My experience of Pennsylvania was like a crooked smile. Not that they were many smiles to be had. The southern part of the state was nice, then my experience steadily declined. It became lonely and difficult, by far the lowest point on the trail. Low yet meaningful. Then the final section recovered.
The struggles
One of Pennsylvania’s accumulating problems is that it’s boring. It’s the flattest state on the Appalachian Trail. Instead of peaks to climb and passes to pass through, there are dusty, rocky ridge walks. Instead of varied flora and destinations to anticipate, there is monotony. Increasingly, the trail surface offers the cruel monotony of jagged rocks. Rather than river cobbles, the rocks are pointy, leaving your feet in pain at the end of each day.
I enjoyed hiking with Stinger and Pig Pen during the first few lovely days in Pennsylvania. Then they headed on, and I got poison ivy as a replacement companion. It must’ve gotten on my clothes and from there, into my sleeping bag because for a couple weeks after the initial rash; a new little rash would pop up somewhere. Poison ivy rashes burn more than a mosquito bite and last longer.
I got into a poor routine of going to bed at dark, about 9 PM, at a random unestablished site, alone, then waking up later than others, hiking alone the following day. It started to feel less like solitude and more like loneliness. In the few towns, I sometimes counted more obnoxious Trump flags than American flags. It all felt rather depressing.
Embracing the discomfort
I desperately needed distraction. After finding positive distractions, these lonely miles became some of my favorite parts of the trail in retrospect. I started listening to Novo Amor, a band Spotify recommended that felt perfect for Pennsylvania. I rearranged my Spotify playlists, organizing each around a particular place, including songs that reflected how that place made me feel. I created albums for Monterey California, Joshua Tree, Copper Colorado, Williamstown Massachusetts, Bogus Basin Idaho and others. It was a lovely sonic introspection. Meanwhile, I challenged the way I look at the world. I read a number of audiobooks including Poverty by America, a new book by sociologist Matthew Desmond that argues poverty exists because of exploitation and challenges rich people to recognize our role in abetting poverty. I read The Color of Compromise, a book on the complicity of the US Christian church in racism against African-Americans. I also listened to an anthology of speeches from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. His language carried melancholy and authority, sanguinity and humility. He pressed for change, rooted in his reality – a reality brutal yet impossible.
I needed all three of these perspectives, and I could not process them in real time like How to be Perfect. These will take months or years for me to integrate into my thinking. But I’m grateful for the low point of Pennsylvania to press me into hearing these words, into opening myself to reality’s grimness and what to do about it. I actually feel more optimistic on the other side, recognizing how the world has changed with regard to race and with regard to the poor. I feel a greater compassion.
Three days before the end of Pennsylvania, I found a mother on mother’s day hiking a section. We camped at the same shelters for a few nights and hiked together in the day. Rapunzel is a Gen Xer, a sort of person I would rarely spend much time with in normal life. Out on the trail, we have much to talk about.
Late one evening, we lamented being still far from camp. Rapunzel searched Google Maps and came upon a restaurant in Wind Gap PA that allows hikers to camp out back. Enthused, we rushed there for a hot meal and a night tenting in town. The next day, the owner arrived early, making complimentary coffee for the hikers. He drive us in his personal car to the trailhead and handed us a Hershey’s bar on the way out. So grateful. I tried to imagine him serving hikers like that every day graciously. That was my last day in Pennsylvania and a confirmation that, through the kindness and companionship of others, things had turned around.
