A Victory of Body, Mind, and Spirit

Actually, “grueling” hardly does justice to the extraordinary feat of hiking the Appalachian Trail: 2,200 miles through 14 states and all manner of terrain and weather, much of it treacherous and unforgiving, from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine.

 

Is there a better descriptor, though? Arduous? Excruciating? Torturous? Harrowing?  All apply, of course, but truth be told, the magnitude of the task, the spectrum of emotions that weary hikers experience along the way, and the utter exhilaration they feel at its conclusion defy description through the imperfect word.

 

Suffice it to say, then, that attempting ­the odyssey that is the fabled Appalachian Trail is not for the foolhardy or faint of heart. Instead, it’s for the fit, the courageous, the resolute, the resilient, and the rawhide tough, not just of body but of mind and spirit.

 

“The AT isn’t a walk in the park,” said Dave Privasky in classic understatement. “When you’ve finished it, you’ve earned it.”

 

Privasky, a Collegiate Upper School science teacher, speaks from a wealth of first-hand knowledge, for on August 1, he completed the journey when he summited Katahdin, thrust his hands into the air Rocky Balboa-like, and basked humbly (as is his manner) in the cheers of the dozens of fellow adventurers nearby as well as his wife Pam and their children Maddy and Kevin, who had joined him several days earlier.

 

“It was one of those life moments,” he said. “I had a goal. After all those years, it was done. It felt very real.”

 

A native of Muskegon, Michigan, Privasky spent many a childhood day hunting and fishing with his dad Gary and working on his uncle Terry’s farm nearby. The outdoors became his natural habitat. He was no stranger to demanding manual labor.

 

When he was a student at Central Michigan University, he and a friend ventured out on a summer hiking expedition on Grand Island off Michigan’s Upper Peninsula in Lake Superior.

 

“That was my first backpacking trip,” Privasky said. “I fell in love with it. The first five minutes, we saw a bear. There were epic views, being right there on the water. The freedom of being outdoors in peace and tranquility just felt right. It was a great adventure.”

 

And the genesis of a greater one.

 

“There was another element that drew me in: it wasn’t easy,” he continued. “Things that are beneficial and meaningful aren’t easy. There’s a lot of pain. You push through challenges. That’s an aspect of backpacking on a day-to-day basis. It was about that time that I said, ‘I think I want to hike the Appalachian Trail. Maybe that’s in the cards for me.’ That’s when it became a bucket-list item.”

 

Life, as it often does, intervened. He soon had a young family. He had his teaching job. Best case scenario, covering the entirety of the trail one step at a time could consume many months. Taking a sabbatical wasn’t realistic. “Thru-hiking” the trail, then, wasn’t feasible.

 

In 2017 with Pam’s blessing, he made the commitment to embark upon a “section hike” and began his due diligence in earnest. This ultimate endurance test would take five summers: four weeks each in 2018 through 2021 and seven in 2022.

 

The first summer, he covered 280 miles from Springer Mountain to Hot Springs, North Carolina. In 2019, he traveled another 280 from Hot Springs to Ceres in Southwest Virginia. In 2020, the COVID year, he went 470 miles from Ceres to Harper’s Ferry, West Virginia, then 500 miles from Harper’s Ferry to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, in 2021, and the final 670 miles to Katahdin this past summer.

 

He spoke glowingly of the joys of the adventure.

 

“One of the best parts about the Trail,” he said, “is meeting people from all over the world and all different backgrounds and careers. There were people taking gap years, retirees, teachers, principals, and superintendents. I met a nuclear engineer, doctors, nurses. This past summer, with COVID dying down, the international community could travel. I met hikers from Australia, Germany, England, Sweden, the Netherlands. We all had so much in common. We were all seeking the same thing.”

 

Which was?

 

“A hunger for something more,” he said. “I met one guy who was just looking for his faith in humanity to be restored. He wanted to reassure himself that humans were going to be OK. The trip did that.”

 

There were poignant moments, one quite memorable and enduring from 2019 that occurred on Roan (pronounced Row-un) Mountain near the North Carolina-Tennessee line.

