Pathway to God: 2,000 Miles on the Appalachian Trail

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The encounters he had along the way spawned a spiritual journey that would take him to a place he would have never imagined. My name is Carter McLean Mumsen Hudson. I'm 22 years old. I'm a resident of North Carolina. I just completed the Appalachian Trail. Walked from Georgia to Maine. Took me roughly four months. I started in the middle of my college semester, which would have been March 1st, and I finished July 8th. The entire Appalachian Trail is 2,193 miles this year and often changes. I walked about 2,000. I am in college studying religion to become a preacher.

I'm into the outdoor world, especially biking and running and hiking and climbing and boating. I had a good, diverse childhood. I was surrounded by people who had rural backgrounds and a more difficult life, right? A lot of them went to the army or became mechanics.

That's kind of the story. Played a lot of basketball, played baseball, you know, just regular high school stuff. Wasn't the best student, but managed to make it to college, so that was a success. The reason that I wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail was simply because it was there.

There was no goal I had in mind. I never would have wanted to do something like this if the Appalachian Trail didn't exist. The idea from walking from Georgia to Maine just sounds silly, but my college had a program where I was offered credits. I'm really close with the man who runs the outdoor program. His name is Jim Harrison. He really inspired me by his stories and his involvement in the community and how much the Appalachian Trail influenced his life.

I mean, it was his mecca. He lives next to the Appalachian Trail. One thing that I realized working in Appalachia at a local food market was that people's reverence for the mountains and pride, even in their impoverished communities in Appalachia, was something unique that I'd never really seen, and I want to be a part of that. I thought one way I could do that would be hiking the Appalachian Trail and seeing the people in their natural habitat and seeing the music in his natural habitat and just trying to understand a little bit more where this love and pride of the mountains came from. The way I got started on the Appalachian Trail was emailing Jim.

He said, all right, we're going to do it, and then we started doing hikes and getting involved in the mountains. The most interesting thing that we did probably was a shakedown hike, because on the shakedown hike, that's when you already have all your gear, you're ready to go. Basically what you need is you need a backpack, you need a sleeping bag, a tent, some stuff to cook with, and some clothes, and you can pretty much hike the Appalachian Trail. Maybe a water bottle, you know, if you don't want to get dehydrated. That's what I walked those 2,000 miles with.

That's what it was. In preparing to walk 20 miles a day on the Appalachian Trail, there is no preparation. The trail trains you. There's no way that you will be able to walk 20 miles a day in preparation in the Appalachian Trail.

So on the trail, you get in shape. You start by walking 12 miles a day, and then you walk 15 miles a day. You end up walking 20 miles a day. And I had friends who would walk 40 miles a day.

Your feet get stronger, your joints, you roll your ankles so many times that it becomes like a rubber band, and it's really flexible. That's how you get ready to walk all those miles is by actually walking on the Appalachian Trail. And that's the problem with a lot of people is they get hurt early on because they try to walk too far in the beginning because they hear about all these people that are walking 20 miles and those things. But in fact, you got to start slow and eventually you'll be able to walk 20 miles. Your feet are going to hurt the entire time no matter what. On March 1st, we drove down to Springer Mountain in Georgia.

It was probably 65 degrees. And in Georgia, they have this approach trail that's about eight miles long. And you go up these steps, probably 500 feet of elevation on these steps that are built amongst this huge waterfall. So it's a pretty epic beginning to your journey. In the car ride down to Springer Mountain, I have felt a way that I've never felt in my entire life. It was sort of this curious anticipation. I was I think in actuality, like I was really nervous because actually trying to comprehend what it's going to be like to walk 2000 miles, it doesn't work. If someone told you you had to walk 2000 miles, you'd be like, there's no way dude.

It'd be horrible. So I had a really hard time actually conceptualizing what being on the trail would be like. And I was actually most worried about my mental state and if I could handle this huge task in front of me. So that was kind of the atmosphere on the way down to the Appalachian Trail.

I was with seven other young students who were a part of this program at Emory & Henry College. It was winter, so it was gonna be really cold. So we start hiking, right? We start hiking together. All of us, we get out the van, we pile out the van, we take a picture at the beginning of the trail, the approach trail, and we start hiking.

We start hiking up these steps. And within the first 20 minutes, we had to take a break because we were so tired. 20 minutes in the Appalachian Trail, we had to take a break.

