On the morning of September 11, 2001, I had my bag packed by the door of a motel room in Manchester Center, Vermont. I was getting out of town for an early start.
Something made me turn the television on.
The journal entries below appear in shaded boxes – these are my original words from 2001, preserved as I wrote them. Everything else consists of reflections added later.
In this post:
Day 163 | Day 164 | Day 165 | Day 166 | Day 167 | Day 168 | September 17
Day 163
Tuesday, September 11, 2001
Manchester Center, VT
Today’s Miles: 0
Trip Miles: 1,623.8
As for me, I saw most of it live on TV. It’s funny that I even turned on the television at all – I’d packed my bag on the previous evening to avoid getting stuck in a motel for another night.
I was heading out the door this morning when something made me turn it on anyway.
But what do I matter, what does this trail matter? The entire Congress just sang God Bless America on live TV.
It was uncanny how I felt the need to turn on the television on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was ready to leave the motel room, and had already done the usual sweep of the premises to make sure I hadn’t forgotten anything. But something made me turn on the TV, “Just for a second,” I thought to myself.
I’ll never forget how I was greeted with a split-screen of two live images. One half of the screen showed the Pentagon burning in Washington DC. The other half showed smoke rising from the Twin Towers.
My first impression of the split-screen image was that it must have been some kind of disaster movie. Then I realized it was a news station – that this was real. This was live in New York City, not too far from where I sat in Manchester, Vermont. There was also a fleeting fear that the entirety of the nation was under attack – that the next image would show the Golden Gate Bridge and the White House in flames too.
I was glued to the TV for the rest of the day as events unfolded. I watched live as the towers crumbled. Reports and speculation streamed onto the news at an unrelenting pace. Alone in a motel room all to myself, there was nothing to distract me from the events that unfolded on the electric box.
The front desk called and asked if I’d be staying another night.
Yes, I would.
Day 164
Wednesday, September 12, 2001
Manchester Center, VT
Today’s Miles: 0
Trip Miles: 1,623.8
I roamed aimlessly around town today, looked at all the flags displayed, talked with random strangers, called home, bought a small radio at an electronics store, found myself at a prayer service in the evening, and am now back in front of the TV in a motel.
It felt good to walk around the town of Manchester Center and engage in a more tangible reality than the room’s television set. The streets were already covered in American flags. Newspaper headlines told of the previous day’s events, and it was refreshing to be outside among an active community.
I held this fantasy all along that to be thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail was like living in almost a different plane of existence, a monk-like pilgrimage in the mountains above the rest of the world. I still feel that way to some extent, but wandering alone through town on this day shattered that illusion, especially without other thru-hikers in my vicinity to share in my perspective.
A local church advertised an evening prayer service, and I attended for lack of anything better to do about the situation. There were a lot of candles and tears in the room that evening.
Day 165
Thursday, September 13, 2001
Manchester Center, VT
Today’s Miles: 0
Trip Miles: 1,623.8
I’m still in front of the tv.
In retrospect I feel as though America was an exceedingly sheltered place in the 1990s – of course it still is today, but perhaps to a slightly lesser degree to those of us that remember 9/11.
I graduated from high school in 1999. The Cold War was over before it could directly affect my consciousness, and the booming economy and security of the 1990s saw me through my teens as my understanding of the world took shape.
Wanting more in life than the debt of a college education and its ensuing career of presumed drudgery, I chose a different road by hiking the Appalachian Trail in 2001 to see where it would take me. My time on the Trail was the first time I lived on my own – the first time I’d been away from the shelter of my parents’ house and my hometown for a significant length of time.
Before 9/11, my experience on the Appalachian Trail only reinforced the notion of American culture being “sheltered.” Day by day I grew more out of touch with the ugly aspects of the modern world. It was a purposeful, happy life in the woods, where people were kind and “trail magic” reigned supreme. The world was full of promise.
And then I watched the Twin Towers crumble to the ground, live on TV. Things had suddenly changed, and I knew that this was just a beginning. The question was what would happen next? What COULD happen next? Would we go to war? Could I be drafted? Everything had busted wide open for the worse, and the potential ramifications were limitless.
