sections of the trail. Walt and I quickly became friends. I truly valued our lunch time conversations on life.

In 1999, my father had passed away. On his death bed my father had said that that he no longer viewed the world as black and white but in a series of shades of grey. His death caused me to want to hike the trail to help find answers as to the real meaning of life. Prior to my thru hike I was very materialistic. I had bought the idea of the American Dream hook line and sinker. I wanted the nicest car; the best computer… what I valued was superficial consumer goods. My life was a hollow meaningless existence. I was very materialistic.

“I heard them talking to one another in murmurs and whispers. They talked about illness, money, shabby domestic cares. Their talk painted the walls of a dismal prison in which men had locked themselves up. And suddenly I had a vision of the face of destiny.”

~ Antoine de Saint Exupery

Sometimes in life we build a prison around ourselves without consciously doing so. We give ourselves many reasons why we can’t become what we truly are. I will scream if I ever hear another person tell me that they would like to hike the Appalachian Trail if they didn’t have a mortgage, job, kids… Life isn’t meant to cage us. Life should offer us a plethora of experiences, both good and bad, to grow and evolve from.

“I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them.”

~ Thoreau

On March 6th, 2000 (my birthday), I started walking north from Springer Mountain with Walt, my farmer friend. I began what really had amounted to a complete evolution of my soul and body. Every mile I walked, every mountain I got to the top of, shed another layer off the onion skin like nature of my world view. The more I walked the more Mother Nature taught me in her gentle way about the beauty and importance of nature, life and our part as humans in the balance. If you ask a question in the woods she will answer you. Her answer may take a little deciphering but it will come. Sometime in comes as a vision, a dream or an experience… We just have to be patient and take time to meditate its meaning. You spend so much time walking the long green tunnel by yourself. I have yet to meet a hiker that hasn’t relived major parts of their lives while walking through the woods. I can remember quite clearly March 28th… Six years before hiking the trail I had been involved in a hit and run accident of which I should not have survived, let alone walked again. An 18 wheeler traveling 75 miles per hour had hit me while I was driving my 1973 Moto Guzzi motorcycle in Chicago. The driver hit me on a major highway and left me for dead. I never was religious but that night I asked god not to let me die like this. For a long, long time I harbored anger for the guy who hit me. On March 28th, 2000 I had this amazing vision while walking in the Smoky’s. It was god’s love filling my heart with an unbelievable and really indescribable sensation of peace and serenity. And from that moment I was completely able to no longer hate the man that almost killed me. Harboring hate taxes your soul. From that day I was able to free myself from that… another layer peeled away.

“Today also was a realization kind of day. Today I release my anger towards the trucker driver who hit me at 80 miles an hour on my motorcycle almost 6 years ago and left me for dead on the side of the road. I vow no longer to hate him. If he had any consciousness about him, he replayed that day over and over in his own head. Never fully sure if he killed me or not. So on this beautiful day I say goodbye to the evil thoughts”.

~ Aswah (from my online journal)

From that day love began to take over. Love replaced anger and hatred in my heart. The trail teaches many incredible life lessons about dealing with one another. I always felt long distance hiking was kind of a Gilligan’s Island sort of experience. We all are sharing an experience that is both very positive and can be negative. All who hike will feel pain, discomfort, hunger… We might feel homesickness. The trail also allows for moments that escape words… the most beautiful sunsets, truly wonderful moments when a complete stranger will go out of their way to do something for you. Hiking the trail renewed my belief that the human race is not damned. The bounds forged between those that share such a profound experience are long lasting. I have never been in combat but talking to friends who have it almost seems like there is a parallel experience.

In the normal waking world you may not have a friend who is gay, or old, or a military general, or religious… On the trail I had many friends who crossed the boundaries of my norm. If someone needed your help then you helped them. Thousands of times I saw people give someone else a meal, carry their pack because they had twisted their ankle or offer comfort and solace in a moment of doubt, pain or suffering. Despite what you may read on various trail forums the brother and sisterhood of those who walk together is undeniable and extremely elevating and heart warming.

