Obstacles

MST Chapter 39

This is my serialized story of hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail (MST), a 1,175-mile route that crosses the state of North Carolina. I’m hiking west from Jockey’s Ridge near Nags Head on the Outer Banks of the Atlantic Ocean to Kuwohi (formerly Clingmans Dome) near the Tennessee border in the Great Smoky Mountains. If you’d like to start at the beginning of my story, click here.

What a picture! The surprise above is a Christmas gift I received from my daughter, Helen, and will be a permanent reminder of my route across North Carolina.

Currently, though, I am sitting in my house watching a January sky sleet outside. I have a fire in the fireplace and my dog Rosie is sleeping on the couch. With a cup of hot tea by my side, I can’t help but reflect on the status of my hike. My final 258 miles in the western part of the state remains impassable due to the lingering impact of Hurricane Helene, which devastated the region in late September, 2024.

The obstacles ahead—downed trees, mudslides, and washed out bridges—are a significant impediment to hiking the trail, but also a minor aspect of the destruction throughout the area. Roads have been washed away, towns flooded, businesses and homes destroyed, large swaths of people cut off or displaced.

Back in January of last year, I started my hike from where I had left off in Surf City, the trail’s final location on the eastern edge of North Carolina, and began my trek inward into the heart of the state, every month tackling a new segment of the 1,175 mile, 18-segment trail. Now, I am held up at Segment Four in the western mountains due to the destruction of Helene. Though parts of the Pisgah and Nantahala National Forests are open to hikers, the Mountains-to-Sea Trail remains closed. Maybe, at some point, we’ll see a new path emerge for the final four segments of my adventure—who knows!

The picture above is of me hiking in South Central Pennsylvania over the Thanksgiving holiday. My dog Rosie, daughter Helen, and sister-in-law and Camino hiking partner, Marlene Steinour, hiked with me on a seven-mile-loop in the Michaux State Forest. Though we were freezing cold and at times walked through driving sleet, we still enjoyed ourselves immensely. I realized, then, especially in recognizing the daunting obstacles ahead on the MST, I must take each hike for what it is.

I’m not getting any younger, though I truly hate to admit it.

In September, a week before Helene, I went into the medical clinic for my annual checkup. Having hiked every month of the year, my focus was not on my health but squarely on completing the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. However, shortly after my appointment, I received some disturbing news. A blood test indicated I had an elevated PSA, which, I was told, is an indication I might have prostate cancer. My physician referred me to the Oncology Department at the Duke University Medical Center where I took another PSA test and, in October, submitted to a finger test probing my prostate. Later, in early December, I took a biopsy of my prostate and, sure enough, when meeting with the oncologist, he confirmed their diagnosis.

I am still in the early stages of figuring out the obstacles ahead, so I don’t have too much to share at this point. I’ll take a PET Scan later this month to see if the cancer has spread beyond my prostate (fingers crossed it hasn’t) and then discuss next steps with my oncologist and, of course, my wife Karen. At this point, I feel normal and healthy and am moving forward, continuing to exercise every day at my workout gym (shout out to my Burn besties!) and looking into new hikes for the Spring (maybe even skipping segment 4 of the MST for now—the most impacted by Helene—and continuing on hiking segments 1-3 when they open).

Still, my daughter Helen, who is into holistic healing, is watching over my diet (eliminating simple sugars from my life and increasing my intake of fruits and cruciferous vegetables). I am lowering my weight for what lies ahead and have even completed a 111-hour water fast to enact a major reboot of my body which ostensibly cleaned out old, dead cells and activated my powerful stems cells to attack the cancer. I am now taking appropriate supplements, along with flax seeds, pumpkin seeds, and tomato sauce, paying much more attention to my sleep quality, educating myself on breathing, and have even enrolled in a 9-week class on meditation and stress management. We’ll see where all this leads me.

Like I said, I feel good and, in spite of my diagnosis, I’m looking forward and planning to thru-hike somewhere this spring. Hopefully parts of the MST.

So, turning my attention back to the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, I have signed up to volunteer on a trail crew in the western part of the state starting later this month and hope that this will result in an opportunity to help rebuild the trail. I’ll share much more on this once I drive out to where the trail crews are working. After nine months of hiking, I need to get out and experience the trail, especially where I have yet to hike, propelling myself forward both physically and mentally.

Hurricane Helene devastated the western part of the state and brought my hiking to a standstill—just when I found out about my prostate diagnosis. Both events stopped me in my tracks and both will be formidable obstacles to surmount, I am sure, but I am taking the necessary steps to prepare for such an undertaking.

A day after New Year’s Day I enjoyed a celebratory hike in Pennsylvania with Marlene, my intrepid sister-in-law, who had us scampering over crags of rocks on the White Rocks Trail. Now, looking back from the vantage of my toasty den here in North Carolina, climbing over those rocks feels like a metaphor for my year ahead—both in facing the challenges and seeking a sense of completion.

Now, as I sit here unsure how to bring this essay to a close, I decide to look up some quotes on overcoming adversity. Here’s three that I found:

"It's your reaction to adversity, not adversity itself that determines how your life's story will develop." – Dieter F. Uchtdorf

"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it." – Maya Angelou

I look ahead to the rest of 2025 with hope—as well as some trepidation and excitement—for the inward and outward adventures still to come, and, I must say, with some gratitude to be on this journey at all. I recognize, as my daughter says, that whatever obstacles we face in our lives, they “grow us in beautiful ways” too.

"Someone I once loved gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift." – Mary Oliver

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