Lessons from the AT: Virginia Triple Crown

I was grateful to be back on the Appalachian Trail last week, where I completed Virginia's Triple Crown in the Blue Ridge Mountains. As always, I returned with lessons for my practice.

Over the past few years, I've often revisited questions about how Appalachian folk magic is shared and the responsibilities that come with it.

What is mine to profit from? How is that value returned to the land and communities? What remains when a ritual is extracted from the context that shapes it?

Unsurprisingly, these questions are also tied to faith, and through that lens the answers are usually more clear…

I recently finished St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s ‘The Story of a Soul’ and returned to Francis of Assisi (currently: ‘Francis and Clare: The Struggles of the Saints of Assisi’). Their works, for me, emphasize the joy of being little and of a life without pretense. As I watched the sunset over McAfee Knob, I realized what a gift it is to experience the mountains as a language that gives voice to spirit, and how much of a privilege it is to share that.

Of course, I also learned some practical magic, which will be useful as I continue section hiking and building skills for an eventual thru-hike, including planning, resupplying, and making the best f’ing fire starters with dryer lint and vaseline. I’ve really been blessed with my teachers.

I could also talk for hours about how cool it is to meet thru-hikers on the trail, hear their stories, and witness the raw emotion and kindness of people who have undertaken the wild journey of the whole AT.

The Triple Crown was seriously breathtaking. I finally got to do some decent rock scrambling, which gave me a bit more confidence to try the Pennsylvania/northern stretches.

I was also (thankfully!) able to catch the mountain laurel in bloom, a perfect symbol of resilience, its branches gaining strength as they bend and twist toward light, shaped by their surroundings and the ways they find to heal and grow.