Trail magic

It’s the feeling of hiking four days through the woods, running low on food, coming to a trail head and seeing a car with a tent set up. There might be a few chairs to sit in, a cooler full of sodas or beer and the person who brought it. 

Along the Appalachian Trail, that’s called trail magic.

“You could write a book on trail magic,” said Daniel Autry, a Chelsea High School graduate who hiked the AT this year. “…You’re kind of already tired, you’re going through your food, walk out of a trail head, see someone at their car.”

Sometimes people would have a grill with burgers and hot dogs, other times it would be cold drinks and words of encouragement.

“Fruit was amazing, having bananas and apples sitting there, because you can’t really [pack it]. I tried to pack it out when I was going, but you can’t really because it’s heavy and it goes bad,” said Autry.

Most people had a tie back to the trail. They were previous through-hikers — meaning they hiked the entire trail from Spring Mountain in Georgia up to Mt. Katahdin in Maine — or had family on the trail, and as they ate the food provided, they’d share stories.

“It’s really cool to get their stories … why they’re out there, taking time out of their lives, feeding 30 nasty, stinky hikers,” Autry said. “I can’t wait to do that.” 

When he set out on March 8, Autry said he expected to feel tied to the Appalachian Trail, but he did not know that tie would be as strong as what he has felt since returning home.

“I just feel like from now on, I’m going to have some sort of connection to the trail, and I’m going to want to keep that connection,” he said. “It’s amazing how strong that connection is.”

He brought home one of those connections, in the form of his dog, Ike — named after Dwight Eisenhower, who he accidentally adopted along the way.

“He kept me safe from all the scary chipmunks,” Autry said. Ike started tagging along about 300 miles into the hike, he said, and stuck with him the remaining 1,800.

He went through four pairs of hiking shoes over the 2,181 miles of the trail, and despite planning and researching before he started, found a few things that needed to change along the way. His pack, for example, was far too heavy to carry during a day of hiking.

He started the trail off slow, hiking about 8 miles per day, and worked up to a maximum of around 24 miles per day through Virginia — about halfway through the trail. 

A favorite part along the trail was the White Mountain range in New Hampshire, Autry said, even though other hikers they passed warned that the terrain was painful and rocky.

“But then we get there, and it’s breathtaking, it’s gorgeous,” Autry said. “It feels like you’re standing in the Lord of the Rings … and you’re above the tree line, so you can just see miles and miles and miles.”

Those views, and looking back on how far he traveled by just walking, were some of the most rewarding parts of the trip, Autry said. He started the trail hoping to break up the day-to-day of a 9-to-5 routine and to fulfill a goal he had since he was 18, when he read “A Walk in the Woods,” a book about hiking the AT.

“I told myself I wanted to do it by the time I was 30. I made a big goal of it — ‘by the time I’m 30, I’m going to have the trail done,’” he said. “I missed it by a year because I started the trail when I was 31.”

Even though he missed that goal, Autry said the timing ended up just being right at 31. He was in between contracts with work and had the money saved up to take six months and travel into the wilderness. Everything lined up perfectly, he said, and he set off on the trail in pursuit of solitude and that shake up he needed.

He summited Mt. Katahdin, the final stop on the trail, on Sept. 16, just over six months after starting. 

“I thought I was going to cry up there [on Mt. Katahdin], that all the emotions were going to come over me and I’d cry, but I didn’t cry,” he said. 

Autry finished the trail with two other members of his “tramily” — trail family — and they ran the last quarter of the mile up to the top of the mountain. When they got to the sign on the summit, they had to wait for a few day hikers to finish taking pictures, but as soon as that group wrapped up, Autry said they pushed their way to the sign. 

“I just put my forehead on [the sign] and just yelled at the top of my lungs. And all three of us just enjoyed that moment, holding onto the sign,” Autry said.