Karen–The Beginning

In the beginning I placed a personal ad:

Section-hiker, 41, seeks partner(s) for continuation of A.T. hike in New Hampshire, heading south from Crawford Notch, late  July, 200x, 10-14 days, at 7-10 miles per day. Huts and camping.  Heather Warren…@virginia.edu>.

I had never done anything like this before.  When my then husband decided he would no longer hike the Appalachian Trail and I was determined to complete my hike of its entirety over a series of backpacking trips, I needed to find someone who would traverse the most dangerous sections with me in New Hampshire and Maine.  The year before, I had a near disastrous hike in the Presidential Range with an unprepared family friend, so I knew what I was up against:  boulder-stacked terrain above tree line that slowed the hiker’s pace to nearly a mile per hour—mental as well as physical fitness required.  No one I knew was up for this kind of hiking.  Occasionally out of curiosity I had read the hiker-wanted ads in the AT magazine, but now the time had come for me to place one of my own despite how risky it felt.

I did not want to have a first-time backpacker because the section I had in mind, the Franconia Range of the White Mountains south to Dartmouth, was no place for me to conduct backpacking 101.  I also preferred someone close to my own age because I thought our paces might be a closer match, and as contemporaries our conversation would cover the same historical memory.  Female or male hiking partner did not matter, though deep down I preferred a female.  I patterned my ad on those I had seen in the AT magazine, aiming to provide enough information to attract a good fit but not so much as to invite danger.  The ad appeared in the November-December issue.

Unbeknown to me in early December a woman in Boston was reading her copy of the AT magazine.  By her own admission, she must have been extremely bored because she read everything in the issue, even “Hiking Partners Wanted.”  My ad caught her eye.  She was at a point of returning to the trail after having interrupted her section-by-section trek to have a baby.  Now that her daughter was approaching four, she and her husband were trying to figure out how they could take turns sitting on the nest while the other backpacked in their attempt to hike the whole trail.  The ad gave her a possibility.  It indicated that we were close in age, and my “.edu” email suffix as well as the fact that the trip would be for “10-14 days” suggested that I might be a faculty member like her who had the summer flexibility for such a trip.  She did a quick online search that confirmed her suspicion.  The ad’s comment of “continuation of A.T. hike in New Hampshire” further suggested that we might have similar levels of backpacking experience.  She emailed me:

Dear Heather,

I read your request for a hiking partner in the ATC magazine and would love to join you.  It sounds as though we are about the same age…and both experienced section hikers.  It also seems that we’re both university educators….I’ve done the AT from Springer to Hanover except for a 150 mile section from northern PA to Bear Mountain, so I’m very eager to start in New Hampshire….I live just outside Boston so I could help with arrangements and a ride to Crawford Notch.

Please let me know how you’d like to proceed.  I really think this could work!

Best wishes,

Karen

————

Karen Smith

@bc.edu

Boston College

I could hardly believe my eyes, and replied, intrigued and hopeful.  We exchanged telephone numbers, and after a conversation a few evenings later in which we confirmed that we were indeed university professors and discovered that we had children the very same age (her daughter and my son), we arranged that I would book the high huts in the “Whites” (the White Mountains) and we would talk again in January to confirm the reservations and discuss a few other details.  Trepidation and excitement arose at once.  Maybe I would eventually complete the trail after all.

Maybe I was making a new friend, too?  The random yet perhaps not so coincidental way we had found each other hinted that something more might be in store for us.  St. Augustine believed that particular, life-giving friendships originated in God, remarking in his Confessions that, “No friends are true friends unless you, my God, bind them fast to one another through that love which is sown in our hearts by the Holy Spirit” (Conf. 4.4.7).  Perhaps the Holy Spirit was up to something?

A turn of events in early January suggested as much.  A few days before I was to make the high hut reservations, a letter arrived in the mail from the American Secretary of the Rhodes Scholarships.  “Dear Ms. Warren,” it read:

“I am writing to ask you to contribute a little of your valuable time to an investigation of the life paths of Rhodes Scholars conducted by two American sociologists.  You will soon be asked to participate in a telephone survey of American Rhodes Scholars conducted by the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.  This survey is part of a study…carried out by Boston College professors Tim Doe and Karen Smith.  The study focuses on how changes in American society over the last fifty years have influenced generations of American Rhodes Scholars.”

Karen Smith?  Boston College?  “How many Karen Smiths at Boston College can there be? This has to be my Karen Smith!”  What a non-coincidence!  I wondered if I should call Karen immediately.  But cautionary thoughts immediately followed.  Would the hike disqualify me from participating in the study?  I could accept that, though I would be sorry not to be able to participate. When we hiked would I be restricted from saying anything about my time at Oxford?  I could accept that, too, because I tended not to talk about that anyway.  Nevertheless, I pondered when I should tell her, if ever.

As planned, when mid-January came I phoned the Appalachian Mountain Club as soon as possible to reserve places in the high huts, the demand being especially high for the dates we wanted seven and half months later.  To maximize our chances, I dialed as soon as the clock hands reached the hour that the reservations desk opened.  My first two efforts resulted in busy signals, but my third got through.  After I hung up from securing the reservations, I jumped around my kitchen with joy and relief shouting, “Hallelujah!  Hallelujah!”  A major piece of the trip had just fallen into place.

I next picked up the phone to call Karen and let her know that all systems were go.  Her relief matched mine. The rest of the arrangements for the hike lay entirely up to us:  we did not have to rely on the availability of lodging of any sort because we could sleep in the three-sided shelters along the trail or in the tent we would carry.  We talked a bit more about the rest of the itinerary, gear, and food.  As the conversation wound down, I said in slightly jocular tone, “I have something to tell you.  And I didn’t know if I should tell you this now or save it for when we are having a rough day and need some cheering up—for example, clambering down the Kinsman in the rain.[1]”  I took a breath and asked, “Are you sitting down?”  She answered with a quizzical, “Yes.”  I launched into the first sentence of the Rhodes letter.  She burst out immediately, “You’re one of my subjects!  You’re one of my subjects!”  We laughed and laughed.  “I am so glad you didn’t wait until the Kinsman,” she chuckled.  “I might have fallen off the mountain.”  We laughed even more.  It turned out that our hiking together would not disqualify me from the study since there were so many Rhodes Scholars involved.  Saying anything about my Oxford years would not affect the data collection or interpretation because follow-up interviews were part of the study, too.  We both looked forward to the summer when we would finally meet in person.  Our hiking adventure had begun and as had our friendship.

[1] Regarding the summit of South Kinsman Mountain, the trail guide reads:  “Begin a very rough, exposed descent, requiring rock scrambling and considerable extra time.”  Karen’s husband, Jeff, recalled a Nietzschean moment going down “the Kinsman” in the rain.