The thought of continuing to be out of touch with current events on the Appalachian Trail seemed unbearable, but I’d invested a lot in this dream. I still didn’t want to quit (or admit to it), regardless of the fallen towers. To solve this dilemma I bought a small AM/FM battery-operated radio, and continued northbound up the trail.
Day 166
Friday, September 14, 2001
Manchester Center, VT to Bromley Mountain
Today’s Miles: 2.8
Trip Miles: 1,626.6
I painstakingly pulled myself away from the “real world” today, the one I’ve been going to great lengths to avoid for the past five and a half months, and continued north on the trail.
I had radio headphones on my ears every step of the way, something I have not practiced for the length of this hike. I suppose this is a special exception. Music can sure be good while motoring along – especially the great taste in the songs they’ve been broadcasting in light of the past week.
I got as far as the summit of Bromley Mountain before calling it a day. There is one other person here, a southbound Long Trail hiker. He’d heard the news via word-of-mouth on the trail. At 7pm I lit a candle, like I heard the rest of the nation is doing tonight (Friday).
I’m looking at the daily mileages I have to average in order to continue this hike, and they’re incredibly daunting – especially given the fact that I’m to head up into higher elevations and more difficult terrain in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, not to mention Maine. The weather is only getting colder.
I can’t really swing a flip-flop hike anymore, because I’d still be going through the White Mountains too late in the season. I could always skip ahead, maybe to Hanover or Glencliff (New Hampshire). Then I could come back and finish in Vermont.
What it comes down to… is if I can’t finish on Mount Katahdin, then I think I’d rather not finish at all.
I could push on to the north, and just get as far as I get, and that’s that… which is the most likely option. I’ve been a “purist” and proceeded exclusively northbound for the whole length of the way so far, and I’d hate to break up that continuity.
Still, these concerns are really the last thing on my mind after what has happened.
Day 167
Saturday, September 15, 2001
Bromley Mountain
Today’s Miles: 0
Trip Miles: 1,626.6
I spent most of the day on the summit of Bromley Mountain. I don’t know what I’m doing.
This is the day when I think I knew in my heart that I was going to quit – yet another zero day in a shelter without a sound, logical reason for it, save for a temporary unwillingness to go forward.
I’d listened to the radio all day, and I distinctly remember walking up the observation tower to the tune of The Who’s Baba O’Reilly. The sunset was magnificent.
The lack of air traffic and jet trails in such a brilliant blue sky added an extra layer of eerie silence to the woods. It was a unique time to spend the full day on top of a mountain in Vermont – it felt like all the world had stopped.
Day 168
Sunday, September 16, 2001
Bromley Mountain to VT 11/30
Today’s Miles: 2.8
Trip Miles: 1,626.6
I’m going home.
I sat along the trail all day, mulling this over. I just no longer have the will to go on, detached from the world and the events currently unfolding.
If I were to go on, it doesn’t help that I’m likely not going to achieve the goal of the hike at Mount Katahdin. It’s a very difficult thing to describe my feelings leading to this decision, so I’ll spare it in danger of reading like a list of excuses.
When I ultimately turned south down the trail it felt good, like a great weight was lifted from my shoulders. My hike of 2001 is finished, and going home is suddenly a reality, not the distant prospect it had been for so long. It’s exciting to be faced with life after the trail, just as it was exciting to be ascending Springer Mountain.
On my way home by bus I’ll have the opportunity to stop in New York City.
I sang aloud with the radio as I walked along the shoulder of a winding mountain highway in Vermont on a beautiful evening. Now I’m in my last motel room of the trip. I just turned on the TV and saw somebody from my high school on the screen. It was on MTV, giving a quick interview while volunteering at the WTC site. I’ll be there tomorrow.
I’d descended southbound from Bromley Mountain to make my way back to Manchester Center. Before reaching the road I stopped once more along the side of the trail. A couple of hours passed as I simply sat there, coming to terms with the fact that I was getting off the trail. It was the last debate, as maybe a part of me was still unable to accept the decision.
