Hiing the Appalachian Trail

I had planned this trek along a part of the Appalachian Trail for a while now, since February, and my girlfriend Renee and I were looking forward to it. I was taking part of my annual leave -- soldiers get 30 days leave a year -- in the middle of June, and Renee was able to get off two weeks herself. Not knowing if my Army boots were really good for the trail -- the trail in Pennsylvania is very rocky, and has a reputation for tearing even good boots to shreds -- we both bought new boots in May, and got them broken in before the planned trip. I had a top-notch backpack, and being a lot bigger than my girlfriend, I was going to be the one carrying the tent. It wasn't terribly large, but would work just fine for two people who were willing to get close. I had freeze-dried goodies and some trail mix, and one of my Army buddies was going to drop us off at the rest area just into Jersey on I-80; the Trail ran from there, across the I-80 bridge, and then, passing through a small town, up into the mountains in Pennsylvania.

Then, a week before we were scheduled to go, Renee hooked up with an old boyfriend, and decided that she'd rather stay with said old boyfriend than keep going with me. I was so much in love with her that I'd have forgiven the indiscretion if she came back to me, but she didn't, and that was the luckier thing for me.

Well, what the Hell was I going to do now?

Fuck it, I was going hiking anyway! I had my leave, and what else was I going to do, hole up at Tobyhanna Army Depot (where I was stationed) for my leave?

I thought about asking one of my buddies if he wanted to go hiking, but an old adage kept popping into my mind: you don't go hiking with your friends, you go hiking with your girlfriend! There were a couple of cute women stationed at Tobyhanna, but one was married and the other was an officer, and sergeants do not ask out captains.

So, the day before my leave, I got my gear ready and confirmed with my buddy Darrin that yes, I was still going, by myself. I made sure that my old flip phone was fully charged, but shut it off to conserve battery power. I wasn't planning on calling anyone, and I'm sure there'd be a lot of no-service areas along the Trail, but this was for any emergency.

The forecast was OK, sort of. It was supposed to be sunny and in the low 70s Thursday, the day I started, but there was a chance of light rain on Friday. After that, partly cloudy, and lower 70s, so that'd be good hiking weather.

Darrin dropped me off, and, after a quick pit stop in the rest area bathroom -- might as well start with an empty bladder! -- it was off to the Trail.

Actually, I was on the Trail itself taking the pedestrian walkway on the I-80 bridge crossing the Delaware River at the Water Gap. The Trail is marked with white paint strips, and even though I had a map, the way was marked through the small town, and I wouldn't have gotten lost. The entire Trail is marked, through the woods, with white paint strips, not so big as to be too ugly, but enough to keep hikers from getting lost, as long as they weren't stupid. Best way to describe them is vertical, about the size of two beer cans stacked up.

Once out of the town, the Trail starts to climb, and less than two miles in, the Trail summits Mt Minsi, at 1461 feet. Parts of that climb are steep, and I went through a bottle of water making it. It was then that I heard her, a woman slightly sobbing, about twenty yards off to the side of the Trail.

She was there, alone, and I was a bit hesitant to go up to her, in that she might be worried about a strange, single man out on the Trail, with no one around for help. But she was crying, and I had no idea in what kind of distress she might be.

Anyway, I turned toward her, and announced my presence while still a good way from her. "Miss, are you OK?"

She looked over at me, still with tears in her eyes, but ready to protect herself: she pulled out a Model 1911 Colt .45!

"

Whoa

, miss, I'm not going to hurt you," I said, still ten yards away. "I just heard you crying, and wanted to make sure that you weren't hurt or anything."

She still didn't say anything, but just looked me up-and-down, I suppose trying to figure out if I was a decent fellow who really was concerned, or a closet rapist-in-the-woods. "I'm Gabe, Gabriel Giffords, and I'm just hiking through, heading South." I extended my hand, even though I was still too far away to shake hands.

The girl, woman really, stood up, and still said nothing, looking for whatever signs there were which might tell her that I was no threat. With that .45 pointed at me, I was certainly no threat to her, but I'm familiar enough with weapons to spot that she wasn't that much of a threat to me. A .45 has a heck of a kick, and she was pointing it at me, holding it too loosely on just one hand; if I was an assailant, she'd probably miss with her first shot, and never be able to recover her aim to get off a second.

