Overnight on the Appalachian Trail

Back in May 1998 my Backpacking class participated in a 3-day hike on the AT in Southern Massachusetts. There were about 12 students on the trip, including my boyfriend.

The first night we hiked only about 1.5 miles up to the Tom Leonard Shelter. Most of the class stayed in the shelter, 4 others on the tent platform, and my boyfriend and I had to set up our tent in a clearing near the shelter. In keeping with the weather report, it started to rain shortly after dinner (and continued through most of the weekend). In the morning, it was drizzling. The group got ready to head out on the 13-mile trek to the Glen Brook Falls shelter. On the way up the first day, however, the hip belt buckle on Brian's pack broke, which left us with no choice but to hike back down to the car the next morning and meet the class on the other side of the mountain.

We met the group on Kellogg Road, at which point our teacher realizes that one of the hearing-impaired students on the trip is lost. He urges us to go on while he continues to search for the lost student. Fortunately for him, Brian's car was on Kellogg Road so he could use that to catch up with us in a later part in the trail. Additionally, he advised Brian to keep his cell phone on (yes, we are the kind of people who bring cell phones into the woods--you never know when you might need one!) so he could keep in touch with us.

Our group was already behind by about 1-1.5 hrs and this wasn't helping. We forged on, trying to keep together so no one else would get lost. Our teacher met up with us much closer to camp, telling us that he still has not found the lost student. Again, he urged us on, saying that he would lag behind in case he caught up. The group started to break up a bit more as the topography changed. The trail got steeper, and in the end, Brian and I were at the tail of the group with one of the other hearing impaired students on the trip. We continued on past dark over summit after summit, wondering just how much further we had to go. Then, it started to rain again, really hard this time. I didn't care at this point, I had sort of a "walker's high" at this point and just wanted to keep on hiking until we got to camp. I was even hiking in the dark without a flashlight, even though I was heading our little group!

Finally, when we were only about 10 minutes away from camp, some of the rest of the group found us and brought us to camp. It was 10:30PM when we hit camp, and I was soaked to the bone. We had to set up our tent in the dark and rain in order to merely changed our clothes. Even after I changed, I was freezing cold. Our teacher had reached camp 2.5 hours before us, even though we thought he was behind us (he hitched a ride further up the road and hiked up the mountain through a short cut). The news was no better--he still hadn't found the lost student. As we sat around that fire that night trying to get warm, we were all wondering what had happened to him.

The next morning, our teacher left before the group awoke. He had called the police that morning to set up a search party. Shortly after we woke up and started eating breakfast, a group came into camp and told us we were to follow them out of the woods. Apparantly, they didn't want anyone else to get lost, so they escorted us off Mount Everett in trucks racing down the fire road.

They brought us back to the Sheffield Volunteer Fire Department. We were not given much information, but we did find out that the lost student was found. He had turned back and camped out at the shelter we stayed at the first night. While waiting for his return to the fire department, we spent nearly 2 hours doing nothing. There was just nothing to do sitting around on the lawn at the fire station. But at least the lost student was found and was okay. And this was certainly a hike to go down in the history books!

Since that weekend, I haven't participated in another overnight in the woods. It was the most exhausting and weird experiences of my life, and certainly was a one-of-a-kind hike!