4 days Ago
Sally and her childhood friend Erin are hiking the 2,150-mile Appalachian Trail from Georgia to Maine. Well, maybe. Just an hour into the trek, the hapless hikers discover they’ve gone the wrong way and missed the trail’s southern terminus.
Alas, at least it wasn’t raining. Yet. It’s the first of a mountain of misadventures in Sally Chaffin Brooks’ comedic memoir, “Going to Maine.
” “Going to Maine: All the Ways to Fall on the Appalachian Trail,” by Sally Chaffin Brooks. Running Wild Press. $19.
99 Hiking the AT means carrying everything you need to survive in the woods on your back, from food and water to clothing and shelter. Sally and Erin trudge on with their 35-pound packs, climbing over the Appalachian Mountains day after day. It rains.
A lot. They’re stiff, sore, cold and tired. It doesn’t help that Sally is admittedly “in the worst shape of my life.
” The discomfort is constant, and the blisters on their tender feet are big and painful. “No rain, no pain, no Maine” is a mantra of northbound AT hikers, something I learned the hard way during my 2015 thru-hike . You will, too, as you follow along in Sally and Erin’s footsteps, waiting for the sun to reappear — it always does — to lift their spirits.
And when a trail town yields hot showers, warm beds, fresh food , clean clothes and phone calls home, you’ll fly high with the duo as their doubts diminish and thoughts of quitting are quelled. The daily challenges continue, but Sally and Erin adjust their attitudes and fall into a rhythm as springtime advances, wildflowers bloom and the trees turn leafy green. The walking is good and so are the views.
The company is good, too, as they meet other hikers and develop fast friendships. Soon enough, a fun trail family or “tramily” forms. Trail names are an essential part of the AT culture.
Erin embraces “Sweet and Low,” a nod to her diabetes. A ranger asks Sally if she has a trail name, and when she replies, “Not Yet,” she’s immediately dubbed with that moniker. The cast of characters includes, among others, Lawn Ornament, Falcon, Turbo, Sea Blue, Pilgrim, Lucky, Sparrow and simply Mike and Ben.
Sally and Erin’s great adventure began innocently enough a year before with a phone call. “Dude, I’m going to hike the AT,” exclaims Erin from her place in St. Louis, as Sally crawls through Chicago on her way to work.
After they hang up, happy for her best friend but jealous of her boldness, Sally’s mind begins to churn amid the frustrating traffic. For 24-year old Sally, life in the Windy City is good. She loves her job working with kids with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
She loves her boyfriend, Kevin. She has great friends. Law school is on the horizon.
But suddenly she senses something is missing. She calls Erin. “’I’m coming with you.
’ And just like that, my life changed course.” The summer before, Sally, Erin and Erin’s older sister, Cara, an AT thru-hiker herself, hiked the length of Vermont on the Long Trail, 268 miles from Massachusetts to Canada. “The Long Trail pushed me to my limits.
I swore I would never do anything like that again,” noted Sally. Despite the hardship, the experience was magical and left an undeniable imprint. The saga of “Going to Maine” is told in 53 chapters plus a prologue and epilogue.
The adventure proceeds chronologically, from pre-hike preparation to the long journey itself. Chapter headings indicate the miles left to trail’s end at Maine’s Katahdin, so you’re able to mark progress. Short chapters move the story along toward that goal.
Brooks doesn’t always get the order of the trail’s geography correct, but that is forgiven given that she hiked the AT in 2003 and published the book 21 years later in 2024. Memories fade and journals can be sketchy. To be sure, only another thru-hiker who has walked the distance is likely to notice these subtle discrepancies.
The months go by and the miles pile up for Not Yet, Sweet and Low and their band of “hiker trash,” the term for those who have shunned normal society for a while and taken up life on the trail, embracing the ever-present dirt, sweat and smell as well as the simplicity of putting one foot in front of the other by day and sleeping in a different place each night. The Appalachian Trail experience is powerful, and often difficult to understand for those outside the bubble, so to speak, i.e.
friends and family at home. As Sally’s bond with her trail brethren strengthens, her relationship with her boyfriend unravels with each trail meetup and phone call, the two on decidedly diverging paths. As the hike wears on, you’ll see Sally grow stronger, happier, more confident.
To the halfway point at Harper’s Ferry in West Virginia, across the Hudson River at Bear Mountain in New York and over Mount Washington in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Not Yet and her friends — to include the friendly, handsome (ahem) Ben — are enjoying the time of their lives. Mother’s Nature bounty of beauty sustains the soul, for sure, but five months of rain, wind, rocks, roots, heat and mud take their toll on even the most determined hikers. Despite multiple falls, getting lost, several serious diabetic incidents, diarrhea and bugs, Sally and Erin persevere and finally reach Maine, “the singularly most scenic and interesting state.
.. on the whole trail.
” I (perhaps slightly biased) wholly concur. At trails’ end atop majestic Katahdin, you’ll want to stand and applaud wildly, wave your ballcap and shout out “woot, woot!” for Sally, Erin and crew for taking you along on this wacky, wild and wonderful walk. Theirs is a monumental feat of endurance, a life-changing endeavor in which only a fraction of those who are “Going to Maine’” ever make it all the way from Georgia.
Bravo! Carey ‘Beerman” Kish of Mount Desert Island is a Triple Crown hiker (AT, PCT and CDT ), freelance writer and author of three hiking guides. We believe it’s important to offer commenting on certain stories as a benefit to our readers. At its best, our comments sections can be a productive platform for readers to engage with our journalism, offer thoughts on coverage and issues, and drive conversation in a respectful, solutions-based way.
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