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Karen Kays photo
Out-Hiking the Clouds
An enormous flame azalea towers over me as I hike.
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Holly Kays photo
Out-Hiking the Clouds
The sun came out to stay on our last day in the woods.
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Holly Kays photo
Out-Hiking the Clouds
A skullcap flower blooms alongside the trail.
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Karen Kays photo
Out-Hiking the Clouds
Mom and I smile after reaching our first campsite.
Somewhere around the time winter was surrendering to spring, my mom sent me an unusual text message.
“I have a proposition for you,” she wrote. “I’ll tell you the next time we talk.”
It turned out that my mom wanted to go backpacking, and she wanted me to go with her.
And so, on a cloudy Friday afternoon in June, we met up at a gas station outside Dublin, Virginia—roughly a four-hour drive for each of us—and headed out to the nearby Appalachian Trail. We’d planned a two-night shuttle trip, leaving Mom’s car at a road crossing 2.3 miles before the second shelter. We’d have to pass it on our second day of hiking, then double back the next morning. Mom had much more lifetime backpacking experience than me, but it had been a while, and her knee occasionally gave her trouble—it seemed smart to have the option of bailing early, should the situation warrant it.
I parked my car at our starting point, a muddy pull-off for a side trail that would meet the A.T. in a mile or so. I was excited to be on the adventure, walking through rhododendron tunnels and woodlands dotted with flame azaleas in full bloom. But the skies were gloomy, the air so damp it seemed like I should be able to wring it into my water bottle. Rain was on the way, but we were already wet with sweat.
We reached the shelter just in time. We’d barely unclipped our backpacks when the skies opened, battering the forest floor with aggressive streams of water. There was nothing to do except cluster under the roof with the other A.T. hikers, attempting conversation and then giving up when it became clear that they preferred to play games on their phones in silence.
The rain stopped long enough for us to set up our tent and make some dinner, but it poured down later while I tromped through the woods in search of a bear bag hang. My aging raincoat was soaked through by the time I returned to the tent, where the barrage would continue off and on all night. By the time we woke up, the steady pounding of rain on nylon had shifted to the intermittent splat of drops falling from wet branches overhead. That was the signal to get up and pack the tent—with 9.5 miles before the next campsite, we wanted to take advantage of every non-rainy moment granted us.
The heavy, heaving skies of the previous afternoon were gone, but shafts of sunlight traded off with livid rain clouds all day, forcing us to stop and pull ponchos over our heads and packs—my raincoat was still wet—every time a storm rolled through. The thin plastic kept us from getting soaked, but it definitely didn’t keep us dry. By the time we reached Mom’s car, the only dry clothing left was the change of clothes we’d each stashed in the vehicle.
Just as we popped the trunk, another rainstorm rolled through. We sat inside, munching on trail mix and debating whether to continue toward the shelter or to find a nice, dry hotel instead. Even the thru-hikers were bailing—they were all headed for a hiker hostel half a mile down the road.
The hotel idea was tempting. We were tired of being wet, Mom’s knee was bothering her, and a plastic piece in my backpack’s spine had snapped, rendering the waist belt useless. But it was also June in the mountains, and we’d come to immerse ourselves in the season’s ephemeral beauty. We weren’t quite ready to leave.
With adventures like this, half the experience depends on the enthusiasm you bring to the table, and my mom is as enthusiastic as me—OK, probably more so—when it comes to appreciating the beauty of a forest floor covered with pink rhododendron petals, learning the name of a new flower, or celebrating the sight of an unusually large American chestnut sapling, not yet succumbed to the blight that eventually claims them all.
We decided to go for it. Down to a sports bra and pair of quick-drying athletic shorts—the wet pack would have dampened my only dry shirt—I strapped on my backpack and retied the string I was using to jerry rig a fix for the broken spine. We were exhausted by the time we arrived at the Doc Knob Shelter, but also immediately glad that we’d pressed on. It was by far the nicest A.T. shelter we’d ever seen, boasting a deck with built-in benches overlooking a camping area ending in a tangle of rhododendron. As most hikers had stopped off at the hostel, the only people there were a pair of friendly retired guys on a years-long mission to section-hike the trail together.
Unlike the hikers we’d encountered at the last shelter, these guys were more than happy to chit-chat—and were also gifted fire-builders. Despite the pervasive dampness, they managed to get a pleasant campfire crackling as the sun burned low through the trees, bright in the now-clear sky. I turned to Mom, and we agreed—we were glad we’d stayed long enough to watch the clouds disappear.