The Pilgrim Meets an Old Friend

MST Chapter 35, Segment 5

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 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. 

See the Mountains-to-Sea map below for reference.

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Hiking to see an old friend is a first on this—should I say… pilgrimage? No, it’s not so much a pilgrimage as opposed to a journey—especially if one looks at “pilgrimage” as “a quest in search of something, if only one’s own transformation.” This is according to a book I am carrying on the history of walking. Written by a Rebecca Solnit and titled Wanderlust, this book has been an enjoyable addition to my pack and on some nights I am even awake long enough to enjoy a page or two.

For sure, in terms of transformations, I am slowly transforming into a more experienced backpacker—albeit, learning from mistake after mistake—and, like a pilgrimage, my journey is indeed “a journey toward a goal,” (I know Clingmans Dome is out there somewhere), but where I have worked to make my nine hundred miles (so far) more comfortable—like leaving unnecessary items at home and buying better shoes, hiking poles, and a sleeping quilt—true pilgrims, I read, often make their journeys harder—such as walking barefoot or placing stones in their shoes.

I read of an extreme pilgrimage in Tibet which has captured my attention as I hike the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. “These devout and simple people [of Tibet]” Solnit writes, “travel sometimes two thousand miles, from China to Mongolia, and cover every inch of the way by measuring their length on the ground…. They prostrate themselves on their faces, marking the soil with their fingers a little beyond their heads, arise and bring their toes to the mark they have made and fall again, stretched full length on the ground, their arms extended, muttering an already million-times-repeated prayer.” Now that’s a pilgrimage!

Okay, it’s not for everyone and certainly not me. Though I have NOT accepted any rides to shorten my journey and have walked almost the entire distance by where I stop each day being where I start when I am next on the trail. I cannot imagine, though, prostrating myself in this endeavor—not on the sixty-five miles of North Carolina’s beaches on the Outer Banks, not in the eastern Croatan National Forest, not through the Holly Shelter or Suggs Mill Pond Game Lands heading inland, nor around Raleigh on the Neuse River Greenway; not along the miles of Falls Lake up to the Eno River or traveling beside the Haw River, not past the Townsend Reservoir above Greensboro, nor even climbing the Window Falls Trail at Hanging Rock—or the many hours walking over Pilot Mountain and Stone Mountain and through the Yadkin Valley—now, even here, hiking my way in the woods along the Blue Ridge Parkway. My journey, nonetheless, has been an eye-opening transformation. A pilgrim I may or may not be, but I recognize I am one lucky person to be on this incredible journey. I have had the opportunity to meet an amazing number of people and benefit from their kindness, I have come to see how beautiful North Carolina is, how precious our time is, and how important, no matter how hard it gets, to stay true to one’s dreams.

I am, after all, only a lowly backpacker—but the prospect of walking for miles down a remote road or on a thin trail in a thick forest has been incredibly transformational.

Today’s hike starts at the Freeborne Motel just off the Blue Ridge Parkway. My goal is to walk eleven miles on the MST to the tiny town of Glendale Springs, which I hope to complete by noon. When I get there, a friend I worked with before I retired will pick me up and take me to her family’s summer cabin in the nearby mountains. It’s taking time off, I realize, but I am ready for an afternoon free of the trail.

First, though, the MST takes me up onto the Parkway, and then, shortly thereafter, I follow the trail down a hillside off the Parkway while still paralleling the road heading south. A short while later I pass a new bridge being constructed on the Parkway and am amazed at the impressive structure being assembled in where I thought was the middle of nowhere. The trail leads me past the construction and back up beside the Parkway where my walk continues.

This segment of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail stays true to the Blue Ridge Parkway. I am either in the woods on one side of the road or the other—above the Parkway or below, and, unfortunately, the sound of cars driving the Parkway never gets far from my hearing. Though I didn’t realize I would be hiking so close to the Parkway, I must admit the views are spectacular.