After returning home I’d learn that my friends Dolphin Boy and Indian Summer were the last contiguous northbound hikers of the 2001 season. They finished in late October and trudged through at least one sizable snowstorm to get there. On September 11th they were in Hanover, New Hampshire – about 100 miles ahead of me. I’m confident that I never would have caught up with them, especially considering the way I’d lingered in town for several days after the event.
It’s easy to say I got off the trail because of September 11th. It certainly played a major role in my decision, but I simply wasn’t putting in the miles to finish in 2001. Even if 9/11 had never happened, I doubt I would have finished the trail before the end of the season.
September 17, 2001
Monday, September 17, 2001
Traveling Home
Monday, September 17th was the first day that the United States effectively started getting back to normal after 9/11. Wall Street opened for business. David Letterman got back on the air. Public transportation restarted, including the bus lines that went through the Port Authority Station in New York City – the same bus line that was essential for traveling from Vermont to my home in Allentown, Pennsylvania.
I rode just a couple of buses from Vermont to Manhattan’s Port Authority station. Upon arrival there I booked the latest same-day departure for Allentown, allowing for as much time in the city as possible without spending the night.
So I didn’t have time to go to the World Trade Center site, but it was still quite an experience to walk the city’s streets in the wake of the event. I walked to Times Square, and the place was solemn. City-goers were mostly silent, and banners and flags were draped everywhere. What I remember most of all is the “Missing Person” notices – homemade signs and photographs posted all over the city streets by loved ones of the unconfirmed deceased.
We were stuck in traffic in front of the Lincoln Tunnel. The Manhattan skyline could be seen clearly out the windows, and smoke was still rising from where the World Trade Center used to be. This was almost a full week after the fact. Helicopters and perhaps even a fighter plane were high above.
The driver announced “If this is your first time to New York, you can see smoke coming up from the World Trade Center site, and the Empire State Building can be seen to the left…” Some people took photographs from the bus.
We discovered why traffic was backed up to get into the tunnel – the bus was searched at the entrance. Every vehicle was stopped and checked out by a security crew.
I boarded the last bus home after some time in the city. It wasn’t long before the radio began to pick up my hometown radio stations. I found my bedroom in my mother’s house to be flooded with returned maildrops, developed photographs, and all of these journey’s end items that brought closure to the trip.
I’ll definitely be back, at least to do the section from Vermont to Katahdin – maybe as soon as this summer. I still have my stone from Springer Mountain.
Who knows, maybe I’ll do the whole thing again someday.
But as for now, this is the end of my hike, and this journal. Thank you for reading. I’ll leave with a quote, in spirit of how I began:
“All of my possessions, for a moment of time…”
-last words of Queen Elizabeth
My 2001 journal ended with a quote to continue the thread of quotations that began in the first writing I ever posted online.
Times Square
To call it an end here was a big decision, but considering the progression of my hike that landed me in Manchester Center on 9/11, it was the right call. I was behind 2001’s last crop of straggling northbound hikers, and truly had my heart set on a continuous northbound journey – no skipping sections, and no going back to finish them later. Georgia to Maine was always the vision.
Some might consider it a failure, and I even entertained notions of starting again from Georgia the following year – but never very seriously, or for very long. It was a lot of work to come as far as I did. My original journey that began in 2001 was incomplete, and first needed to be finished.
The stone from Springer grew heavy over the winter, like the Ring of Power to be delivered to Mount Doom.
In the summer of 2002 I’d be back in Manchester Center – with the same backpack, the same stick, the same stone to carry.
Wow! Sept 11 for you! I was knee deep in the military that day, and my comfy life changed in a minute with in-toll, 2 trips across the pond.
Three years later, I stepped on the Trail for my own 5 million steps. I guess we compartmentize good and bad memories: everyday I think of the Trail; once a year think abt that day and the ensuing 20 years of war.
Thanks for posting this.
-Bill (aka 55 SOG)
Thanks for the comment today, and especially your service! Glad you made home and I hope you’ve found some peace with it.