Redtail

My preparation for this hike, or “walk in the woods” as my mother repeatedly called it, is difficult to measure. While I had always thought that hiking the Long Trail would be fun and worthwhile, the prospect of setting foot up this trail had only begun to materialize in the previous months. Despite many attempts to prepare for the hike, both mentally and physically, I set foot on the trail that day relying mostly upon grit and stamina to guide me north. I had a guidebook and map, a week’s worth of food, boots that had never tested on the trail, and pulled north by an eagerness that engulfs many would be voyagers. My longest hike to that point had been two nights; this trip would take as much as three weeks. Much of my equipment was 15 years old and I had only acquired on substantial discount by working at an outdoor outfitter during college.


If a hiking instructor designed the Long Trail and each section tailored to their requirements, they did a job on par with the Almighty Creator and the rest of His miracles. The Long Trail starts flat and modest, with occasional climbs serving as a harbinger of what’s to come further up the trail. While each hiker proceeds at their own pace, the southern section of the Long Trail prepares hikers for the highest peaks of the Green Mountains in central Vermont and the wildly undulating peaks and gaps of the northernmost reaches. What the southern section may lack in physical difficulty, it compensates for in mental training of what lies ahead. It was during this time while hiking many lonely miles that I had the time to talk with myself, ask questions, listen for answers, and simply learn.


The trail however, is far from a lonely place, and the first lesson that I learned, was that I need others. I pulled into my first camp that first evening at about 6 p.m. I was startled to find a shelter full of people, tents dotting the well-worn woods, and even a hammock strung between two trees. It was Labor Day weekend, the most popular time for hiking. The Long Trail also happens to coincide with the Appalachian Trail for the first 100 miles, and by that time of the season, the tail end of the bubble of hikers that had left Springer Mountain Georgia in March had made it this far. I was fortunate to secure the last sleeping space in the shelter. Attempting to appear as though I knew what I was doing and that I certainly belonged here, I set about to getting dinner ready and preparing for the night ahead.

Trail names are an integral part of life in the trail community. Originally growing out of the back to nature movement and the popularity of escaping on the Appalachian Trail, trail names offer the hiker a pseudo personality and certain anonymity while amongst strangers. Some prefer to allow themselves to be “named” while on the trail, but you run the risk of being assigned a name garnered from your idiosyncratic personality or bad habit, such as “Gobbles” or “Natural Disaster.” I was prepared to call myself “Redtail.” There was an obvious connotation to the bird of prey and being in the out of doors. A second meaning was my backpack was bright red and resembled my hiking tail. The name has stood the test of time for me. What is important about trail names however, are the stories that spill forth from them and how they become part and parcel of life on the trail for some.