Sometimes the Better Part of Valor is Running Away

I don’t want to bury the lede here—we finished. Mica and I reached the unimposing summit of Springer Mountain at about 4pm on November 1st, completing the Appalachian Trail’s 2,198 miles (more or less). We hiked about 1,020 miles together, and slightly more than that separately. I wondered what I’d feel when we finally reached the end, and surprisingly the answer was not much. “At least we don’t have to do that again,” I said. We all forgot to sign the last logbook, which is in a metal box embedded in that rock behind us in the picture below.

But before we got to the end, we had to get through Georgia. Ever since Maine, we’ve heard northbounders grouse about the trail in Georgia. It’s too rocky, it’s too steep, etc., etc. It seemed like they all hated it. Like every other nobo complaint, we dismissed this completely.

And ultimately I think we were right to dismiss it. I imagine the trail in Georgia is tough if you don’t have your trail legs and you’re carrying 20 extra pounds of unnecessary gear. But it mostly reminded me of Connecticut. Sort of rocky, lots of short but steep-ish climbs and descents with few peaks or views to justify them, not difficult but kind of annoying. What difficulty the trail does present doesn’t feel particularly earned or worthwhile. For us Georgia would have been a cruise to the finish, if it weren’t for the weather.

The weather forecast for Hiawassee, GA on Monday, October 27th was temperatures in the mid 40’s and more than 2 inches of rain. We had stayed at the Around the Bend hostel just off trail Sunday night, laundered, showered and resupplied, and I was anxious to keep moving because we only had 70 miles left and I can’t even tell you how much I wanted to finish the trail and go home. We’d both seen bad weather forecasts before, and more often than not they amounted to a bit of rain and a couple damp hours, but nothing worth holding up a hike for. So we got a shuttle to the trailhead at Dick’s Creek Gap and started uphill in a steady downpour.

I was immediately drenched—wetter than I had been at any other point on trail, including New Hampshire. I moved out ahead of Mica and Christian because speed was the only thing that could keep me warm. Southbound from Dick’s Creek Gap, the trail climbs steadily for 2.6 miles, gaining about 1,200 feet of elevation. I climbed for a solid hour, as fast as I reasonably could, through continuous drenching rain and occasional gusts of wind, which only got colder as I gained elevation. About halfway up the hill I stopped to put on my puffy jacket under my rain shell. We planned to camp that night, and I was already wearing every piece of clothing I could afford to get wet, and working as hard as I would at any point that day. When I reached the plateau where the trail levels off, my hands were like icy claws locked around my trekking pole handles, and I was shivering. I stopped for a minute and thought about this, and a voice in my head—my voice, but still not a voice that felt voluntary—said “I don’t feel safe.” If I can climb uphill for an hour and still be cold, nothing is going to keep me warm. I turned around.

A different cold rainy day, back in Virginia in April, I ate lunch at a trailside restaurant that seemed like a restaurant run by people who had never actually been to a restaurant themselves. After putting my wet clothes back on and walking back out into the rain, I made a snap decision that I was not having it that day, and instead of continuing to hike I checked into a motel that seemed like a motel run by people who had never actually stayed at a motel themselves. I was trying to explain my decision to the hotel clerk, who surely didn’t care, but I couldn’t remember the expression “sometimes discretion is the better part of valor,” so instead I told her: “You know what they say, sometimes the better part of valor is… uh, running away.” She just looked at me and handed me a big metal room key, which it turned out I wouldn’t need because my room‘s door opened with a gentle thump anywhere near the handle, whether it was locked or not.

On this day, back in Georgia, I went about a half mile downhill before I found Mica and Christian, who were standing in the middle of the trail gnawing on a large block of cheese for some reason. (“We were trying to have lunch without stopping,” they later explained.) “I don’t feel safe,“ I told them. I think we were all slightly hypothermic because all communication seemed to involve an unusual amount of staring blankly at each other. They stared blankly at me. “Listen,” I said, “back in Virginia when I checked into the Relax Inn I couldn’t remember the real expression, so I told the clerk that sometimes the better part of valor is running away.” Mica finally laughed and then they both said “well you don’t have to convince us.” We headed back the way we came and when we got back to the trailhead I called the hostel and told them we were giving up for the day.

The new plan was to hike on Tuesday (forecast: drizzly but not nearly so bad) from Dick’s Creek Gap to Unicoi Gap and directly to another hostel, the Green Dragon Inn. That would let us wear all of our warm clothes if necessary, since we’d be hiking to another set of hot showers and clothes dryers. Wednesday was almost as bad as Monday, so we took a zero at the Green Dragon, which was frustrating in a way because again, I really wanted to go home, but it was also very cozy. Thursday it finally started to clear, sort of, and Mica and I hiked 21 miles from Unicoi to Neel Gap, where we met Christian who had taken a shuttle ride there instead, and brought about 7 lbs of my gear with him, making it the closest thing to a slack pack that I did on the whole trail.

The Mountain Crossing outfitter at Neel Gap is 30 miles from Springer Mountain, and the first resupply opportunity for Northbounders. For us it offered a warm and dry basement hostel and a few final snacks. I also picked up a Peak Refuel freeze dried chicken coconut curry, to celebrate my last night on trail and because I was very hungry and it was 850 calories. Those meals are kind of Tactical coded but they’re very good. Then it was just 16 miles on Friday and 16 more on Saturday, under mostly sunny skies, and suddenly we were done.

I guess I didn’t write about it here, but I vividly remember our first steps down the Hunt Trail on Katahdin, and that first white blaze we passed way back in July 2024. I was surprised then by a sudden surge of emotion—excitement, fear, pride, I’m not sure what it was exactly but I choked up. I wouldn’t have been surprised if something similar happened at the end. But I was kind of surprised that in the end what happened on Springer was that we simply stopped hiking and looked at the plaque that said we were done. Christian lay down in a sunny patch of grass and fell asleep, which is an enviable talent he has. Me and Mica took some pictures, looked at the view, congratulated a couple of flip-floppers we had met at the last week’s hostels who were also finishing the trail at the same time. Then we walked back down to the Springer Mountain trailhead parking lot, a mile back on the trail, and Christian’s dad picked us up and drove us to an airport motel in Atlanta.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m incredibly proud that we hiked the whole trail. It took a lot of persistence and effort, and it changed my perspective on a lot of things in life. Even before finally finishing, I knew the hike had changed my life permanently. Maybe that’s why finishing didn’t feel like anything? Because I had already had all the feelings I was going to have, so the end was just an arbitrary spot in the woods where we finally stopped hiking.

I am glad I don’t have to do that again, though.

Thank you so much for reading and subscribing to Today on Trail, and for your patience with my extremely haphazard publication schedule. I think I have at least one more post in me, about What I Learned, but I’m going to let that one develop a bit as I resume my regular life at home. In the unlikely event you don’t already know this, I normally write a different newsletter called Today in Tabs, which will return later this week. It’s about as different from this one in form and content as you could possibly imagine, but despite that, if you like my writing here maybe you’ll also like it there. It all comes from the same sack of electric meat, after all.