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  CALLED AGAIN

  CALLED AGAIN

  A STORY

  of LOVE

  AND

  TRIUMPH

  •

  JENNIFER

  PHARR DAVIS

  Copyright © 2013 by Jennifer Pharr Davis

  FIRST EDITION

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Davis, Jennifer Pharr.

  Called again : a story of love and triumph / by Jennifer Pharr Davis.—

  First edition.

  pages cm

  ISBN 978-0-8253-0693-8 (hardcover : alk. paper)—

  ISBN 978-0-8253-0694-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)—

  ISBN 978-0-8253-0653-2 (ebook)

  1. Davis, Jennifer Pharr. 2. Hikers—United States—Biography. I. Title.

  GV199.92.D37A3 2013

  796.51092—dc23

  [B]

  2013002077

  For inquiries about volume orders, please contact:

  Beaufort Books

  27 West 20th Street, Suite 1102

  New York, NY 10011

  [email protected]

  Published in the United States by Beaufort Books

  www.beaufortbooks.com

  Distributed by Midpoint Trade Books

  www.midpointtrade.com

  Printed in the United States of America

  Interior design by Elyse Strongin, Neuwirth and Associates, Inc.

  Interior illustrations by James Pharr

  Cover image by code6/E+/getty images

  Design by Oliver Munday

  Lyrics from Mumford and Sons

  First to Him,

  Next to him,

  And then, these four women:

  Mom, Maureen, Meredith and Margot.

  • 1 •

  HEARTACHE

  JULY 2007

  When I was twenty-four years old, I learned that heartache is consuming. There was a pain in my chest, my body felt weak, and my bottom eyelids were a tired dam trying to hold back a river of tears.

  In June 2007, I was stuck in the thick, shoe-sucking mud of my own disappointment. I was ankle deep in despair, and I couldn’t move forward. The only thing that came easily was sleep. I retreated to that liberating darkness as often as I could. When I was forced to leave my bed and face the world, I struggled to keep my lips from trembling. My fake grin was like a small Band-Aid placed on a wound that was much too large to conceal.

  I had lost my first love.

  It didn’t make sense to me. We had found each other on the Appalachian Trail, and we had shared hundreds of miles that melded us together like the seam-seal glue on our backpacking gear. Over the past two years, we had hiked to the highest point in the lower forty-eight states, we had forded rivers with torrents of water that rose past our waists, we had crossed snowfields where only our ice axes prevented us from sliding to our deaths. If we could overcome all that, why couldn’t we overcome ourselves?

  In the midst of this pain, the only thing I wanted to do was return to the trail. The trail provided me with a purpose. It was a catharsis and it provided a way to move forward physically, even if my heart was held captive. And if miles were the best medicine, then I wanted to hike as far and as fast as possible.

  I needed guidance. I emailed the legendary hiker Warren Doyle for advice.

  Warren,

  I can’t believe where the trail has taken me since attending your Appalachian Trail Institute in 2004! It was great to see you briefly last summer on the Pacific Crest Trail. I don’t know if you heard, but I finished the 2,633-miles in late September. I have been able to thru-hike some other, shorter trails, and now I want to try a new challenge. This summer, I want to go back to the Appalachian Trail and try to see how fast I can hike it. I think that I could set the women’s record. I know you set a trail record in the 1970s. Do you have any suggestions for me?

  Thanks so much!

  Jen

  Warren quickly replied:

  Jen,

  Trail records are about endurance, not speed. Ifyou are interested in doing an endurance record, you should try for a record on a shorter trail and see if you like it before attempting it on a trail that is over 2,000 miles long. Are you currently in Virginia? I am traveling up I—81 this evening. We can meet at the gas station on your exit and have a planning session. I should be there at 12:30 AM.

  Warren

  Just before midnight, I started driving toward the interstate. I struggled to keep my eyes open. I knew from my previous interactions with Warren that his internal clock was different from most people’s. I respected that, but I couldn’t really relate to it. All my body had wanted to do for the past few weeks was sleep—especially in the middle of the night.

