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Each year, some 3,000 people take the challenge of hiking 2,000-plus miles along the Appalachian trail. These so-called “thru-hikers” cross through 14 states on their grueling months-long journey and their stories are now being told in a new book, Tales from the Trail: Stories from the Oldest Hiker Hostel on the Appalachian Trail by the Rev. Sherry Blackman.
The book, which includes dozens of heart-felt and gripping interviews and conversations, explores what happens when humans venture into what’s known as the “Cathedral of the Wild.”
Underlying Spiritual Reasons for Hiking the Trail
Since 1976, thousands hiking the trail stretching from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mt. Katahdin, Maine have stopped at the Hiker Center at the Church of the Mountain in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, for support ranging from the physical to the spiritual. Rev. Blackman told CBN News that she sees people of all ages hiking the trail.
“I believe that there’s always an underlying spiritual reason for people to be on the trail and some of them don’t know why they’re doing it,” Blackman said. “But what I have found consistently is people are in some kind of transition. They’re wondering what’s next for them. They’re grieving a loss of some kind, lost love, lost family member, lost opportunity. And, I would say, a fair amount of hikers are going through a divorce or have just finished going through a divorce and are trying to figure out how am I going to survive this? So, a lot of people are on the trail for forgiveness and to figure out how to forgive somebody or even themselves.”
Rev. Blackman has led the flock at the Church of the Mountain since 2014, telling us the Hiker Ministry was what first attracted her here. The church provides shelter, water, showers, sleeping space and even counsel, if a hiker wants it.
A former journalist, Blackman said she found herself drawn to this church that hosted 1,400 hikers passing through every year.
During our visit, we met Austin, trail name, “Pirate” – a 27-year-old restaurant manager from Florida who always dreamed of making this trek. “I was only going to do Georgia,” he said. “I had two weeks off of work, but I hit the trail and I was like, you know what, when’s the next time I’m going to be on the trail? So I just decided to keep on going, see how far I could make it,” he told us.
Pirate, who started in Georgia in late April and is now more than half way to Maine, says one of his most memorable moments has been an encounter with a baby deer.
“I had a baby deer come up and was licking my leg and had his nose up my pant leg and stuff and he followed me for like three miles, super cute. I got lots of cool video of that, and then just walking through the Grayson Highlands in Southern Virginia was the most beautiful thing, the rhododendrons were in bloom,” he recalled.
When asked if he felt like he was encountering God on the trail, Pirate said, “There’s certainly a higher power because there’s the saying on the trail, the ‘Trail Provides.’ Four or five days ago, someone had very generously put a cooler with six things of water in it and on the inside was a note and it said ‘thru-hikers, if you need to re-supply, a place to shower, a place to stay, call this number free of charge.’ And so I called the number. She was nice enough to pick me up, take me to Walmart. I had a home-cooked meal in their home, played board games with their family. They were super generous. And so it’s just the generosity and the culture of the people on the trail, it’s perfect. The trail makes me want to keep going,” he said.
Emotional Healing and Peace
Others, like 21-year-old Levi, trail name “Lat”, short for Latitude, hope to find emotional healing and peace on the journey.
“I can finally be happy with who I am,” he told us. “It’s something I’ve never experienced in my life, at least I don’t ever remember,” he added. Lat said he’s encountered God on the trail through the kindness of strangers.
31-year-old Maggie, trail name “Skittles” hiked the trail with her husband in 2019. “I was a nurse and I was feeling a little bit burnt out and I thought the trail would just be a great way to surround myself with nature and peace and quiet for the most part and not have to deal a lot with people. It’s one of the reasons we started late to avoid some of the bubble. But it was the people, the connections we made with people, that meant the most to me, and really just kind of changed my entire viewpoint on the world,” she said.
Skittles told us she came back from that trip more in love with her husband than before. “It was an adventure of a lifetime and I’m so glad that I had him to share it with,” she said.
In addition to bunks and hot showers, the church hosts a free hikers feed each Thursday during the summer. “We have a potluck dinner, people from community, as well as church come and bring food,” Blackman told us. “We never know how many hikers we’re going to have. I think about one night we had about 50, we always let them go first, there’s no agenda,” she added.
Soul Shedding
By the time Appalachian Trail hikers get to the quaint little hamlet of Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania, they’ve already trekked more than 1,000 miles. This is the half-way point, whether you’re hiking southbound or northbound, and Rev. Sherry says, that’s significant.
“I think that with every step they take, there’s a shedding. There’s like a soul shedding, like they’re getting rid of stuff,” Blackman said. “They realize what they don’t need to live. They realize what really connects them to life. So I think it’s significant because sometimes I think it takes a thousand miles to kind of let go of stuff,” she said. “There was a guy who – he’s in the book – and he had walked here from Georgia and he said that by the time he got to our place, he had finally forgiven his wife for her infidelity, but he was glad he still had another 900 miles to go, he wanted to make sure it was deeply embedded in him,” Blackman said.
When asked why she wrote the book, she said, “I wrote it because I wanted to celebrate the ministry of the church. I wanted other churches to realize that, look around your community, who’s coming through. That’s how it started. The church was down to like 15 people in 1970s. And they’re like, who’s coming through? How do we minister to those in our town? And that’s when they saw these hikers re-supplying on the church lawn and that’s what started it,” she said.
Whether it’s the need for adventure, the thrill of the challenge, or deep personal healing, Blackman says the so-called “Cathedral of the Wild” often leads these brave explorers to the only One who truly satisfies. “There’s a story in the book about a young man, who’s a potter, well-known potter and he was walking on the trail because he was really having a lot of restlessness in his life. And he said by the time he got to Mt. Katahdin he realized {the thing he was looking for} was Jesus and it was only Jesus,” Blackman said.
The remainder of this article is available in its entirety at CBN