You might as well just call Jim and tell him to bring the van back because if you just take a break 20 minutes in the Appalachian Trail, there's no way you can walk 2,000 miles. The first day was very difficult mentally. Our packs were too heavy. We had no idea what we were doing. Nobody else knew what they were doing. The people that gave us a little orientation at the beginning on how to properly be safe and hike on the Appalachian Trail and not litter and those types of things had no faith that we were going to complete the Appalachian Trail. You could see it. They were joking about all the people that were hunched over carrying those big packs with pots and pans and just the amount of ignorance that started on the Appalachian Trail really was amazing. I mean, we had no idea what we were doing.

The sun was going down about six o'clock then, seven o'clock. So we get to camp. Finally, we get to Springer Mountain first. We get to Springer Mountain first and then we take a picture. It's just this random rock on top of this hill and then we finally step on the Appalachian Trail. There's a shelter about half a mile up the Appalachian Trail. So we finally get that adrenaline rush of hiking the Appalachian Trail and then we have to stop and set up camp.

So we set up camp amongst all these other people who have no idea what they're doing as well. My buddy can't find a rock to tap his tent in. He's getting anxious. He's sweating.

It's not looking good. You know, we have four more months at least of this and we can't even get our tent set up. And you've been listening to Carter Momsen Hudson from Hillsboro, North Carolina, sharing with us his story, his tale of walking the Appalachian Trail. The reason I wanted to hike the trail, he told us, is because it was there. Paraphrasing Sir Edmund Hillary on why he climbed Mount Everest, this isn't as epic.

But a challenge, nevertheless, I don't think most of us would attempt this. 2,000 miles in total from Georgia to Maine. He wanted to understand where the love and pride of the Appalachian Mountains came from. An animal who spent some time among the people who inhabit the Appalachian Mountains understand that pride. There is no preparation for this endeavor, he told us. The trail trains you.

You start by walking and you keep walking 15 miles a day, then 20, and then more. The story of hiking the Appalachian Trail is told by Carter Momsen Hudson continues here on Our American Story. Oh, it's such a clutch off-season pickup, Dave. I know, right?

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Happy riding! And we continue with Our American Stories and with Carter Momsen Hudson's story, a religion major in college who decided to take a semester and hike the Appalachian Trail. Let's pick up where we last left off. So we finally get our tent set up. And the most interesting thing happens. We eat our food. We kind of congregate in this small circle. We were told that we have to journal on this on this trip.

It's a school program. There must be some sort of mandatory activity on the on the journey. So we start journaling. We start journaling about what we felt that day, what we saw, what we were doing. Me and Jet, my friend who I was hiking on the trail with, both had the realization that the journaling saved you. The process of journaling actually lets you contemplate the day and put it into perspective.

Everything seems so out of reach and so difficult. But then the journaling grounded me that day, the first day on the Appalachian Trail, like I've never experienced in my life. The fact that we journal about it every single day and we had to journal about it made me realize that I was having successful days. I was tackling these small challenges every day, which made me successful, which made me less anxious in the future because I knew that I would be able to deal with the challenges that came up every day in my journey and goal of accomplishing the Appalachian Trail. It's not fun hiking in the rain, walking in the rain.

Your boxers are soaked through. You know, you're kind of worried about you're kind of worried about hypothermia because that's what everyone talks about. And then you get to a shelter and you write it down and it's as if you controlled being wet and cold. You took it and you put in your own words and you wrote it down.

I think what happens on the trail and why people who have depression and anxiety and things see that go away when they're hiking the Appalachian Trail is oftentimes because you must deal with the things that make you anxious and nervous and depressed. You are constantly solving problems that make you confident in your ability to handle whatever the world throws at you. You get a blister. You take your shoes off.

You put some tape on it and you keep on going. You deal with the situations at hand. You are in charge of everything that you did once you write it down. And then when you write it down, you realize what a lot of the anxiety and depression comes from is about the future. When you get in your tent and you write something down, it becomes about the past. One of the first things my mentor and inspiration for hiking the Appalachian Trail taught us was never boil water where it can fall in your lap. One day I was walking to a shelter and it was a long day just hit a thousand miles and we get under this beautiful shelter that has an awning and a picnic table set up. I set up my boiling water to make some ramen noodles and I'm talking to this girl named Pixie.

She's a beast. This little 18 year old gymnast who's out there walked a thousand miles with us and she's like, hey man, hey Brickhouse, your water's boiling. So I go to pick up my water but when I do that, I grab it by the top, which you're not supposed to do. You're supposed to grab it by the sides, the two handles. And I go to pick it up by the top and the water just splashes all over my left leg and arm. So I end up having to go and I walk three more days with it. There's these three huge pus bars on my leg that I didn't know what to do with.

So I was just putting Neil Sporn on it and wrapping it up in an ace bandage. And so we walked three days into Harpers Ferry, which is the halfway point, take a week off. And then a week later I go to get back on the trail. So I'm walking about two miles into the trail in Harpers Ferry.