  When I arrived at the gas station, Warren was already there waiting for me. We each bought a large coffee and then sat down at a table to talk.

  “Why do you want to try a trail record?” he asked.

  Ugh, Warren and his questions! They were never about gear, or logistics, or a schedule. The first thing he always wanted to know was why. I knew I had to make it through this test before he would talk to me about hiking specifics. But how could this sixty-year-old man understand a twenty-four-year-old woman’s broken heart?

  I sighed deeply, staring at the steam rising from my coffee, then I began. “Well, I love thru-hiking, and now I’ve hiked over 6,000 miles on my own. So I want to try something different. Plus, I’m having a tough time right now, and I think going back to the trail and trying for a record would be healing.”

  “Healing?” Warren scoffed. “You think physically hurting and reaching new levels of discomfort is going to be healing?”

  The inquisition had begun.

  “Well, yeah,” I replied. “Emotionally, I have a lot of weight right now, and I know that the trail has a way of stripping off the excess layers of worry, fear, and even pain. I was hoping that a record attempt would help me get to a better place faster.”

  I looked up at Warren, expecting to see a frustrated sage trying to deal with a young woman’s melodrama. But when I caught his eye, I saw a friendly glimmer and a knowing smile on his face.

  “So this is really a conversation about lightweight backpacking?”

  “Well, yeah, I mean, most of my gear is lightweight,” I replied.

  “No, not your gear —your heart.”

  Warren spent the next hour telling me about how the trail had helped him through different joyous and painful milestones in his life. The trail helped him process his college graduation, the birth of his children, a divorce from his first wife, and a new marriage. He explained that every time he visited it, he was a new person, and even after forty years and over a dozen completions of it, he was still learning from each new day he spent out there.

  After he helped me understand the healing and reflective role that the Appalachian Trail had played in his life, Warren then looked me in the eyes and told me I should consider the Long Trail.

  The Long Trail is a two-hundred-seventy-two-mile footpath that runs the length of Vermont. It is the oldest long-distance trail in the country, and it contains some of the most tedious and difficult hiking terrain. I had heard enough about the Long Trail to know that it was composed more of roots and rocks than dirt. It contained numerous exposed summits that seemed to attract high winds and violent lightning storms, and some sections of forest were so dense that not even the sun could penetrate the trees. Plus, the remote northern portion
of the trail was isolated to the point that one simple mistake could have huge consequences. It sounded like it might be just what I needed.

  Warren took out a twenty-year-old guidebook and helped me plan an eight-day itinerary for the trail. Finally, I had a plan and a schedule. But before I could leave, Warren had one more thing to teach me.

  As we exited the gas station and headed to our cars, Warren turned to me and asked, “Do you know how to waltz?”

  “Waltz?!” I repeated. “I thought you were here to help me walk, not waltz.”

  “They’re very similar,” he replied.

  Warren put a tape in the cassette player of his rusted old car and turned up the volume. He walked over to me and bowed. Then, with the grace of an eighteenth-century English gentleman, he stretched out his hand. I put my fingers in his palm, and together, at three o’clock in the morning, we danced in the dark parking lot of a gas station off Interstate 81.

  My feet occasionally stumbled or stepped on Warren’s toes, even though I looked down and tried to will them in the right direction. But Warren softly instructed, “Look up. Listen to the melody. If you want to dance, then you can’t fight the music; you have to flow with it.”

  • 2 •

  THE LONG TRAIL

  AUGUST 2007

  One of the thru-hikers who finished the Appalachian Trail with me broke my heart; the other helped to mend it.

  On my way to Vermont, I stopped in Connecticut to see Mooch. After my first hike on the Appalachian Trail, I hadn’t expected to stay in such close contact with him (or to continue dating Nightwalker). But our experience had been so intense and our bond so unique that we couldn’t figure out how to move on without one another. Like me, Mooch had sworn off thru-hiking at the top of Katahdin. And like me, he had spent every summer since on a long-distance trail. In fact, he had completed the Long Trail just a few weeks prior to my visit.

