Update on Me, My Dog, and the Trail

MST. Chapter 42

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.

See the Mountains-to-Sea map at the bottom for reference.

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Too much time passing.

The radical prostatectomy I underwent in mid-February is now four months behind me. My dog just turned thirteen and, in calculating her age in dog-years, I discovered we’re about the same. We look like two old hikers and, I guess, we are.

I don’t know if I am fully recovered from my surgery, but I’ve gained ten pounds in the meantime and realize I need to get back down to my thru-hiking weight.

What I really should do is to hike a trail and test myself: my resilience, strength (especially my core muscles), and stamina. I guess, more than anything, I am desperate for a strong dose of “hikers mindset.” Too many months of dwelling on cancer, treatments, and various rates of mortality.

Besides, any trail is more interesting than worrying about my health!

Soooo…

A weekend vacation in mid-May hiking in Maryland proved to be exactly the prescription I needed. A seven-mile hike above Gaithersburg on Sugarloaf Mountain and a six-mile jaunt in the Catoctin Mountains near Pennsylvania couldn’t have been more perfect. My body clicked with old memories of hiking and my mental state long after I had stopped continued to say go, go, go.

I came home to North Carolina psyched to get back on the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. After all, I had only two hundred-and-fifty miles to finish before I could say I walked the entire length of the trail from Jockey’s Ridge on the Outer Banks to Kuwohi (formerly Clingman’s Dome), the final mountain on the border of Tennessee.

BUT my story truly has become a melodrama.

You may recall, I was forced off the trail at the end of last September due to the impact of Hurricane Helene. I had just completed Segment Five walking from east to west and had only four more segments to reach the top of Kuwohi. In other words, of the eighteen segments of this trail listed on the Mountains-to-Sea website, I had completed fourteen in reverse succession when the hurricane hit.

Ginger, my hiking friend from the gym, joined me for the final day of Segment Five as we hiked past the beautiful vista of Grandfather Mountain. Two weeks later my plan was to undertake Segment Four, which consisted of entering the Pisgah National Forest at Beacon Heights (once again by myself) and working my way past the scenic Linville Falls before ending five days later at the Black Mountain Campground approximately seventy-seven miles away.

Unfortunately, the week I decided to tackle this remote but beautiful trek, Hurricane Helene zeroed in on the area. The hurricane took a devastating toll: roads, businesses, and homes, alike, were destroyed, and, in terms of the trail, more than three hundred miles through the mountains of North Carolina became impassable overnight due to trees down, significant mud slides, bridges washed away, and access roads demolished.

As a double whammy, shortly thereafter, in early October, after my yearly physical, I was diagnosed with prostate cancer.

Now nine months (and one cut out prostate) later, I have recovered from the surgery, but only seventy percent of the trail in Western North Carolina is open to hikers. Fortunately, for me, most of the trail comprising Segment Four has been restored thanks to the U.S. Forest Service and many volunteers. Still, the traditional end point for this segment, the Black Mountain Campground, has been washed away. In truth, I am told, the trail remains closed nearly eight miles before I could get to this spot.

Segment Three, which swings south around Asheville,NC and includes the hike over Mount Mitchell, the tallest mountain east of the Mississippi River, also is closed (for the most part) with fifty-five miles of trail destroyed. One estimate is that the route through this area will not open for several years. That said, the pressure is on to reopen the popular Mount Mitchell State Park. Perhaps hiking parts of Segment Three, especially in that area, will be possible as an “out-and-back” activity this fall.

On a more positive note, Segments One and Two are almost entirely open, as of this writing. This entails heading west past Asheville into the Great Smoky Mountains. Or, perhaps, reversing course: hiking Segments One then Two before assessing where things stand with Segment Three and the western end of Segment Four.

No matter which way I go, instead of the two hundred-and-fifty miles remaining of my adventure, maybe less than one hundred-and-eighty miles are actually doable.

How hard can one hundred-and-eighty miles be?

This picture captures the start of my recovery in April. After six weeks, I returned to my gym, and with eighteen classes to reach fifty “camps” for the year, I achieved this milestone before the month was out. Now I’ll soon be at one hundred sessions. To me, the key to thru-hiking in the North Carolina mountains is to build muscle, strengthen my core, which took a significant hit due to the surgery, and lose weight. The five-inch scar below my belly button is a visual reminder of these critical objectives.

However, with cancer, nothing is ever one-and-done. In early June I met the surgeon for follow-up tests and, subsequently, was told the cancer cells may not have been completely removed with the surgery. Some of these cells may be in my lymph nodes.

It is anyone guess as to what happens next as I prepare to for another PET scan to determine where the cancer has spread.

I know this: I have approximately twelve days of hiking to complete the MST in its current status. This may change with the coming fall (as more of the trail opens) but for now one hundred-and-eighty miles is my goal. Twelve days if I can maintain a pace of fifteen miles-a-day.

This won’t be easy, I suspect, hiking through the mountains of Western Carolina, but I am ready to meet this challenge and bring this hike to its natural conclusion—especially before the toll of possible radiation treatments and hormone therapy.

My dog Rosie, an incredible hiking dog who got me back out on the trail so many years ago, is finally slowing down. I love her to death. Maybe it’s time for me to slow down too. Maybe. Maybe soon. Maybe later. But not just yet.

Mountains-to-Sea Trail. I am currently on hold due to my prostate cancer diagnosis and the impact of Hurricane Helene on the trail. I am hiking from east to west and am in the mountains at the beginning of Segment Four.