By mid-day I am in Glendale Springs and about a half mile off the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. I mark the location of where I need to start when I come back to the Trail and walk up to the historic inn to call my friend Jennifer. Sitting down, waiting to be picked up, I realize with the tiredness of hiking in the mountains for three-and-a-half days, I could easily spend the afternoon on the front porch watching the world go by.

Meeting up with Jennifer, though, is wonderful. She picks me up in her Prius and it’s off to her family’s cabin, which, she tells me, is being renovated. Jennifer’s husband is building a new covered deck along the entrance side of the cabin, so boards and power saws surround the construction near the doorway. Yet, inside, I discover the cabin is steeped in comfort. It looks like it has been an integral part of many summer gatherings with her children and her husband’s family.

Being with Jennifer again, though, is interesting. We haven’t spent much time together since I retired from the non-profit where we both worked and certainly no time where we were alone. Five years ago a new CEO decided to bring into the company her own management team. She gave me the option to retire at the end of our fiscal year, and, as I was turning sixty-five, I took her up on the deal, while watching the rest of the senior directors one by one be let go—everyone except Jennifer who was not asked to leave and still remains part of the company. That summer, only a year or so into her tenure, the new CEO was fired by the Board of Directors. For for many of us, though, the die had been cast.

That afternoon sitting in Jennifer’s kitchen drinking hot coffee and eating chips and salsa, we talk about those days and what our perspectives were back when we were in the throes of it all. Now, beginning my sixth year of retirement, we agree this is a funny conversation to have, especially while I’m hiking the Mountains-to-Sea Trail.

Back in the spring when Jennifer realized I was hiking the MST and knowing it went through Glendale Springs, she made such a point to open up her cabin for me, I couldn’t refuse her even if I wanted to—which I didn’t. When I agree to stay there, she then, drove nearly three hours to the cabin to welcome me. Our conversation, though, is not so much on my travels, but rather the much needed discussion we had to have to resolve a period of turmoil we both experienced. For me, it turns out, it’s a critical step to dispelling a deep pocket of anger I didn’t realize I have been carrying.

Two years ago, when I walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain, Marlene, my sister-in-law, insisted I come up with a word to help define my pilgrimage. I chose “serenity”—after all, I wanted to bring serenity into my life—to accept what is and to live in the present—not focused on what has happened in the past nor worry about the future. Rather, I would train myself to spend more and more of my time in a state of serenity.

As much as I hated how my career ended with the new CEO ushering in her own team, I realize I gained in the closure of that chapter wonderful gifts too—a border collie who loved to hike, a five-hundred mile pilgrimage on the Camino, and a new chapter of my life attempting the 1,175 mile Mountains-to-Sea Trail.

For me, the Camino was defined by finding the serenity, or tranquility, for which I had been meditating over many miles. The Mountains-to-Sea Trail, in turn, has been transformative. Walking alone for hours on end and dealing with the issues I have had to face has enabled me to gain confidence in myself, another degree of serenity.

The afternoon ends with me sitting in an easy wicker chair on another part of the porch while contemplating the surrounding mountains as Jennifer makes a wonderful dinner. Afterwards, we watch some television, but I am tired and soon off to bed.

Sunday morning I meet Jennifer in the kitchen who is already preparing a great breakfast. The coffee and the vegan sweet potato casserole is a perfect way to get the day started. Soon, in fact, she is driving me off the mountain and back to Elkin to pick up my car in the parking lot near the police station.

I thank Jennifer for going so far out of her way and am at peace with where I am—not only in crossing Stone Mountain and climbing into the Blue Ridge Mountains, not only in viewing the endless mountains before me in the Doughton Recreational Area, and in meeting Denyse at the cafe, Shake and Bake at Freeborne’s Restaurant, and lovely Jennifer who brought me to her family’s cabin and helped me find resolution—all of which is very satisfying, even for a lowly pilgrim in the midst of a long hike. I may not lie prostrate as I strive for a permanent transformation, but I am here now and alive.

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Map of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail: this post focuses on Segment 5