  After ten hours of driving, I pulled into a driveway in Trum-bull, Connecticut. Mooch was sitting on the steps to his apartment. I was disappointed to see that he no longer had the long, curly hiker-hair or shaggy beard that he sported on the trail.

  As soon as I stepped out of the car, he walked over to me and engulfed me in his long, lean arms. He whispered into my ear, “Oh, Odyssa. Sweet, sweet Odyssa. It’s so good to see you.” He paused. “But you are a mess! You’re going through heartbreak, not a thru-hike. You know you can still take showers, right?”

  My friend laughed, grinning from ear to ear. I smiled too. I was pleased to see that Mooch still had the same kind spirit and offensive sense of humor that had made even the worst situations on the trail seem tolerable.

  Next, he lowered his nose to my synthetic tank-top and inhaled near the crook of my neck. “You know, dressing—and smelling—like you do on the trail isn’t going to bring Night-walker back. Come on, Odyssa. Let’s get you inside and under a showerhead.”

  I heard what Mooch was saying, and I appreciated the unique way that he was able to console my aching heart with criticism, but in that moment all I could think about was how nice it was to hear the name Odyssa. I missed trail names and the personas people took on when hiking. Odyssa embodied strength and adventure, the ability to overcome adversity. I felt that if Odyssa could overcome the challenges of the hike, if she could find a way to traverse the Long Trail in eight days, then Jen could somehow overcome her broken heart.

  That afternoon, after a much-needed shower, I sat in Mooch’s apartment going through my pack and separating my food into zipper-lock bags while Mooch sat on his couch humming and strumming his guitar.

  “So you really think you can finish the trail in eight days?” he asked indignantly.

  “Yeah, if things go well.”

  “Odyssa, you know it took me three and a half weeks to hike the Long Trail, and I was going at a solid pace. The northern half is as difficult as the Appalachian Trail in Maine and New Hampshire.” Then, prodding me, he continued, “I don’t think you can do it.”

  I looked up at Mooch and saw a smile reaching almost to the bottom of his ears. He knew me well enough to know that being told I couldn’t do something was the best motivation I could receive.

  The next morning, after cooking me a large hiker breakfast of eggs, pancakes, and bacon, Mooch drove me to the Vermont-Massachusetts border and the southern terminus of the Long Trail. When we arrived at the trailhead, the last thing I wanted to do was get out of my friend’s air-conditioned car and step into the late-summer heat wave. I should not have hesitated. It was like looking off a bridge before BASE jumping.

  Suddenly, none of this made sense. How was hiking a difficult trail with an impossible goal going to solve anything? I didn’t want to face my problems or the trail. All I wanted was to go back home, back to my bed, and sleep.

  Mooch looked over at me, reading the doubt in my eyes, and quickly responded, “Oh no you don’t.”

  He got out of the car, removed my pack from the trunk, and then walked around to the passenger door. In a last-ditch effort, I tried to push the lock button, but it was too late. Mooch lifted the outside handle and the warm blanket of humidity wrapped around my body.

  My friend reached in and grabbed my elbow to help me out of the car. “Remember, this is what you wanted,” he said. “Plus, I like to see you suffer. So c’mon, out we go.”

  With a little more pulling and prodding, I climbed out. Mooch hoisted my green backpack—filled with gear and several days’ worth of food—onto my shoulders. I tightened the straps around my chest and the buckles around my waist and gave Mooch one last long, wistful hug. Then, just like the day before, he whispered softly in my ear, “It’s time. Let go.”

  So I did. I let go and started slowly up the hard-packed dirt trail littered with worn gray rocks and surrounded by verdant outstretched arms of mountain laurel. Within seconds, the thick green tunnel hid Mooch, and I was on my own.