It's this nice paved gravel road that the trail is. And I send Jim Harris in a picture. I'm like, hey man, just letting you know this is what my leg looks like.

And it's a picture of this rough, red, angry burn, the size bigger than my hand. And Jim Harrison says, hey Carter, get off trail now. So I'm super bummed out. He says he's going to call me in a minute. So I turn around and start heading back to Harpers Ferry. When I'm doing that, I get the call and I'm dreading the call.

It's like, here you go. He's going to chew me out. He's going to tell me, hey man, this is the first thing that we taught you, right?

Don't boil water where it can fall in your lap. So I get the call. I'm like, hey Jim, what's up? He's like, hey brother, how you doing?

I'm like, not so good, Jim. And he just talks to me and he gives me forgiveness and grace. He's very patient with me. He's understanding. He's like, hey man, we don't want this thing to go septic. Then you're out in the woods and you don't know what you can get.

You'll get it dirty and it'll get effective. Then you're done. You're never going to be on the trail ever again. So instead of Jim getting mad at me and being disappointed and letting me down, he gave me some positive words, encouraged me. He's like, go back in town for a week. You'll be back out in a couple of days. About seven days later, I'm back in the woods after the trail.

I'm at this place called Delaware Water Gap and they have pie and a hot dog for $2.50. And you know, I strike up a conversation with this older guy. His name's Lightning. Come to find out he's the head of the burn victim unit for Florida, all of Florida. I'm like, right on, man. I actually have this horrible burn on my leg.

What should I do about it? He's like, oh man, I don't know. I was more on the administrative side.

He wasn't a doctor, a nurse or anything. So I'm kind of bummed. So I leave and two days later, I get a call on my phone, some random number and I pick it up. He's like, break house. It's Lightning.

I'm like, what's up Lightning? He's like, I called a nurse back home and she said, the best thing that you could do is put cocoa butter on it. So I went to town, got some cocoa butter, put that on my leg. After that, I called Jim. He was relieved. I was relieved. And he was like, now you're ready to tackle the next thousand miles with a little bit more maturity and understanding in your headset.

That was a good, well, lesson learned. I'm a religion major. One of the things that I thought was going to be instrumental in my success on this journey was my relationship with God. I mean, you're in nature. It's beautiful.

It's hard for me to find an argument for God not existing while walking on the Appalachian trail. I mean, you're surrounded by the most delicate, beautiful wildflowers that you will ever see in your entire life. And you're just surrounded by growth. You're in nature.

I mean, it's beautiful. One thing that I thought was going to be pretty constant in my journey was I was going to be talking to God. I was going to be praying. I was going to be growing in my faith, becoming closer with God. I started walking, you know, I started walking on the trail and I kept waiting for those big moments of joy and feelings of peace and bathing in the presence of God, right, being present with the Holy Spirit.

I would say that actually I didn't accomplish that on the Appalachian trail. I didn't fully grow with my relationship with God. I wasn't in, I didn't depend on God when I was cold and wet and hungry or thirsty. I didn't pray to God as if I needed God.

You know, I still thought of myself as like the ruler of my ship. So that was kind of a disappointment on the trail. I thought I was going to come back with sort of a dialogue with God. But looking back briefly after recently of finishing the Appalachian trail, I realized that I assumed that I was going to come out of the Appalachian trail with my final relationship with God, with how I was going to interact with God for the rest of my life because I was immersed in nature, because I thought I was going to have to depend on Him to keep me safe. But in reality, I think that journey is never going to end, right?

That's going to be a constant battle throughout my entire life. My life journey is trying to create a relationship with God. And I'm almost relieved that I didn't close that part of my life. I'm still going to be searching for new ways to be in God's presence.

And a terrific job on the editing, production, and storytelling by John Elfner. And a special thanks to Carter Momsen Hudson from Hillsboro, North Carolina for sharing his story with us. And it's not a terribly exciting story in the sense that there were near-death experiences or even experienced some utter joy or peace walking the trails and having this out-of-body God experience.

That didn't happen. And that doesn't happen often when we try to find God in these ways. God tends to find us more often than not. And what was most interesting is just how He kept at it, how He persevered and what He had to say about journaling and about anxiety and depression is always thinking about the future or worrying about your present. But here, it was the task in front of you every day, the preparation for the next day, and all of the problems that had to be solved in the moment, believing Himself of the ordinary burdens of day-to-day life. The story of Carter Momsen Hudson, his search to get closer to God, to find a deeper meaning on the walk along the trail, and he found it in his own way. His story here on Our American Stories.

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