I just returned home from a 2-day backpacking trip that was supposed to be a 9-day trip, though to be fair, I always knew that I might have to cut the trip short. I’m new to backpacking, and I like camping well enough but I don’t exactly love it. I’m nervous about animals at night and I don’t like being dirty and when I’m on vacation, I really like a glass of wine or a beer at the end of the day. On a Camino, you can sleep inside and take a shower and have a hot meal and an entire bottle of wine. All reasons I really like the Camino. So nine days for someone who’s never backpacked before was ambitious.
But, you know, I thought I could do it. If not for the coronavirus, I would be walking through Portugal right now; I’d planned 40-days of walking this summer, more than I ever have before, and I was excited for it. Walking long-distance paths has become such a big part of my life, ever since I walked that first Camino in 2014. What’s a year without a long walk? COVID has demanded this question, and I didn’t want to accept its answer. I felt restless, my legs itching to go: to go somewhere, to go anywhere. Could I find a long walk a little closer to home?
The Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Towpath (the C&O) runs for 184.5 miles from Washington DC to Cumberland, MD. It’s a mostly flat path and often used by bikers and day hikers, but there are some backpackers who hike the entire trail. With enough free campsites, water pumps and several towns close to the path, I thought it would be an ideal first backpacking experience. And in many ways, it is.
I threw my gear into my pack: a tent and sleeping bag and sleeping pad, a camp stove and a bag full of food and a water filter. I booked a hotel room halfway through the journey, in a town with a post office where I could ship a resupply box full of more food. If all went well, I’d walk for nine days, camping most nights.
I set out early, at dawn, driving to the my starting point, stowing my car, finding the start of the trail. The sun was shining and the air was fresh, my pack was heavy but my legs were eager. I was back on a long path! Nothing to do all day but walk and walk!
After about 3 miles, I realized how much weight I was carrying on my back. I could start to feel an ache in my shoulders and around my hips. My feet were starting to hurt a bit, too. I walked a few more miles, stopped for a short rest. A few more miles, stopped for lunch. I was 9-miles into the walk and starting to get worried. I’d planned for a first day of 22-miles (I know, I know), and the next day I was due to walk 23, the day after that, at least 25.
I’d intended to start a little slower, but poor planning involving picking up my resupply box from the post office meant I had to do big miles (note to self: in the future, don’t time a resupply for the weekend). But I thought I could do it, because hadn’t I walked 20-miles a day before? On the Camino, I do it all the time!
But here’s the thing. When I was planning this little adventure, I was imagining myself on my strongest Camino days. After 3 weeks of walking when my body had adapted to the path and my legs were strong and my shoulders could bear the weight of what I carried. Those were the days I recalled, the days when I felt strong and unstoppable. And there were days on the Camino, or on a hike in England, when I pushed myself hard, when I struggled but kept going. And these are also the kind of days that stick in my mind, proof that I can push myself hard, that I can keep going through some pain, that I can endure.
Well, maybe ‘endure’ should be the word of the last two days. There I was, on the C&O, putting one foot in front of the other, pain radiating through my body. “Have I ever hurt this much on a walk before?” I asked myself. I felt it everywhere: my shoulders and lower back and hips and thighs and feet and even in my ankles. My ankles hurt! I realized that I should have been more careful in my packing, that I probably should have done a few training hikes wearing my pack. Why did I think I could walk 20+ mile days with 30 pounds on my back like it was no big deal?
I made it to 15-miles. I stopped, I rested my feet. “4 more miles,” I told myself. “Then you can stop.” As I walked I came up with a new plan, one where I would shorten my next few days, and then take a bus or an Uber to the next town where I could pick up my resupply box.
After 19.5 miles I made it to a campsite and I sat on a bench and didn’t move for awhile. Slowly, hobbling, I set up my tent and washed my socks and changed out of my sweaty clothes. Two people on bikes road up, and set up camp at the opposite end of the site.
I took out dinner supplies, figuring I could eat and then crawl into my tent and have an early night, that maybe sleep would soothe my muscles.
I have this little camp stove that is nifty and neat and so easy to use. It heats up water in under 2-minutes and I’ve had it for several years, used it a few dozen times.
But this time? I was using a new fuel canister so that must have been it, maybe there was a leak, there must have been a leak, because something went terribly wrong and my stove went up in flames.