 

“I usually hiked alone, and sometimes you really start to feel lonely,” Privasky said. “After a while, I remember saying a prayer, I can really use a friend. I didn’t know what that actually meant. Crazy enough, a couple of hours later, there was a dog standing alone in the trail. I called him over. He was a little skittish at first. He was super skinny and dirty and covered in fleas. I realized this dog had been living out here.

        

“He came right by my side. We instantly had a bond. I gave him some food. He hung right by my side and started walking with me. Walked with me the whole day until we got to the Roan High Knob Shelter at the top of the mountain. I thought to myself, If this dog is outside waiting for me in the morning, he’s going to be my dog.

 

“He curled up next to a tree and slept on some moss. I woke up the next morning and nervously opened the door. There he was waiting for me.”

 

Later that day, Privasky found a spot that had cell phone service and connected with a local vet who promised to help him if he arrived at his office before 5 p.m.

 

“So we hiked and hiked,” Privasky said. “He was a terrible hiker. He was running off and chasing deer and rabbits and squirrels. I took a strap off my backpack and made a makeshift leash so he wouldn’t run away or run out into the road and get hit by a car.”

 

Around 4 p.m., well off the Trail, and running out of time, he made another plaintive call, and the vet came in his car to meet them.

 

“Sure enough, in this small town, the vet was so kind,” Privasky said. “He took us back to his office, gave the dog shots, gave him tick and flea medicine, gave me a leash, gave me dog food, then dropped us back off. I pretty much knew at that moment that once I found that dog, there was something bigger happening. That was one of my happy moments.”

 

They hiked together the final 200 miles into Virginia where Pam and the kids joined them. The dog, a beagle mix, has lived in the Privasky household ever since. His name? Roan, of course.

 

There were tough, gut-check moments. He sustained injuries that left him wondering, Can I really do this? Am I meant to do this?

 

About 18 miles from the terminus of the first section, he was exiting the Smokey Mountains when he realized both feet were becoming swollen and painful, a sensation exacerbated by the downhill grade. Turns out he had stress fractures in the middle metatarsal of both feet. It was almost two months before he could walk comfortably again.

 

He began the next summer with some trepidation and was finally settling into a comfortable rhythm when he awoke one morning with two bites on his right ankle. The culprit? Spiders.

 

Within four days, a cellulitis infection had set in and begun to spread. He developed a fever. An employee of Uncle Johnny’s Hostel in Erwin, Tennessee, drove him to the emergency room at Unicoi County Hospital.

 

“I’m glad I went,” he said. “If I hadn’t, it probably would have been bad. That was another hit to my spirit. Then, I found my dog a week later.”

 

The next two summers passed without serious injury or illness, but the most challenging and frightening moments of his adventure lay ahead.

 

The White Mountains in New Hampshire and Southern Maine are rocky and rugged and considered the most physically and mentally exhausting section of the AT. Conventional wisdom holds that if you’re heading north, you’ve covered 90 percent of the Trail but done only 10 percent of the work. Compounding the degree of difficulty, rain fell heavily the night of July 5 leaving the trail saturated and the footing slippery. Gale-force winds which buffeted the hikers only added to the misery.

 

Though he was using his trekking poles for support, Privasky stepped on a rock slickened by the rain and in an instant tumbled to the ground. Though he never lost consciousness, he was stunned, immobile, and in danger of going into shock.

 

“I was lying on my back at the edge of the tree line starting to sink into the trees,” he recalled. “I was wet. I was covered in pine needles. I was thinking, What the heck just happened?

 

“I’d been through wilderness training and knew to check my body. I looked down at my chest. I looked at my abdomen. I looked at my legs. I wiggled my toes. I didn’t think my leg was broken, even though it was hurting. I looked at my left arm. This arm’s good. I looked at my right arm. It was like I’d never seen it before. I’d hit so hard that I dislocated my shoulder. My arm was just hanging there. I teach anatomy, and I was thinking, this is like the picture in the textbook. I’d fallen with such force on that rock that my shoulder was literally knocked out of joint. When I saw that, the pain kicked in. It was excruciating.”

 

What am I going to do? he wondered. How badly am I hurt? I’m a month from Katahdin. Will I have to leave the trail and finish another year?