A Model 1911 isn't exactly the handgun I would take into the woods with me anyway: on the Appalachian Trail, every pound you are carrying counts, and even unloaded, it weighs 2 lb, 7 oz. With a full magazine, you're talking three pounds. It has tremendous stopping power if you hit your target, but it's a poor weapon on which to depend if you miss.

Another few second passed, in uncomfortable silence, and I was just about to turn away and leave her to her own devices, when she finally said, simply and kind of quietly, "Marsha."

"OK, hi, Marsha. Are you OK?"

She just looked at me, looking like she was struggling to answer, and I realized that, even if she said she was alright, she wasn't. I didn't see any obvious injuries on her, but who knows how she might have been hurt in a way I couldn't see.

This area of Pennsylvania was very rocky, and Marsha had been sitting on a rock; once she lowered her weapon, I took off my pack, and sat down on another one, across from her. She still wasn't saying anything. "Look, Marsha, I can see that you're hurting somehow. What can I do to help?"

By now, I was looking at her very closely. She was wearing denim shorts, and she hadn't shaved her legs in months. Her boots looked to be in decent shape, and it didn't look like she'd injured an ankle or something on this rough part of the trail. A dark blue Penn State t-shirt and a Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs baseball cap completed her outfit. Her backpack was laying on the ground; it was an older, smaller one than mine, and I wasn't sure that she had room in there for a tent. If she had come from the same direction I had, I guess that she'd sort of washed up at the rest area, but her clothes looked like they'd been worn for more than a couple of days. Her hair was cut short, and didn't look too dirty, but part of it was concealed by the ball cap. She wasn't overweight at all, but certainly no skinny-minnie: she was tall, maybe 5'9 or 5'10, and she looked physically strong. She wasn't beautiful, but still a bit cuter than average.

Then she looked up at me. Oh, man, she had the bluest eyes I have ever seen, eyes a man could drown in. They were still overmoist, as she had been blinking back tears, and she had the saddest expression I've ever seen on her face. "You want to help me? I'm a complete stranger to you," she managed to choke out, struggling to maintain control.

"Yeah, you're a stranger, but so what? You're obviously hurting somehow, and I can't just leave you here in whatever pain you're suffering." Marsha was looking at me, though I don't know how well she could see me through those wet eyes. For a second, her expression changed, to a wide-eyed look, and then she just threw herself on me, wailing "Donna's gone!"

Who was Donna? Well, there was no getting any answers out of her right now, because she was bawling her eyes out, sobbing if not quite hysterically, still uncontrollably, and I knew that she needed to cry out whatever pain she had in her, just to get it out to settle down.

We had been sitting down when Marsha threw herself at me, so we were both on our knees, in the rough dirt, with Marsha holding on to me; the small rock chips and hard grains must be hurting her bare knees, because they sure weren't doing mine any favors. Finally we kind of edged over to one side, my left, her right, leaving us a bit more comfortable, sitting down rather than kneeling, with her arms still around me, her face buried in my chest, as I held her as closely as I reasonably could to reassure her -- of what, I don't know -- without it being sexual. Not a soul had passed this point on the Trail since I had gotten here.

Who was Donna, I kept wondering. A daughter, maybe, or a sister? Possibly a girlfriend, it occurred to me, thinking back on her unshaven legs. I guessed that she'd tell me after she settled down.

Of course, with that .45, I had to consider the possibility that whomever Donna was, Marsha had killed her. I tried not to think about that too much.

Eventually, she calmed down enough -- possibly after just plain running out of tears -- and she untangled herself from me. I pulled a water bottle out from a side-pouch of my backpack and offered it to her, and all of a sudden, her eyes lit up, in genuine appreciation. She took a long drink, and then another, before handing it back to me in an obvious share-the-water motion. She almost whispered, "Thank you," to me, but her gratitude was as much in her eyes as verbal.

"You hungry?" I asked, trying to sound both sympathetic and respectful. Marsha replied silently, with a nod, and what I guess was as much of a smile as she could muster right now. I got a couple of granola bars out of my pack, good trail food for quick energy.

