Between the Pines: Part Two

Turk Mountain Mystery

Most people that we encounter on the trails are nice, friendly, and overall very pleasant. The longer, more strenuous trails attract avid hikers like us, and the friendly stereotype that swirls around mountaineers is, in fact, not a rumor at all. Most hikers that are willing to trek such long distances love nature, love hiking, and love trails. The shorter, more popular trails tend to attract tourists, and therefore, the people that you cross paths with are of an eclectic variety. We’ve seen everything from girls in mini skirts and six-inch high heels attempting to climb down a steep, rocky trail to a large group of tourists extending their selfie sticks and loudly FaceTiming family members as they filed into a dark cavern. I even witnessed an exotic lingerie photoshoot atop a mountain in Sedona.

But nothing quite prepared us for the individual that we’d see in Virginia in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

The trail to Turk Mountain in Shenandoah National Park was quiet. Since we were hiking a less popular, more lengthy portion of the Appalachian Trail at the end of April, we basically had the trail to ourselves. The switchbacks and steep incline paired with the midday sun and the mountain blocking any breeze that may’ve existed that day caused sweat to drip down our backs and bead across our foreheads. The trail felt quite a bit longer than its 2.2 miles due to the elevation, but we determinedly pressed on.

About halfway through the hike, having not seen a soul, I spotted an older woman heading our way. She had evidently come from the top and was now making her way back down the mountain. If she would’ve been any other normal hiker, a pack slung on her back or a walking stick in hand, we would’ve greeted her with a cheery hello, maybe asked her how close we were to the top and/or what the view looked like, and continued on. But she wasn’t wearing a hiking bag or donning a walking stick. Instead, she was dressed in floral jean overalls, carrying a gardeners’ hoe. That’s right. She just came from the mountaintop, but from her appearance, it seemed as though she had just spent a sunny afternoon planting an array of plants and flowers. But of course, this wasn’t a logical explanation. Because if she were, for some bizarre reason, going to do some gardening work in the mountains along the Appalachian Trail, why was she only carrying a shovel? Due to our brief connection, I wasn’t able to fully comprehend what I was looking at. I couldn’t absorb her fully; I was simply taken off guard due to her strange attire, and I couldn’t help but gawk curiously at the gardening tool clutched between her fingers.

Of course, all kinds of thoughts raced through my head as we passed her. I kept looking over my shoulder, somewhat fearing for my safety but mostly bemused and curious. I wanted to know where she was going with that hoe, or what she had done with it. But, along with a lot of instances in life, we only catch glimpses. We only skim a page of a book that we won’t ever know the ending to. We eavesdrop on partial conversations in coffee shops and grocery stores. We hear short, one-sided snippets of phone conversations as we pass by people on the streets or sit next to them on airplanes or trains. Our imagination is left to wander, mentally fitting the puzzle pieces together until they create a picture that makes sense in our minds. That’s the beauty of the human brain; conjuring up unique endings to stories that we only catch brief glimpses of is simply miraculous. My creativity is stretched as I let my mind wander and my brain connect dots that only exist in my head. What a gift it is to be able to let our imaginations run wild!

So though we’ll never know the real ending to that story or what really was happening on the mountain that day, I encourage you to let your mind wander and create an ending, just as I did.

Happy hiking & stay safe!