Why a Methodist chaplain is hiking the Appalachian Trail
NASHVILLE - When Matt Hall — this year’s Appalachian Trail chaplain for the United Methodist Church — travels the mammoth foot path that slices through the eastern part of the United States, fellow thru-hikers will call him “Trigger.”
It’s the name of Roy Rogers’ horse, Willie Nelson’s well-worn guitar and the figurative pressure points he was taught to identify during his treatment for addiction. Hall, who lives in Hillsville, Va., thinks everyone can benefit from pinpointing their own pitfalls and learning to sidestep them.
“A trigger’s often something that leads to change, and maybe I could just be that for the day for someone,” Hall said on a recent trip to Nashville. “My main goal is not a life-changing experience on the trail, but maybe if I can encourage them just that one day, that might change their life further on down the road.”
He plans to start his southbound ministry journey in June. Hall, who will focus far more on pastoral care than evangelism, begins the 2,190-mile hike in Maine and hopes to wrap up before Christmas in Georgia.
In addition to a pack on his back, Hall will have the Bible downloaded on his phone, and key tags denoting his recovery milestones dangling in sight. Hall has been sober for nearly four years and plans to pull from that experience while serving on the trail, which is known to draw others who are recovering from or seeking something.
“Just being out there to be a lending ear, to be support, to encourage,” Hall said. “It’s not so much going around knocking on tents, ‘Have you heard of my savior?’ as it is walking beside them and being in fellowship with them and then eventually just letting the conversation flow.”
Hall is the denomination’s fifth Appalachian Trail chaplain, a position that began experimentally in 2013. It was born out of a ministry to thru-hikers — those attempting to trek the entire trail — that two United Methodist churches in Bland County, Va., began 16 years ago, said the Rev. Alan Ashworth, who leads both churches.
The churches’ ministry started with a trash can for hikers to empty their packs and it grew as they better understood how to serve those traveling the entire length of the trail, Ashworth said. Since they’re located about a quarter of the way up the trail, the ministry discovered they were at a low point where many thru-hikers needed encouragement to keep going, he said.
“For a lot of hikers, the fun was over. The work was beginning. It’s a job to put on the backpack,” Ashworth said. “We began to think about extending our ministry to the trail itself so that we could be there in more places wherever those low points might come in a hiker’s experience.”
Launched in 2013, the chaplain position is now a mission of the Holston Conference of the United Methodist Church, which includes East Tennessee, northern Georgia and southwest Virginia. So far, the chaplains have been men, but two women have submitted applications for next year, Ashworth said.
If Hall completes the thru-hike, he’ll be the third United Methodist Appalachian Trail chaplain to do so. It’s a challenging hike, and injury and ailing family members have pulled two chaplains off the trail, Ashworth said. Only about one in four thru-hikers make it all the way, says the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, the not-for-profit group that preserves and manages the trail.
Reach Holly Meyer at 615-259-8241 and on Twitter @HollyAMeyer.