It was amazing how much time had passed! I had planned on making this 15.8 mile stretch of the Trail in one day -- although I had figured two days with Renee -- but I wasn't even two miles into the trail when I encountered Marsha. Camping out was part of my plans anyway, but I didn't know what Marsha had in mind, if she had anything at all in mind.

Finally, we stood up, brushing the dirt off of our legs and shorts. "I'm heading South, if you'd like to hike with me," I said. I didn't know if she was headed South or North, though, this time of year, a full Trail hiker would more probably be headed North; heading South would put a hiker in Georgia at the tail end of August! If she had said she was heading North, I'm not sure what I would have done, because I would have been really uncomfortable at the thought of letting her go on alone.

"I'm going South," she said, kind of quietly.

"I guess you realize that we'll never make Wind Gap before dark, and we'll have to camp out." I wanted to make that perfectly clear to her, before we started out; if that idea would bother her, well, she was only a hour away from the (relative) safety at the Delaware Water Gap.

"I was camping out, so that's fine." Her voice got a bit stronger.

Coming down from Mt Minsi was easier than climbing it, but my map indicated that there was a rocky climb again in about three miles. The Trail is slow going in this part of Pennsylvania, with a lot of uneven ground and rock. There weren't many places where two people could hike side-by-side, so I was usually leading. I kept glancing back, to make sure that I wasn't leaving Marsha behind, but, like I said, she's a physically strong woman, and was keeping up with me.

I guess that it was around 7:30 when the ground started to rise again at Tott's Gap. There was a bit more dirt, and fewer rocks, so I suggested that we could find a decent place to camp a couple dozen yards off the Trail. I wasn't sure how she'd react to that idea, but she took it perfectly normally. We headed off to the left, and got lucky: there was a good circle of rocks where a previous hiker or three had established a safe camp fire, with a pile of dirt beside it to smother out any flames. (There isn't a lot of open water in this section of the trail.) I took off my pack, and gathered some decent kindling for a small fire, and found a couple of bigger branches which might do. I had these waxed fire starter squares, which make getting a campfire going a lot easier than Dan'l Boone ever had it.

I heated up some freeze-dried trail food, with water; Marsha had a couple of sandwiches packed, but that was it, so I offered to share what I had.

The campsite was big enough for two tents, which I thought was a good thing, when I realized that Marsha didn't have a tent. Instead, she had this blue, very light tarp, that she could put up to keep any rain and dew off of her, but was open on all four sides, and she just slept on the ground in her sleeping bag. I suppose that worked, and was certainly a lot lighter to carry than my tent, though it occurred to me that bugs would be an issue.

This was actually going nicely. Once she had some work to do, I guess that it took her mind away from whatever problem she had. I didn't say anything about my concern about her sleeping out in the open, because I figured that she knew what she was doing, and suggesting that there was room for her in my tent might be seen as me trying to take advantage of her. The most I got out was, "If it starts to rain, it'll be drier inside the tent." That way, I couched the offer in terms of come on in if it starts to get wet, without it seeming like I was making a pass at her.

But making a pass at her was nothing to which I'd object! Marsha was growing on me, steadily and quickly. Once she got over her emotional release, she showed herself to be as strong as she looked, which I really liked. She was cute, sure enough, and she had these marvelous blue eyes. Her voice was a bit deeper than most women's, but still pleasant to hear. For as little as she talked, she still seemed fairly smart, which I also liked, and she wasn't afraid to get her hands dirty with a little work. I wasn't used to a woman with hairy legs, but if she had started at the beginning of the Trail, in Maine, it might simply be that she only stopped shaving when she started the hike.

We were both pretty tired, even though the sun doesn't set until around 8:30 here this time of the year. I had my tent erected, and my sleeping bag rolled out, with plenty of room for my pack inside. This was when I regretted losing Renee the most, because I had planned on the two of us sharing the tent.

And then, I got lucky! The first patters of rain started making noise on the tent, and on Marsha's overhead tarp, and once they started, they picked up quickly. My tent flap was still open -- the bug screens were in place -- when I yelled over to Marsha, "Hey, get in here, before you get soaked!"

I could see her looking around for a second, and then she grabbed her sleeping bag and backpack, and ran over to dive into my tent. I closed the flap, and we both started laughing.

