I never could have imagined life would turn out like it has. I am not alone — I have a big, loving family, many friends, and a very active professional and personal life — but I still struggle to feel like I understand God's plan for this stage of my life. So I was as surprised as anyone to feel completely led by the Lord to seek Him out in the woods alone for my 62nd birthday.
The plan came together slowly and evolved — with the help of AI — into a five-year plan to hike the entire Appalachian Trail in 50+ section hikes, each one picking up where the last left off. 2,200 miles total. I mentioned this plan in a hiking page on Facebook, and so many people expressed interest in joining in different ways, that I decided to create this site to document what happens over the journey and let others join in — virtually or in person.
With the overall long-term plan developed for many to join the adventure, I still had an intense belief that this first chapter would just be me and God, wrestling with what was keeping me so spiritually stuck. While being in the woods alone seemed a little terrifying, honestly, over and over, in Bible verses, in random comments with friends, in everyday life, I kept feeling certain of one thing: if God can keep me safe in Jacksonville, Florida, He can keep me safe in the mountains of Georgia. Even with the peace that developed, I still maintained a — statistically unreasonable — fear of encountering a bear!
Just before leaving, I was pleasantly surprised to see a post in a hiking Facebook group: "For my 52nd birthday, I'm planning on starting on July 25th at the southernmost point of the Appalachian Trail and going north as far as I can go." Wow. This was my birthday! This was the day my hike was beginning! The writer was "Lynx" — he has his own Facebook page about his hiking adventures. We sent a couple of messages to say we'd look out for each other on the trail.
Experience Matters
Ron was the shuttle driver who got me to the trailhead, and honestly, I could have been in real trouble without him. He was an absolute wealth of information — the kind of local knowledge no website or visitor center comes close to. The last stretch of road before the Springer Mountain parking lot is rough — rutted, steep in places, the kind of drive that makes you grateful someone else is behind the wheel.
The rough road up to the trailhead — with Ron behind the wheel.
Ron brought out maps and pointed out the terrain. He reiterated over and over that there is no water for seven miles between Hawk Mountain Shelter and Justus Creek. Another important tip: between mile 5 and mile 6, the AT actually combines with the Benton MacKaye Trail. For that one mile, you'll see two different blazes on the same trees — the white rectangle for the AT, and a white diamond for the Benton MacKaye. If you don't know that ahead of time, it's easy to second-guess yourself.
Ron embodies the spirit of hiking, and I highly recommend him if you need any transportation from Atlanta, GA to Fontana, NC. You can reach him through his Facebook page.
God Provides
The vista from Springer Mountain, ending at the Appalachian Trail plaque.
Taking pictures at the summit felt surreal. The view was gorgeous, even though the mountains were slightly obscured by cloud cover. I had been so concerned about extreme heat, but there was a subtle breeze and just enough cloud cover to keep things comfortable.
Lynx and I arrived at the southern terminus at almost the exact same time. Lynx, his amazing trail dog Sunshine, and I officially met as I was heading south and he was coming back north on the short 0.9-mile hike to the southern terminus. He was friendly and we decided to start out together. Somehow, God managed to provide a flesh-and-blood human with a 9mm strapped to his side to provide the security and protection He had been promising all along. Ha.
Me, Lynx, and Sunshine — the start of what I think will be a lifetime friendship.
This journey turned into what I feel will be a lifetime friendship. When you're doing something challenging, there is nothing better than another person beside you saying "you can do this." We took turns in that role. When I was feeling exhausted near the end of a long, hard section, Lynx said, "Look, a little sign from God," and pointed out beautiful orange mushrooms growing among the rocks. It was the perfect encouragement for me to keep putting one foot in front of the other.
"Look, a little sign from God."
Water
My biggest surprise was how challenging the water planning turned out to be. Lynx and I quickly decided to stick together as a tag-team: I carried the water filter and Lynx carried the bear protection — and I was completely at peace with that trade-off. We'd gotten some incorrect advice beforehand that water needed to be both filtered, for bacteria, and boiled, for viruses. We met Kathy at a shelter, a local and avid hiker in the area, and she clarified that norovirus is really the main concern — and that it only shows up during peak season, when there are lots of people around. Not having to wait for boiled water to cool off was a huge relief.
The Katadyn BeFree — the piece of gear I was gladdest to be carrying.
The Terrain Humbles Me
Hiking was very strenuous through day one. Shuttle driver Ron had described three successive steep, little climbs — "butt kickers" — that precede the continuous one-mile relentless incline up Sassafras Mountain itself. I was surprised to discover my knees were fine going uphill, but got very sore after a few hours going downhill.
It was also difficult to make progress and still enjoy the gorgeous scenery. In order to walk safely over the rocks and tree roots, you have to keep your eyes on the trail, so it's important to stop often to look up and appreciate where you are.
The first tree blaze — learning to look up, not just down at the roots.
The actual view versus the gorgeous woods — if you remember to look up.
The Mountain Man
Long Creek Falls — worth the half-mile detour.
We stopped at mile six to decide about the detour to Long Creek Falls. It was another half mile off-trail, and neither of us had the legs to spare for it — but how do you skip a waterfall on your first day?
We were still deciding when a voice came from nowhere. "I am over here, just didn't want to startle you."
From the north side of the trail, a man stepped out — no shirt, tattoos down both arms, a backpack, and a fistful of eighteen-inch green stems held like they were the most valuable thing he owned. He was soft-spoken, almost shy, but he smiled easy and often.
