Weaving the Tale Of Trekking's Gritty Fellowship

HARPERS FERRY, W.Va., June 2 -- A curious and uncommon species of beast migrates annually along a 2,175-mile corridor of the Appalachian Mountains, traversing 14 states from Georgia to Maine. Specimens appear in Northern Virginia and Maryland about now -- peak season -- as spring melts into summer. Roaming solo or in packs, at least 146 have been photographed and catalogued this year at a watering hole near the confluence of the Shenandoah and Potomac rivers.

Pythagoras, Hornblower, Crazy Bear, Flick -- they call themselves thru-hikers. Not to be confused with 2,000-milers. Some might be flip-floppers, but most are northbounds. They are definitely not yellow blazers. Because, frankly, if you're going to cut corners, at least do it by blue blazing. Then again, if you're a blue blazer, you don't really qualify as a thru-hiker.

For the trekkers of the Appalachian Trail -- a fellowship with rituals and lingo molded in mud and dust -- a group of devoted hikers is launching an effort to build a museum. About 100 people gathered here Saturday for the dedication of a modest first exhibit at the headquarters of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, a nonprofit organization that for 82 years has overseen America's longest marked footpath and first National Scenic Trail.

"The museum isn't just about the history of the trail," said Larry Luxenberg, founding president of the Appalachian Trail Museum Society. "It's about the whole Appalachian Trail community, which is very unusual in many ways."

Each year, thousands of volunteers help maintain the trail through the conservancy or its numerous local affiliates. Many of these "trail angels" are also thru-hikers, those who have trekked the entire route within a year.

Of the estimated 2,000 individuals each year who attempt a thru-hike, about 500 succeed. Most fall off after the first week, hikers said, defeated by legs and backs too weak for heavy packs while climbing Georgia's Great Smokies. Others, the 2,000-milers, walk the full trail in stages over a longer period.

The museum society envisions a repository for artifacts pertinent to the trail and its evanescent culture. The preliminary exhibit showcases pioneers Benton MacKaye and Myron H. Avery, who in the 1920s imagined and built a path along the spine of the Appalachians to offer a sanctuary from industrial hubbub. MacKaye's battered felt hat and typewriter sit beside a bicycle wheel with a handle and odometer, which Avery used to measure the trail's mileage.

If it raises enough money, the society plans to open a 12,500-square-foot museum within 10 years in Harpers Ferry, the trail's "psychological halfway point." Future exhibits would explore the rich ecology of the trail's 250,000 acres, said Terry Harley-Wilson, museum society vice president. With luck, a hiker might spot such rare or endangered species as the black bear, Virginia northern flying squirrel or bald eagle.

A quarter of the trail threads through Virginia. Hikers almost blink through four miles in this part of West Virginia and 41 in Maryland before reaching the real midpoint in southern Pennsylvania.

Along the trail, the great leveler, identities are shed and shaped anew. Thru-hikes are acts of defiance, and nicknames evoke a style of walking, an anecdote on a mountain crest or an epiphany in the silence of the wilderness.

Marilyn Eisner, 36, quit her nursing job in New Hampshire to hike the full trail in 2003. She earned her sobriquet a few muddy days into the Smokies, when a wanderer behind her asked how she managed at that pace to get anywhere at all, never mind making it to the northern terminus at Mount Katahdin. The choice was stark, Eisner said. It was Baby Steps or Caboose.

"I was technically alone," said Baby Steps, a conservancy volunteer. "But I don't think you're ever really alone if you're going north," the direction most take. Some head south or "flip-flop," hiking a section of the trail at a time, eventually finishing the full span.

Solidarity, it seems, is never lacking. A Virginia family treated David "Beeline" Berliner, 20, of Montreal and Frederick "Grogger" Hayes, 21, of Canberra, Australia, to a sausage dinner one chilly night in the Shenandoahs, the pair recalled over ice water at a Harpers Ferry tavern.

"We might have to put the pedal to the metal," Grogger said. After sharing a six-pack with Pythagoras, Tin Tin and Joseph Stalin on a recent evening, Grogger and Beeline were forced to "take a zero" -- a no-mileage day -- so making up the difference by blue blazing, veering off the track, or yellow blazing, hitching a car ride for a stint, was tempting.

Elsewhere, Flick (a walking-stick technique), Golden Boy (an incident involving too much drink) and Ninja (no comment) -- a pack of 20-somethings from a cluster of Ohio towns who met within weeks of setting out from Springer Mountain, Ga. -- pored over photos at conservancy headquarters, where hikers have had pictures taken since 1981. They said they would push north together. First, they planned to stop for the Half-Gallon Challenge at Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, a rite that involves a grocery store and a quantity of ice cream not approved by the FDA.

Meanwhile, along the flat-packed dirt trail winding out of Harpers Ferry over the Potomac River and into Maryland Heights, the thru-hikers are easy to spot. There's one beneath a tree, near a gaggle of geese: bearded, sweaty and in beaten-up boots, his arms plunged deep inside a backpack the size of a small mammoth.

There's another, dozing in the shade of the Potomac River Bridge. Knee braces encase his joints, his shoulders and neck are sunburned, and a bag of peanuts hangs from his pack, which doubles as a pillow.

About two miles down the path, Spencer Kasko sets a fiery pace. Lean and bronzed, the 17-year-old from Mechanicsville doesn't have a moniker. He's on a schedule, he says, too pressed to join any pack long enough for a name to stick. Since April, he's seen four bears and a rattlesnake. He loves the independence of fending for himself, he says, but he must average 17 miles a day, refueling every two weeks from drop boxes along the way, if he's to finish by August, in time for his final year of home schooling.

And onward he strides.