The fellowship of the gruelling trail
Why taking a three-day hiking trip — with strangers — was the best decision I made all year
Hiking guides are paid to be calm, so when Quincy Hirt, our unflappable leader, visibly stiffened as he looked down at the nearly vertical path of wet rocks, soggy roots and downed tree trunks before us, I knew we were facing something worse than the rain that had pelted us all day. “The ladder is broken,” he said, pointing at a jumble of rotted wood. “Would you all rather turn around and hook up with another trail, or try to figure out a way down?”
Had we not been less than two kilometres from the cabin where we planned to spend the night, we probably would have voted to detour. But after six hours of hiking through New Hampshire’s rugged White Mountains, no one had the strength for anything beyond the shortest line between two points, even if that line was so steep it usually required a ladder.
Had I been hiking solo, as I usually do, I would have figured it out on my own. But today was different. Our group had made a decision, and we were going to make it through together. An hour later, we were sweaty and shaky but high-fiving and triumphant. It was hard to believe we’d known each other for less than 24 hours.
I’m an avid hiker, but I tend to set out alone. Until this trip, my treks had been limited to whatever I could accomplish in a single day. I longed to go further, but since I’d never purposely spent a single night without electricity, camping was out of the question.
Then I received an invitation to venture deep into the White Mountains, where I would scale the four peaks of the Presidential Range, including the 6,288-foot-high Mount Washington, over three full days of hiking. Beyond the physical challenge, I looked forward to taking in the lush green valleys, sheer granite rockfaces and deep forests of this dramatically beautiful region.
The route would be steep, rocky and gruelling — hikers average about 1.6 kilometres an hour — and I’d be carrying nearly 20 pounds of water and gear, too. Instead of camping, I’d bed down in two trailside huts, rustic way-stations owned by the Appalachian Mountain Club, which offer travellers dinner and breakfast, as well as cold running water and bunk beds with mattresses.
The trip was organized by Wildland Trekking (part of Intrepid Travel), which runs all-inclusive hiking adventures all over the world. In addition to meals and a guide, Wildland provided us with necessary gear, including backpacks, sleeping bags and hiking poles.
It sounded perfect, but with one caveat: I’d be the sole travel writer, hiking with a group of six strangers. Questions flooded my mind: What if they slowed me down? What if I slowed them down? Would they laugh at my sleep mask? How awkward would it be when I needed to find an out-of-the-way tree?
Fortunately, since Wildland hadn’t sugar-coated the trip’s rigours, everyone arrived prepared to do the work, and we clomped along at a decent pace. We also had a terrific guide in Hirt, a knowledgeable outdoorsman whose presence allowed us to focus on the experience and not the map.
The camaraderie came naturally. It started as we pulled each other up steep gullies, held backpacks to allow for two-handed scrabbling, and offered arms for balance. Later, we joked about the bad coffee, our increasingly dirty hair and, since we slept in mixed-gender rooms with other hikers, whether anyone else had been awakened by the earthquake-level snoring from the guy in the top bunk. They taught me the rules of Uno, and we played for hours by torchlight.
By the last day, we were splitting diminishing supplies of Advil and passing around a single candy bar to power through that final mile.
Going into this experience, my biggest fear had been giving up a sense of control, especially as a typically solo hiker accustomed to setting my own pace. But I soon discovered that travelling as part of a group can be enriching rather than claustrophobic.
Just a few hours in, I realized this was more like a book club, where someone’s observation about the plot line or a scene can suddenly flip your whole perspective. I’d arrived at the trail with expectations and trepidation, but I left seeing the experience with new eyes.