He told us, practically bursting with it, that he'd spent the morning cleaning the nine miles of trail ahead of us — packing out trash, disinfecting the bear boxes by hand. He has a traumatic brain injury, he said, and maintaining this stretch was just what he liked to do with his time. Nobody paid him. Nobody asked him to.
He noticed Lynx favoring his knee before Lynx said a word about it, and held up the stems — jewelweed, we think — the cure he'd been carrying in his own knee pads. He gave us some on the spot, walked on, then turned around and came back to give Lynx more, like he couldn't stand the idea of us not having enough.
We never learned his name. He restored something in us that day — call it faith in strangers, or just faith in general.
He wouldn't let us take his photo — said it would drain his energy — so this is a sketch instead.
The Misadventure
About half a mile past the waterfall, I realized I'd left one of my trekking poles behind. I headed back to get it. When I passed Lynx on the trail, I told him he'd see my pack sitting beside the trail, but that he should keep heading toward the campsite — I'd meet him there.
When I got back to the waterfall, there was no trekking pole. And then I remembered: I'd hung it on the sign at mile 5, when I had stopped to return the second pole to my pack. So I started back toward mile 5. About halfway there, I realized this was a really bad idea — I'd left my entire pack on the trail, now over a mile away, and I had nothing with me. No first aid kit, no supplies, no water. This was definitely a rookie mistake, but I did make it back, retrieved the pole, and started the 1.5 miles back to my pack, and then the 2 miles to the campsite. Lesson learned.
By this point, my knees were completely done. I hiked 11 miles this day, including the back-track. Every step that wasn't perfectly level was extremely painful. I was so tired. It became: ten steps, a tiny prayer, rest my head on my pole, ten more steps. The last mile felt like the hardest thing I had ever done in my life. The trick was simple, but not easy: just keep putting one foot in front of the other.
Meals
I had pictured savoring the evenings, the way you do in your head before you've actually hiked it — reading my Bible, enjoying the sounds and peace of the woods. Meal plans were simple: boil water, pour it into the dehydrated meal bags, done. But after two long days on the trail, even that felt like too much. The truth was Lynx and I were too tired to enjoy much of anything. We ate, barely talked, and were asleep before we meant to be.
Too tired to talk much, but glad not to be alone.
In the future, it seems like fewer miles, more evening might be a better balance. The trail will still be there either way. This is something that will be worked out over time.
Happy Birthday
I'd carried one secret luxury in my pack, tucked deep in my cooking system where it couldn't get crushed: a birthday cupcake. I anticipated celebrating my birthday alone in the woods with a cupcake. I sat there holding it, a little disbelieving it had survived day one intact, before I went back outside to share it with Lynx. The friendship and connection were such an unexpected blessing.
Still intact. Still frosted. Somehow.
The fact that I ate well every day on the trail would not have happened without my daughter, Christina, who carefully put together my entire food pack. Thank you, Christina. You put so much thought into having the right combination of everything, and I thought of you often with gratitude as I opened each snack. The best addition was packets of Liquid IV. This was a miracle cure when that exhausted "I can't take another step" feeling tried to creep in.
Yes, There Was a Bear!
As we came around a curve in the trail, Sunshine — our guide dog — ran into the clearing ahead and "alerted" Lynx. He said, "Is that a stump, or a bear?" And for once in my life, I looked up at exactly the right moment, in exactly the right direction, and there was a little black bear. He looked at us for a few seconds, then ran off. I kept my eyes peeled for a mama bear for quite a while after that. But as usual, my worst fear came true — and I was still safe. God was in charge, and I had nothing to fear.
The moment, sketched afterward — Sunshine on alert, the bear watching from the brush.
How God Spoke to Me
On day two, I was walking through the woods with my usual heavy heart of late. I'd recently prayed a significant prayer, and God had chosen not to answer it. Well — He did answer it. The answer was "no." My plan was good. My plan would have honored Him. My plan would have been so awesome — my heart was already so invested. But He very clearly said "no."
That led me through a tremendous amount of grief. But harder still was feeling very far from God — more like actually feeling disliked, or abandoned by Him. Satan knows exactly how to manipulate you in times of loss. Every loss in my life got magnified; everything started to feel like abandonment from God. I was in the middle of a very heavy, very dark time.
And then, as I was walking through the beautiful, healing woods, Lynx was talking about various calamities in his own life, and these words drifted back to me: "It was all my fault." He has no idea, even now, what those words did — but God used them to work, almost physically, in my heart and mind. It seemed like I could actually hear cylinders clicking into place, revelations aligning, chains falling. God had been there the whole time.
I got saved in the fifth grade, and I knew God had provided the manual for how to do life. Most of the very painful issues I've dealt with across my adult life were the direct result of me living outside the clear direction in His Word — direction I was blessed to have full and easy access to, the entire time. For some reason, I just repeatedly chose to create my own plans and then try to demand that God bless them.
I want to be careful in how I express this, because there was zero condemnation in what I felt. This was not guilt. It was 100% relief. God was not necessarily punishing me either — I just experienced the consequences of the choices He allowed me to make. But still, God was always there — even in the middle of my failures, even in choices made in complete opposition to His plans — He had still blessed me. With amazing children. With incredible pastors and teachers over the years. And with new skills and activities, like learning to walk the woods in the sixth decade of my life.
When I climbed into my tiny tent that night, I felt complete joy, peace, and love. God was there the entire time — even when I turned away, He was just patiently loving me, and waiting. It reminded me of a story my pastor, Joby Martin, likes to tell — about how frustrated he got when his children were younger, wanting to say, "Just do what I say. It will work better for you. I only want what is good for you!" I knew, as I fell asleep that night, that's exactly what God felt toward me.