Outside Reading - Blog #1

In a Washington Post article, a woman named Allie Gahman writes about what she learned on her six month hike along the AT. She starts out the article reflecting on the strong person she has become since starting her journey on the trail with her fiancee, Clif. She talks about the fearful person she was before and how that person has returned when she is daunted with the task of walking through a swarm of bees on the trail. She is surrounded by foliage and has no where to go but forward, but there is a bees nest in her way. She says, "I was a lot of things. But I was not, I was pretty sure, a Person Who Could Run Through Bees." She talks about how fear had been cripling her life for a long time and that the Appalachian Trail was her self-inflicted therapy. She had been so scared of losing her job and her house that she decided to just drop them and so did her husband Clif, as they set off on their hike with almost nothing left behind. Unlike Allie, Clif was calm and logical. They got married in Febuary of 2015, quit their jobs, sold what they could, crammed everything else into storage and booked their flight to Atlanta. On March 9th, they started their hike.

In the article she also talks about the communitas that she experienced on the trail. She talks about her experience meeting two guys. As they were talking a bald eagle soared over and they gaped in amazement as it swooped over. "Well, we should definitely all hike together," said Gahman, "America has blessed our friendship." And so thats what they did. As they hiked a few days later they killed time by playing Would You Rather. They debated on whether or not they would eat pie or cake and the variety of fillings, they voted unanimously in favor of pie, so they started calling themselves Team Pie. She then recounts the many different thru hikers who came in and out of their company. Despite the people migrating in and out of Team Pie, the four of them spent almost every day together for the six months and six days they hiked the trail. Allie says, "As time went by, we went from people who happened to be hiking together to a group that was inseparable, as close as any friends I've ever had."

At the end of the article she recounts the bee hive that she faced in her path. "On that hive-infested boardwalk in Massachusetts, I finally gathered my courage and sprinted, screeching all the way. I felt a sharp sting on my left calf but kept running." As she passed through the hive and cleared it she collapsed on the ground, crying, laughing and snuffling. "Youre okay. I promise" they reassured her as she continued to sob, the adrenaline still pumping from the fear that ran through her in that brief moment. "I had become A Person Who Couldn't Run Through Bees, But Did Anyway."https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/travel/what-i-learned-on-a-6-month-2200-mile-hike-across-the-appalachian-trail/2016/02/18/d7294088-9d1b-11e5-a3c5-c77f2cc5a43c_story.html?utm_term=.d39d3597ed7f