Book Excerpt: A Talk in the Woods by Cary Segall with a Foreword by Warren Doyle

The following guest post is an excerpt from Chapter 68 of A Talk in the Woods: Voices Along the Appalachian Trail by Cary Segall with a foreword by Warren Doyle. A Talk in the Woods is a collection of stories from the AT based on hundreds of interviews conducted by the author, a thru-hiker and former award-winning newspaper reporter.

WHEN KATHY “SPLASH” KONING asked for six months off her job to thru-hike the Appalachian Trail with her son, her employer said no. So, she quit.

“I loved my job. I didn’t want to leave,” says Splash, 56, a clinical social worker who helped people with brain injuries, autism and developmental disabilities at a small nonprofit.

But she’d dreamt of thru-hiking the trail since she hiked part of it in the Smokies with classmates when she was a student at Western Michigan University.

“It’s been on my life list. It’s been one of my dreams,” says Splash, of Fishers, an Indianapolis suburb.

Then, in February, her son, Dan “Smoke” Koning, 26, also of Fishers, told her he was going to hike the trail this year after leaving the Army, where he was a satellite controller.

“I was going to do it just to take some time and reset,” says Smoke, who has a degree in mechanical engineering from Purdue. “I was tired of sitting behind a desk. It was a way to get back to being in nature and all that. It was a good challenge, too.”

When his mom asked by text if he’d mind if she joined him, he texted back “sounds good,” and Splash, who got her trail name from falling in the water a lot in previous adventures with friends, began planning.

Splash, the only woman I’ve met, other than Mama Bear, thru-hiking the trail with her child, says that at first she planned to ask for six weeks leave to join Smoke at the start of his hike and another six weeks at the end. But then she thought: “That’s not been my life goal.”

When she asked for six months, her employer said she could have only three because it would cost too much to keep her benefits going any longer. Now, after four months on the trail, she says that quitting was the right decision.

“I’m glad I did it,” says Splash, who also has two daughters, 24 and 28, and has remarried since getting divorced about five years ago. “I was ready to shake up my life. Part of my reason for coming out here was just to break out of my routine. I doubt that I’ll want to work
full time again.”

She says she’s enjoyed much of the experience, but that it’s often been tough.

“It’s hard work. It’s hard work going up mountains. It’s harder than I thought it would be. I’m really tired at night. I like to hike, but I don’t like to hike all day, every day.”

But, she says, “I still really love some of the things about it. I love living outdoors. I love the simplicity of it. Every day you get up and head to Katahdin. I think it’s cool to have a dream, set a goal, and go for it.”

I ask the two, who left Springer on April 8, how hiking together has been working out.

“He’s been an awesome hiking partner,” says Splash, who notes that Smoke could easily be hiking much faster and have more independence, if he were hiking alone.

Smoke, whose trail name comes from “popping smoke,” a military term for laying down smoke, says that he’s been happy hiking with his mom and that he’s been able to hike as fast as he wants each day and meet up with her at the end of it.

“Lots of the time, she wakes up earlier, so she hits the trail,” he says, adding that, like Splash he has mixed feelings about the hike: “I think it’s a worthwhile thing to do. There are times I enjoy it and times I don’t. It’s proving to myself that I can cut ties with the standards of going through life and have that work.”

I’ve been talking with the Konings at the home of Randy and Linda Hart in the village of West Hartford, Vermont. I’d been running down a hill into town, the day after meeting Skittles, and was on a bridge over the White River when I heard Randy ringing a big bell from his front porch, a couple hundred yards away.

A hiker ahead of me was heading over to the house, so I joined him and met Randy on the porch, where he offered me a soda from a cooler. There were a few other hikers on the porch, along with the Harts’ collie and black Lab, and several more hikers in the yard, relaxing on the grass outside their tents.

Randy tells me I’m welcome to stay, too, in the yard or in a big room above the garage where there are beds, a TV, a VCR, a radio and a fan. The Harts’ place isn’t listed in the guidebook and I’d been planning on hiking for a couple more hours to a shelter four miles away, but it’s early evening and I’ve already hiked 16.4 miles, so I’m more than happy to stop.

Randy, 55, a handyman, says he his wife, Linda, 57, a postal worker, started hailing hikers in 2001 and letting them stay at their place for free because they wanted their nephew, then 19, to get to talk to hikers before his planned thru-hike in 2002, after his first year of college.

“He’d watched hikers walk by his entire life,” Randy says. “He wanted to know what’s so great about this trail that people would hike 2,000 miles. We wanted him to have contact with hikers.”

He says the first year about 20 to 30 hikers stopped, but they welcomed many more in 2002 because they wanted to give hikers the same kind of trail magic that their nephew was getting.

“He was ready to give up the trail a couple times in Georgia and got trail magic.”

The first time, Randy says, his nephew was sitting in a shelter treating his blisters when a retired Vermont teacher showed up in the rain with apple pies from McDonald’s. He was the only guy in the shelter, so he got all the pies. The second time, it was also raining when two people hiked up the trail with steaks and baked potatoes for hikers.