I keep thinking of that expression- “burst into flames”. That’s what happened. One minute nothing, the next, the thing was engulfed in flames. I started at it for a few seconds, my brain lagging behind the reality of the situation, lulled by the licking and leaping flames.
I snapped out of it. “Help!” I called out, panicked. The bikers ran over, the guy reached in to turn off the gas and the girl suggested I douse the remaining flames with water. I’d been frozen. I don’t do well in emergency situations, when I need to think and act quickly. If I’d been alone I would have figured it out, I think, but thank goodness there were other people there.
The stove was dripping like a Dali painting, the lower component fused to the fuel canister, the smell of burnt plastic everywhere.
“My stove,” I whispered.
I knew that my trip was over. Half the food I was carrying needed to be heated, coffee included. I might be able to push myself through a lot but I wasn’t going to do this walk without a morning cup of coffee.
It’s hard to quit something. I was thinking about that today, on my drive back home, and I realized that once I set my mind to something and go for it, I rarely quit (sometimes to my own detriment, but that’s another story). I thought about all of my research, the stages I’d planned, the treats I’d tucked into my resupply box, the excitement I’d felt about being able to head down a long path again.
But I knew I was done. I let the stove cool off and ate a cold dinner of tortillas and babybel cheese and tucked myself into my tent and fell asleep to the sound of trains on the tracks and frogs in the canal.
The next morning, at 6am, I packed up my things and turned around and walked the 19.5 miles back to where I started. I didn’t think it was possible that things could get much worse, but maybe it’s just that kind of a year.
About 3-miles into the walk, I could feel a blister developing on the bottom of my foot. I’d felt something the day before, but figured it would be fine. But this time I knew it was a blister. Should I have stopped and tried to do something about it? Probably. But my pack was so heavy that I just didn’t want to stop to take it off and put it back on more than was necessary. I was already feeling defeated, I just wanted to get the miles done and get back to my car.
So I walked, and walked, and the blister grew, and grew. After about 12-miles, I knew I’d be coming to a bench beneath a tall tree (aside from the campsites every 5-7 miles, there were few places to stop and take a break). I stared ahead, constantly looking for the bench, walking on and on.
Finally it appeared, but there was someone already there. A young guy, with a large pack and a tall walking stick.
My head was foggy from the lack of coffee, my blister ached with every step and I was annoyed that I couldn’t stop to rest at the bench. But then the guy called out- “Where are you headed?”
I stopped, and turned. “Just to Cumberland,” I said. “How about you?”
He gave me a small smile. “Denver.” A pause. “Colorado.”
I grinned, something shifted. “Tell me more.”
He talked about the route he’d plotted: starting in Pittsburgh, winding down to Cumberland and then onto the C&O to DC. He would hop to the Appalachian Trail and hike down to Georgia and then through the forests and into the midwest where he would pick up another long rail-to-trails path, and get himself over to Colorado.
“When the coronavirus hit,” he said. “I started to walk around where I live. It’s the best therapy I’ve ever found.”
I nodded and nodded.
“And then when restrictions started to lift,” he continued, “I knew that I just wanted to go out and walk for a really long time. It’s freedom.”
We talked for a few more minutes, he told me that I was the first backpacker he’d seen, and he wanted some advice. I sheepishly told him that I didn’t know much, that I was new to this too, that I didn’t even know the base weight of my pack. But I did know how to walk, and I also knew that walking was freedom, and maybe despite it all, that was enough.
He told me his name was Colby, and I wished him luck on his journey, then I continued on. I thought about him as I walked, wondering what would have happened if I hadn’t had to turn around. If I’d shortened my days would he have caught up with me? We would have been headed in the same direction and maybe I could have made a friend.
Or maybe, I wouldn’t have met him at all. Maybe I needed to turn around to find another person walking the same path.
A half mile further on I found a flat and grassy patch where I could stop and rest. I aired out my feet, drank water and ate a snack and stared off into the distance, where dark clouds were gathering.
Dark clouds. I’d timed the start of my walk for days that promised sunshine and clear skies, no rain. But the clouds were moving closer, and then there was the rumble of thunder, too.
I kept walking. What else was there to do? The clouds moved overhead and rain drops began to fall and then in the next minute, the skies opened up and the rain poured down.