  I took one step after another. My breathing fell into a rhythm, and after hiking a mile, all of the anxiety that I had experienced at the car vanished. I felt better than I had in weeks. I felt at home.

  My euphoric return to the trail lasted all of seventeen hours. After leaving Mooch and camping at the border, I began my trek the next morning at six a.m. and hiked forty-six miles that day. Forty-six miles! It was the farthest that I had ever traveled by foot in a twenty-four-hour period.

  During the morning, I felt light and the miles passed quickly. By the afternoon, my legs started to stiffen and my pace decreased. And as the daylight turned to dusk, my shoulders ached, my hips were sore from my pack weight, and the lower half of my body cried out with pain and fatigue. My skin was cold to the touch and my stomach was empty. Even my brain felt tired. As simple as walking was, it was hard to focus on putting one foot in front of the other for sixteen straight hours.

  But I didn’t feel completely horrible because my chest felt warm and full. I was proud of coming so far in such a short amount of time. I had made it to the north side of Stratton Mountain, and now the disappearing sun and my exhausted legs told me it was time to find a camping spot.

  As the forest faded into darkness, I continued to walk, searching for a flat spot to lie down. But I was not paying attention to the path in front of me, and as a result, I stepped on a large, loose rock. The stone rolled out from under me, and my left leg twisted as I fell.

  My first response was to get up as quickly as possible. I never liked to assess injuries sitting down because things always seemed worse from the ground perspective. If I could self-diagnose while standing or walking, then the prognosis was never as bleak. I put most of my weight on my hands and unfolded my lower limb as if I were trying to come out of a difficult yoga pose. Then I transitioned back to a Homo erectus stance. My knee was sore but steady, and everything seemed to be okay. I took a few more steps to rebuild my confidence and loosen my knee, then I found a place where the shoulder of the trail was wide. I unrolled the light foam pad and unpacked my thin down sleeping bag.

&n
bsp; I crawled inside my bed and took a brief moment to look up at the stars. It was a very comforting scene. The twinkling lights were far more magical and hopeful than the pale white ceiling of my bedroom.

  When I awoke the next morning, I knew even before I sat up that my left knee was not okay. It felt hot and stiff, and I was barely able to contort it to get out of my narrow sleeping bag.

  When my kneecap came into view, it was swollen and pink. I poked at the bulging flesh with my finger. It now looked and felt like a serious injury, and based on previous ailments that I had incurred on the trail, I realized that there was only one cure: I had to keep hiking.

  While doctors recommend rest, ice, compression, and elevation, I knew that increased circulation, a large range of motion, and gritted teeth had fixed many of my trail injuries in the past. The pain might increase before my knee felt better, but that was part of the healing process.

  I reached for my shoes and carefully placed my left foot into the sneaker, but something inside didn’t feel right. I figured it must be from the altered state of my knee, and I reached for my other shoe. Then I noticed something orange underneath the tongue. I looked closer and spotted a pinky-sized slug adhered to it.

  “Uck.” I picked off the slug and hurled it onto a nearby tree. Then I reached into the toe-bed and found two more slimy creatures. Chills went down my spine as I unlatched them and flung them into the woods. I was not scared of slugs, but I didn’t care to handle them, especially first thing in the morning. I put my shoe on and started to stand up when an unpleasant thought crossed my mind.

  “Nooo!” I took off my other shoe, and just as I had suspected, my sock was completely covered in opaque orange goo. Judging from the high concentration of gunk, there had been at least as many slugs in my left shoe as in my right—and none of them had survived.

  That morning was miserable. Every other step hurt, and walking on uneven terrain intensified the pain. During a treacherous descent down a boulder field, I placed my hands on two neighboring rocks to brace my step, and as I eased my foot down into a small crevice, I felt something bite my ankle. I looked down and saw a large yellow jacket. Suddenly, I was overcome with adrenaline, and I ran the next forty yards down the trail.