“He told us about it. We flagged down every hiker we saw coming across the bridge and gave them a soda and told them they could camp out.”

When their nephew was about to arrive, they put signs in the shelters just before and just after West Hartford telling hikers to stop for a “mini trail days.” They served hamburgers, hot dogs, corn, macaroni and beer to about 100. Since then, their nephew finished his thru-hike and the Harts have continued welcoming hikers.

Flooding caused by Tropical Storm Irene in August 2011 caused serious damage to the village, including the Harts’ house, but they rebuilt. In 2012, four hikers stopped for three days to help. Last year, Randy says, 1,127 hikers stopped and there have been more than 1,000 this
year. There were 30 hikers here this morning enjoying pancakes, eggs and coffee.

There’s a jar for donations on the kitchen counter, but no sign asking for them. Randy says that’s because Linda “is afraid some people who can’t donate won’t eat.”

“Thirty or forty young people might leave nothing and an older guy will leave twenty dollars. Donations aren’t enough to cover the cost,” he says, noting that a dozen eggs that were $1 are now $3.”Sometimes it gets pretty scary.”

Nevertheless, he says, “I love it. I love meeting all the different people and talking to them about their jobs. The best thing is seeing the smiles on their faces. It’s so heartwarming.”

He says the hikers have also been great for the two daughters the couple had together, now 24 and 22.

“They got to interact with people from different countries, different states, different jobs. Everyone was good with the kids. We’ve never had a really bad hiker in 14 years.”

He says they don’t have their place listed in the guidebook because “we don’t want people to be expecting to get stuff here, if we’re not here. We feel so guilty about that, that we try to be here all the time.”

Randy says that Mama Bear and the Cubs camped here and that he approved of the 5-year-
olds hiking the trail, although he had doubts at first.

“I thought it was a good thing. I was a little concerned about their welfare, being on the trail so long. But they were in great shape, happy, optimistic. They were enjoying themselves.”

After we’re done talking, the couple’s youngest daughter, Bobbi, and her friend, Jeanna Roy-Rogers, volunteer to drive to a nearby town to get pizza for hikers who want to order some. So, we not only have a great place to stay, but we’re well fed.

I sleep in the room above the garage and leave just before dawn and breakfast because I want to hike the 9.9 miles to Hanover in time to spend much of the day there. After 7.4 miles, I reach Norwich, Vermont, where several residents have left drinks, cookies and fruit in front of their homes for hikers, and I enjoy a mid-morning snack.

After mailing a few things home from the Norwich post office, including a full notebook, I finish the 150.2 miles in Vermont and cross the Connecticut River into New Hampshire and, a half mile later, Hanover. I stop first at the Dartmouth Outing Club, where hikers are allowed to use the computers. The club also has a list of area trail angels who let backpackers stay at their homes for free.

While there, I learn from a few hikers that Carol and David Jalbert have stopped letting backpackers camp in the backyard of Country Clothes in Kent because of some people who caused problems. I guess that they were most likely yellow-blazers and, whoever they were, I think it’s sad that a few campers are making the hike harder for the vast majority of respectful backpackers.

After spending a little time at the outing club, I explore the quaint college town, where I’ve been once before. Then, I was on a camping trip with Craig and we stopped to see Dartmouth College and the town where Bill Bryson, the author of A Walk in the Woods, was living when he decided to hike the AT after seeing many backpackers walk by.

After parking next to the college campus, I accidentally locked the keys in the car and the friendly police opened it for free. This time, I get free food from businesses that attract hikers – a free donut at a bakery and a free slice of pizza at a pizza place. I buy and eat a lot more food before stopping in the evening at the Hanover Food Co-op at the edge of town.

While I’m there, a thunderstorm strikes, so I wait for a couple hours and read the paper.

When the storm ends, the sun is setting. I walk about half a mile to where the trail leaves town and enters the woods, right next to a baseball field. Camping’s not allowed, but it’s getting dark; the grass is soft and nobody’s around. So, I put out my tarp, pad and bag, and settle in for the night.

About the Author

Photo: Cary Segall

Cary Segall worked on the sports desk of the Wisconsin State Journal while attending the University of Wisconsin in Madison and took his first backpacking trip on the Appalachian Trail with the UW Hoofers Outing Club. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in wildlife ecology and spent three years as a ranger-naturalist in the National Park Service. Cary returned to the UW for a law degree and became a public-interest environmental lawyer. He returned again to the UW for a master’s degree in journalism and spent fourteen years as a reporter and seven years as a copy editor at the State Journal.

A Talk in the Woods: Voices From Along the Appalachian Trail

by Cary Segall with a Foreword by Warren Doyle
Back Burner Books | On sale: July 6, 2024 | 483 pages
Paperback: 978-1-736334119; $24.95 | Ebook: 978-1-736334157; $7.95

Get Your Copy of A Talk in the Woods Here

Also distributed by Ingram Books and available through bookstores.

Featured image courtesy of Back Burner Books.