That got us to talking. I told her that I had planned on coming up here with my girlfriend, but then I found myself suddenly girlfriendless. Since I already had my leave scheduled, and didn't want to hang around the Army Depot, I came alone. Then she laughed with me, and repeated the line, you don't take your friends hiking, you take your girlfriend hiking. I can't remember where I heard that before, but obviously Marsha had heard it as well.

And that was when she opened up. She started out kind of slowly, but once she got started, the words just poured out. Yes, as I had guessed, Donna was her girlfriend, and they'd been together for four years. Then, out of the blue, just as they'd been planning this very same hiking trip -- was this really a coincidence? -- Donna dumped her, moved out of their apartment, took her stuff, and was gone, gone, gone! Marsha said that she didn't have the first clue that Donna was unhappy, which was pretty much the same situation with Renee and me.

Was there a chance for us here? Hell, Marsha was a lesbian, which made it seem impossible. Thing is, the more I got to know her, the more I liked her. She told me what she did for a living, being part of a painting crew for new construction, which impressed me. Painting is one of the physically easier construction jobs, but it still meant working out in the heat of summer and (some of) the cold of winter. It also meant that she had to put up with construction sites of mostly men, and could still handle herself. She seemed genuinely interested in my career: I was a 25-Uniform Signal support systems specialist, part of the Signal Corps, handling communications and computer support, and I'd spent two years in Afghanistan as the radioman for an infantry squad. I had earned my Combat Action Badge in a few firefights. Sometimes I worry about telling civilians that I was a soldier in Afghanistan, because some of them get all bent out of shape, but Marsha didn't seem to mind talking about it at all.

All of a sudden, as tired as we both were, we were talking and talking, and this seemed like the beginning of a romance. It didn't make any sense, we were both on the rebound, and there was the biggest problem of all: we were both sexually attracted to women! Of course, I'd heard that most gay people at least try straight relationships, at least at first, before they figure out what they really want, which kind of makes sense, but I didn't even know if what I had heard was true or not.

I had already been down to my boxers when the rain had started, before Marsha had to grab her stuff and come running into my tent. I had my sleeping bag unzipped and open, planning to just lay on top of it, and then be able to pull half of it over me if it got too cold. It was in the middle of the tent, and we were both sitting on it. Finally, Marsha took her sleeping bag, and put it at the foot of mine, as though it was a blanket to be pulled up if needed, and she was going to lay down on mine, to sleep beside me. I'll admit it: I was excited at the thought, but I was keeping that thought strictly to myself.

Then she said, "Turn around," and I did, knowing that she was going to change her clothes. I didn't know what she planned on wearing, but what she had on hadn't been the cleanest stuff in the world. After she said, "OK," I turned back around, and she was wearing a very much oversized t-shirt; if she had anything on under it, I couldn't tell.

I took the clothes I had been wearing, and rolled them up to make a pillow. I laid down, not having any flaming idea about what was going to happen, when Marsha laid down beside me, on my right, putting her head on my shoulder and her hand on my chest.

"Marsha," I sort of hoarsely whispered.

"Shhhh," was all she replied.

The rain had pattered most of the night on the roof of my tent, a static drumbeat that would normally have lulled me to sleep. But with Marsha laying beside me, her head on my shoulder, my mind was roiling, as I wondered what was going to happen. My first thought was that we were going to be making love: I was horny, and I knew that she hadn't gotten any for a bit now, and we were both set up for rebound sex. I kissed the top of her forehead as she laid there, but she never looked up at me for a kiss on the lips. Her fingers were idly playing with the hair on my chest, but she never moved any more aggressively than that.

Using my right shoulder for her pillow left my right arm around her, and I gently caressed her right shoulder. I caressed her right hand with my left, as she was gently playing with my chest, and I got a soft "Mmmm" from her lips as I did that, but there was nothing more. Her breathing was soft and slow, and it wasn't long before she fell asleep, cuddled up against me.

Renee had never been a cuddler. Yeah, I thought that we did pretty good in bed together, but after sex, she definitely wanted her own space, and me touching her when she was trying to sleep was not her favorite thing. Truth is, it sometimes annoyed the crap out of her. She had a queen-sized bed, but I figured that we'd have to splurge and get a king pretty soon! (I lived on base, in the barracks, which meant a twin-sized rack for me, but I spent as many nights at Renee's as I could.)