Another expression: torrential downpour. How else to describe this rain? I’ve walked a hundred days on long-distance trails and I’ve walked in the rain but I have never walked in rain like this. I’d put a rain cover on my pack but hadn’t bothered to put on a rain jacket, figuring that I might just walk under a passing shower and the rain would feel good and cool on my skin.
This rain was hard and cold. It pelted down, for 10 minutes, for 20 minutes. After about 30 minutes it slowed and stopped, and I stopped too. I took off my pack and dug through to find my little towel. I looked up and down the trail and then took off my shirt and dried off as best as I could, then put on a dry shirt and pulled out a poncho to carry in my hand and then continued on.
The rain started again, falling even harder than before. I threw the poncho over my head and for awhile I stayed dry but soon there was too much rain. And then thunder, and lightening, and my blister growing larger and larger, I limped with every step through the thunderstorm, through the puddles and the mud, retracing my steps from the day before.
Thunder directly overhead and the path coming to a clearing in the trees and I stopped, and waited, and stared at the ground as water ran down the poncho into my shoes and then I saw tiny white marbles bouncing in the grass. Hail!
When it felt safer to continue I kept walking, and saw that further up the path, there was a bridge overhead and people sheltering underneath. I approached, and a woman called out to me.
“Where are you headed?”
She told me all about her days of hiking the Appalachian Trail. There was wistfulness in her voice, a tinge of envy, she looked at my pack and my poncho and my shoes and told me to savor every moment. Just as I was leaving she asked if I had a trail name. “I don’t,” I said (though the name ‘Flame’ ran through my mind). Trail names are common on the the long-distance hiking paths in the US, but not at all on the paths I’ve walked in Europe.
Something else shifted when she asked this, just as something had shifted during my conversation with Colby. It didn’t matter that I’d only made it one day on the trail and had to turn around. It only mattered that I was out there, and doing it: the weight of the pack, my battered feet, soaked to the bone, water rolling in my shoes and dripping from my nose but my legs still moving, one step at a time. Just call me Flame, I thought.
I continued, two more miles to the end. The rain stopped, the clouds moved out just as quickly as they came in. The sun poured down, warming me again. A man on a bike pulled up alongside of me. “Where are you headed?”
He was biking the final stretch of the C&O, doing an out and back ride and had seen me at my campsite the night before. “I figured you were heading south,” he said.
I told him the story of my stove, that I’d decided to turn around. And the blister, and the rain, and the hail.
“Karma,” he said, “I think if you can make it through this with a smile on your face, then something good will come back to you.”
I had a half mile left, 10 more minutes to walk. The sun was shining. My legs were still holding me up.
I smiled.
Oh Dear!
There are times when more courage is required to abandon a project than to go on and this sounds like one of those times. You could have continued and would probably be enjoying it by the end but the bit in between would have been grim, so well done for making a good decision.
OK, you should have done some practice walks with a fully loaded pack and, yes, you were over ambitious with the distances for your early stages but we won’t dwell on that.
I found that the older I got the less planning I did and enjoyed walking so much better for it. Sometimes finding a stop for the night can be exciting but never had to sleep under a hedge. Also, the stuff you take with you, how much could you actually leave out? I’m pretty sure that you read the Camino Forum that Ivar Rekve hosts and there are terrific threads on there about travelling light.
I hope that next year you will be back on a Camino and maybe your writing retreat too but until then Good Luck.
Oh and I think Flame is a really cool name.
I agree with so much of this… that I probably COULD have continued on (even by the end of the second day I could feel my body slowly adapting to the weight of my pack), and I think by the end I might have felt like an old pro. But the days in-between would have been grim, indeed. And I do think I made the right decision to stop when I did, and throw in the towel. Sometimes that’s the hardest lesson to learn, knowing when you need to quit.
And I would have thought that I’d be smarter about preparing physically… this has definitely kept me in check! Next time train with a pack!!
I’m sorry that you had to turn around, but I probably would have made the same decision. This was an amazing story (and learning experience), and I’m jealous of those miles you got to hike (and of your writing!) Thanks for sharing it with us.
I sort of believe in omens, so all this bad luck probably was a sign it wasn’t meant to be. This year looks so different for all of us, but we’ll be back on our long trails in Europe soon enough.
