Hike of the Week: 'Thru' is a game-changer
As of a couple of weeks ago, 14,485 people had completed the 2,185.3-mile Georgia to Maine AT (Appalachian Trail), and sometimes it seems a huge percentage of them have written about this Once in a Lifetime (for most) Grand Adventure. Most of these are first-person, day-by-day accounts of their six months or so on the Trail. Some of the books have their own unique twist: blind, barefoot, For a Cause. But, having lived it, twice, I think of most of them as "hero trips.''
Every so often a book comes along that influences a whole generation of hikers. Ed Garvey's 1971 "Appalachian Hiker, Adventure of a Lifetime'' kick-started me, and Bill Bryson's 1998 "A Walk in the Woods'' influenced another generation. Garvey, a 58-year-old retired National Science Foundation Finance Officer, related a detailed day-by-day account, and provided a "Mileage Fact Sheet" of Trail landmarks. Bryson was/is an extremely erudite, successful writer-cum-hiker and his book shines.
Another brilliantly written book that jump-started me when I was ready to abandon my second 2,000-mile sojourn is Larry Luxenberg's 1994 "Walking the Appalachian Trail.''
But, honestly, to me, many of the other seemingly hundreds of heroic tales are, sorry, chopped liver. Been there, done that, 4,217 miles worth: I pretty much already know what you're going to say.
1999 AT 2,000-Miler Bill Bancroft lives right around the corner, and he dropped off Richard Judy's 2014 "Thru, an AT Love Story.'' I thumbed through it, and it seemed like more of the same old, same old to me. Kath started reading it, and really got caught up in it. She related bits and pieces of it to me, and I groaned. "Kath, it just ain't like that ..." It tells the tale of eight aspiring thru hikers who join up at Springer or just beyond. Four of the eight are female, three of them drop-dead-gorgeous 20-year-olds — a blonde, a brunette and a redhead — and the fourth is a bright, fit, attractive 59-year-old. Besides the runway-models women, other characters rounded out "The Bly Gap Gang.''
From my vast AT experience, it seems 90 percent of thru hikers are scruffy 20-something bearded guys. The odds of 50 percent of a group of hikers being gorgeous females is slim to none. And, just about all thru hikers nowadays adopt trail names; Trillium, Frodo, MacGyver, Just Dan, etc. These folks had sensational trail names: Captain Stupid, Ultragrunge, Mama Llama. No way; give me a break ...
But, "Thru'' is a novel ... Judy is a 1973 2,000-miler, and is now 61 years old. He re-hiked the trail to write the book. And, instead of a first-person account, he tells the tale by alternating between the eight fictional hikers' trail journal entries, providing, uniquely, eight different perspectives of the same hike.
After Kath pretty much absorbed it, I, somewhat grudgingly, picked it up and got swept away. It's very nicely written, with a lot of savvy trail info packed in and it brought back a lot of memories. You gradually learn more about the characters, how they interacted, changed and grew. The real beauty of it was I became a member of the Gang, dealing with the good, the bad and the ugly (three FrenchmenI met on the AT, by the way) the trail threw at you.
Judy really nailed the poignancy you feel up in Maine as you get closer and closer to Kahtadin, and the realization that these Best Days of Your Life are soon coming to an end, and the people you've hooked up with will soon go their Real World separate ways, back to real names — Joy Spangler, Billy Bob, Mervin — jobs, boring lives.
The "Thru''characters lived a pretty much idealized AT world: it seemed to me they had pizza/beer/steak more often than Ramen Noodles and mac 'n' cheese and more sunshine than rain/rain/rain, but, my opinion: this book just might kick off a "Thru'' generation. Check it out, it's one heckuva 2,000-mile read.
Ralph Ferrusi writes Hike of the Week each week for the Poughkeepsie Journal. Send e-mail to rjferrusi@frontiernet.net