 

“Then I went back to my shoulder and thought, I’ve got to fix this,” he said. “I tried to get up, but I couldn’t. I was like a turtle on my back. My backpack was pulling me down. Every time I wiggled and tried to get up, I sank farther into the tree line.

 

“I’d seen a handful of people that day, but I hadn’t seen anybody in a while. I was in the back country. I was desperate. I’ve been in pain. I’ve had injuries. I’ve had kidney stones. I try to be tough. Right? All I could think of was, How am I going to fix this?

 

“I remember grabbing my hand and trying to pull it out (to reset the shoulder), and that really hurt. I moved my arm and watched my bicep flex, and my arm bone was literally slanted, and it wouldn’t go where I wanted it to go.

 

“I don’t know how long this was. A minute? A couple of minutes? Then, I remembered that I thought I’d seen someone in the distance. Maybe there’s somebody out there. I couldn’t get up. I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t reset my arm. With all the faith that I had, I cried out ‘Help!’ I literally shouted, ‘Help!’

 

An instant later, a voice responded, “We heard you fall. We’re coming. We’re coming.” Chills ran through his body. A moment later, Patty and Bill, a married couple from New Jersey, appeared by his side.

 

“My arm’s dislocated,” Privasky said with urgency. “I need you to reset it.”

 

“I’ve never done this before,” Patty responded.

 

“That’s OK,” Privasky replied. “Just pull it out, and it’ll pop back in.”

 

She saw his pain and recognized his anguish.  She loosened his backpack, took his hand, and calmly said, “Let’s do it on 3.”

 

“She went, ‘One. Two. Three,’” Privasky said. “She pulled out. I could hear the grind, and it popped back in. Instantly, the pain went away. She was so excited. She literally shouted, ‘I heard it! I felt it!’ I remember taking a big breath and smiling and saying, ‘I felt it too.’ They helped me up. I call her my Trail Angel.”

 

Battered and bruised, tattered and torn but definitely unbowed, Privasky continued on his march to the summit through the rugged terrain and rock scrambles that sometimes limited hikers to less than a mile per hour.

 

“This was not easy,” he said. “It took a lot of grit to get this trail done, which added to the value of what it means to me. It wasn’t just a physical challenge. It was a mental challenge too. Through that, it increased my spirituality. Every time I went on the AT, I talked to God more. It just takes that to another level.”

 

Then came the Hundred-Mile Wilderness, an unrelenting passage with hazardous footing and myriad physical challenges. In fact, there’s a sign that warns hikers to carry enough food and material for 10 days because there’s nowhere along the way to secure resources.

 

Privasky emerged in five days at Abol Bridge Campground in Baxter State Park.

 

“You step out from the woods, and you get to this bridge, and you turn, and there’s Katahdin in all her beauty,” he said. “It gives you chills.  I’d been waiting for that for five years. Every step you take, you get closer and closer and the view, the mountain, gets bigger.”

 

At about that time, Pam and their children arrived, and they hiked the last day, 6 a.m. until 6 p.m., together. Mission accomplished. Dream fulfilled.

 

“It was a cool moment,” he said of summiting Katahdin, “and it meant more because my family was with me. They’ve been part of the journey. Even though I hiked most of it by myself, I always had their support, their love, and their encouragement. I hope my kids will look back and say, ‘My dad really went after a dream that he wanted to achieve.’ I don’t expect them to hike the AT, but I hope they have the courage to pursue their own dreams and make them happen.”

 

In the past six weeks, Privasky has reflected often on his experience. His shoulder is healing, and he’ll undergo physical therapy to stabilize it. He’s often asked what’s next, but he has no plans, at the moment anyway, for another adventure of Herculean proportions.  Mainly, he’s enjoying the moment and savoring, in his humble, understated way, his massive achievement.

 

“I was fortunate to have the time to travel and see beautiful places and meet so many good people,” he said. “I was fortunate to have the opportunity to overcome physical events that could have taken me off the Trail, but I was able to push through and achieve my goal. It was a long journey. I’m really grateful.”

~Weldon Bradshaw