Before heading out, I kept thinking that the thing I was most looking forward to was the actual walking… and aside from the pain (especially that blister!), I loved getting to walk really long days. That was the hardest part about quitting, too. I think I would say the same thing, that I “sort of believe in omens”, and I have to say, watching my stove go up in flames felt like something/someonoe was shouting at me: “Turn around!! Do not advance! This is not the right time!”
I totally understand how you feel. I am looking forward to a looooong walk (and have nowhere to do it right now). Maybe another one will come along this summer for you?
Hey Nadine! I’m a camino walker, too, and I’m longing to return. There’s nothing like it!
I had considered walking the GAP trail and just couldn’t get it to work because of distance between camping areas. Maybe I’ll look at the c&o next time. Sounds like the campsites are closer together. Were there places to buy food along the way?
Our new plan is camping/backpacking at Red River Gorge in Kentucky. It’s not Spain (heavy sigh) but it’s supposed to be good hiking. And it’s fairly close to home. (We live in Ohio.)
I’m sorry your adventure ended sooner than you wanted. Good practice for next time, though, I guess. And it made a good story!
If you ever want a walking partner, let me know. I’ve done 5 caminos but I’m also just getting started with backpacking. I’ll be ready for the camino when this is all over. More than ready.
Take care!
Catherine
I’ll be more than ready for a return to the Camino as well!
I think you’d have better luck planning for the C&O; there were campsites about every 5-7 miles, so you can even be flexible with where you stop. There are also a few opportunities for hotel stays, and at least one private campground (I’d booked to stay there, mostly for a hot shower, but of course I never made it that far). In terms of food stops I’m not too sure… there ARE several towns with services, at least from what I read, but I think you’d be looking more at gas stations/dollar stores to stock up. Or restaurants/cafés for a meal. But unless you bike, you can’t count on passing services every day, so you’ll have to carry a lot of food with you (this was my main problem when my stove went up in flames, I had no way to cook my food and no chance to get more for several days).
I think your backpacking plan for Kentucky sounds fun! I’ve really needed to wrap my mind around the fact that I just can’t go on a long walk this year, and have to look for different opportunities. But at least I had an adventure, already the worst parts of it are fading in my memory (which tends to happen!).
No Camino this year … I know how it feels. Had two of them in planning, the Primitivo with my son and possibly another two weeks on the Via de la Plata. It will not happen this year, although Spain and Portugal are slowly opening up again, with lots of restrictions. Longer walks in the neighborhood are different and won’t make up for a Camino as you know.
I completely get your opening paragraph and found it a brave decision to go for a camping trip anyway. With lots of lessons for you. What would you say is your most important lesson of these two days?
It’s hard to not have a long walk to look forward to, and I’ve felt at a loss for what to do with myself. The backpacking adventure didn’t work out, but I’m glad I tried. Like you said, there were a lot of lessons, and honestly, I probably need a few days to continue reflecting on them! The two most obvious are to test my equipment before I leave and train with my pack!! But there are deeper lessons as well, and those take more time to explore. I hope you’ll be able to find different adventures this year as well… and the Camino will be there, in one way or another, when we are ready to return.
What an adventure! My sympathy for how it ended, however, well done for your gritty determination and good choices once disaster happened. Also, what an excellent story and beautiful photos.
How are the blisters doing?
Would you consider returning to the trail after recovering and replacing the stove? (Just interested, perhaps answer this in a few days!) (No pressure!)
I must admit, my days of sleeping on the ground are numbered. I’m an albergue person at heart.
It does make for a good story, doesn’t it? And fun to write about! Already I’m finding the humor in some parts of it (the blister is slowly healing but my body is sore, so it’s a reminder that I put myself through quite a lot over just two days). It’s a good question, whether I’ll consider returning. I’m part of a group on Facebook for the trail, and just seeing some photos this morning made me wish that I could have continued. So I’m not sure. In some ways, just those two days showed me a lot, it was sort of a good “scouting trip” and I know a lot more of what to expect. I think going easier on my body is key (I know a long walk will have its physical challenges, but I at least want to be able to enjoy aspects of the walking!). Maybe later in the summer or even in the fall I’ll return for a chunk of it, but I do agree, I’m ‘an albergue person at heart’ as well.
It’s so great to read about you hiking, again! As usual, you illuminate life lessons and give inspiration. Bravo to you for getting out there and doing it. I, also, had to cancel a walk on the Chemin de St. Guilhem in France, this fall. Hopefully, next year we’ll all be healthy and walking in Europe once again.