“Today as I walked through the woods, God spoke to me. It was in a language hard to understand, at first. Slowly God showed his presence through the sunrays shining radiantly through the trees. I fell to my knees and asked for his mercy. I offered my heart to him to use as a conduit of his love. A golden feeling of love, peace tranquility, and serenity overcame my body. Somewhere in the woods I met JAH. Where the tears from my eyes fell beautiful flowers arose. My body trembles as I recall that day…”

~ Aswah from July 23rd, 2000

Another profound effect of the trail was my personal transition from the numbered world to that of the soulful world. The trail slowly and surely strips most of us down to what is really important and necessary. It reduces us to our basic selves. Many start at Springer with packs that weigh tons… by Damascus they have shed more and by Katahdin their packs are mere shades of what they were. The reality is that in life one needs food, water, shelter and companionship. What we don’t need is to know exactly what day it is today… as Janis Joplin once said “it’s always today man.” After a while you slip into the rhythms of life… you wake up when you have slept enough, you eat when you are hungry and you sleep when you are tired. It never really matters what time any of those things occur. In the numbered world we think hey it’s noon, time to eat lunch. When a friend buys a house we would ask how much did it cost? Not are you happy? It seems in the numbered world we have to relate everything in terms of numbers, how much do you weigh, how much does it cost, what time do you have to wake up, how many miles do you have to walk… We never seem to let nature dictate these things. I always enjoyed taking an afternoon nap along the trail. In 2004, I never felt compelled to make miles like in 2000. Many times Daytripper and myself would stop when we found the perfect spot to set up our tarp.

"There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore, There is society where none intrudes, By the deep sea, and music in its roar: I love not Man the less, but Nature more, From these our interviews, in which I steal From all I may be, or have been before, To mingle with the Universe, and feel, What I can never express, yet cannot all conceal.”

~ Woodsworth

I started reading a lot of books on the trail. Books like “The Alchemist” by Paulo Coelho, “The Little Prince” and “Wind, Sand and Stars” by St. Exupery, “The Art of Pilgrimage” by Phil Coussineau. These books started to get me to think in different ways and help cause me to start viewing the world differently. In the woods you have a lot of time to contemplate the meanings and how they relate to ourselves.

"Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”

‘Every second of search is an encounter with God”, the boy told his heart. “When I have been truly searching for my treasure, everyday has been luminous, because I’ve known that every hour was a part of the dream that I would find it. When I have been truly searching for my treasure, I’ve discovered things along the way that I never would have seen had I not had the courage to try things that seemed impossible for a shepherd to achieve.”

~ Paulo Coelho

The time I realize the most how profoundly I had changed was when I arrived back at home in Chicago after finishing. While hiking I had sprouted dreads, lost tons of weight and no longer cared for the material experience. I returned to Chicago, a cold and gray city, full of folks that needed their SUVs to be cool, their plastic surgery to be happy with themselves… they equated their physical worth in terms of how much their house cost or the value of their car or how much something had cost. On the trail we shared what we had with those who needed. “reach out your hand if your cup is empty, if it’s full may it be full again.” In the materialistic world it was everyman women and child for themselves. No more selfless giving. No more sharing and really no more love and compassion, at least not in the magnitude of the trail experience. I worked the following winter at Eastern Mountain Sports in suburban Chicago. People actually came to the store only looking for Northface fleece jackets. I would tell them all fleece came from Malden Mills and are essentially the same. No they wanted the fleece that cost $160 instead of $30. Once a guy came in and said he wanted the most expensive Gore Tex jacket we had. He was playing golf with his buddies and had to one up another guy he played with. People harassed me because of my dreads… even when I helped them. I knew I no longer was of their world.

"These city walls, are like a prison. We got keep on living with our backs against the wall. We are creatures of love; victims of hate...Start living on a higher vibration. Perfection of divinity is everyone's duty. Don't waste your time, living for the vanities. We are creatures of faith; victims of destiny...which we created. Now we are living on a higher vibration."

~ Ziggy Marley

Now, many years have passed since my first hike in 2000. Many things have changed in the world. 9/11 occurred. Global Warming is threatening our very existence. I currently live in Mendocino County in California in a small hippie town called Philo. My county is one of the few counties in the country that is progressive in it’s thoughts about global warming, alternate energy, alternate lifestyles, etc. In this small corner of the world people really do care about one another. I could never live again in a “Shitty” as Peter Tosh would call them. The trail started me down the road to where I am bound. I have spent a lot of time reading Edward Abbey, Howard Zinn and others. I am working towards being a voice of positive change. I would never have been who I am today if it weren’t for the trail and all the wonderful people that reside in that community. As my friend and fellow hiker Pointman once said “everyone on the trail is just another best friend I haven’t met yet.”

Blessings and Love to One and All who allow Mother Nature to Awaken their inner selves…

One Love, Aswah and his Gold Pimp Boots!!!