And it felt good to be writing about hiking again! I was actually looking forward to that- journaling every night, taking some videos, coming home and then blogging about it all. But at least I got one good blog post out of it! It felt good to set off on a long walk again, too, even if I didn’t make it very fall. I’m sorry about your canceled walk, though after reading through several of these comments, it seems as though so many of us have had to cancel our long walks, and it makes me feel not so alone. And yes, we’ll be walking in Europe again soon!
Aww I feel for you Nadine as we’ve all had those moments on the Trail – I certainly have. And I’m definitely like you in that even though I have a tent and tried that type of journey a few times, I’m definitely more of a Camino/Albergue hot shower for night person. A couple of years ago i had to abort mission on my hike on the Corsica GR20 – some rookie mistakes in nutrition/hydration and I couldn’t go on. Last fall when I did the via DiFrancesco in Italy, there was one day I was in the mountains pretty much by myself on a stretch not very well marked so GPS on my phone was key. Well the skies opened up I was in the middle of a t-storm, I was so drenched I couldn’t swipe my phone, etc. But you just keep soldiering on and find a way, just as you did during those 2 days and it becomes sort of a badge of honor:). Anyways I guess my point is I’ve had some “moment’s” (blisters, temporarily losing my passport, getting lost, etc.) on all my Caminos that have been well lets put this way unpleasant LOL.. But as I know you can relate the worst of times on any of my Caminos/journeys can never ever outweigh the joy felt during the best of times! Which is what keeps me longing for more Camino’s:)….
Oh, Nadine. I’m so sorry that all hell broke loose on what was supposed to be a treat of a backup plan! First no Camino Portugues, and then no B&O because of pain x10 and fire (fire! of all things!).
Your experience reminds me that intuition speaks all the time — but heeding it is a totally different process. I love that you called for help just at a moment you needed it. I think there’s some kind of spiritual lesson in there somewhere (silver lining?). It’s a blessing that you were close enough to be just a days’ walk from your car, even if it was painful on many levels.
I just have to say how absolutely stunning your photographs are. So vibrant and well-composed. Thank you for sharing them and this story of your journey with us. I’m so grateful.
May you heal well, body, mind, and soul, peregrina. Buen camino.
Thanks Jen (always so nice to hear from you!). I know, fire! Of all things!! (something I’ve never worried about for a second on any Camino). I think I was in over my head a bit, and not quite as well prepared as I should have been. Maybe I’ll try again (maybe), but I do have to say that the feeling just AFTER I made it to my car, knowing that I’d just walked through something really hard, was a good one. That’s not quite the right word, but I think you might know what I mean.
And thanks for the photography compliment; I love taking photos, and I have to say that I think all of my travels have increased my skills (although, a beautiful day and nice scenery certainly help, and make it much easier to take nice shots!).
Hoping to share some upcoming “adventures from the road” soon, stay tuned!
Ah, the joy of a hot shower. Several decades ago I used to backpack in the Adirondacks. I recall getting to a wilderness hiking center after a long time in the woods and the thrill of feeding a quarter into a slot and getting a few minutes of hot water. The Adirondack Mountain Club that ran the center was missing a major fundraising opportunity. Most of us would have been happy to stuff a twenty dollar bill into that slot. I’m sorry about the misadventure but as others have said, “A good time or a good story.”
That was a missed fundraising opportunity indeed! And it’s true, the misadventures certainly make for a better story, happy that I could share it here, and to have such an enthusiastic and loyal audience!
Nadine, thank you for this post. I struggle to name what touches me so in the reading of it. Perhaps it feels like a profound resonance of the working out of life on the trail/ trek that so often happens in these endeavors. The physical journey becomes a mirror for the spiritual. I admire your pluck and determination, and your willingness to write about it. Thank you for articulating a struggle that resonates mightily with me right now.
Thanks for your comment, Delphine; at first I hesitated to write about it at all. I was a little embarrassed, and, quite frankly, I’d envisioned returning home, a bit triumphantly, and writing a series of posts on the trip. But sometimes the failures and the struggles are the more important stories (for all of us). I’ve gotten into such a good grove with my European walking that this experience reminded me of how much there is still to learn, that a challenge isn’t always a bad thing, that there are so many opportunities for growth.
But, seriously, I could have done without the rain.