Tramily - The Unexpected Gift of Hiking the AT

Technically, the word “Tramily” in AT lingo refers to a group of people with whom you hike a large section of the trail. Since we are keeping a very conservative pace (translated SLOW), it will be a few weeks before we might begin seeing the same folks day after day. However, the conversations and relationships with folks sharing this common experience, and many others along the way, has been fascinating!

To be honest, one of the reasons we both were anxious to take this hike was to spend time alone. We LOVE people, but so much of our lives seems to have been about feeding other relationships. Unfortunately, too often it seemed at the expense of our own. Spending time alone together, working to accomplish a big goal, sitting and visiting in the tent, or on a rock, or slugging up and down mountains - it sounded wonderful! And so far that has happened a lot.

But one of the most surprising and delightful parts of our trip so far has also been the conversations with others. These have ranged from small passing snippets, to longer exchanges over shared meals, shared shelters, and common rooms at hostels. What a diverse and unique creation God has accomplished with each and every human! And what a wealth of culture and personality we’ve experienced already in these past 11 days!

“Tarzan” (quotes indicate a trail name - we will blog more about those later) is attempting to hike tha AT, PCT (Pacific Crest Trail), and CDT (Continental Divide Trail) all in the same calendar year! “Amazing” was a young woman thru hiking from GA, just flying! Her motivation? She had a dentist appointment in June she didn’t want to miss! Her feed and fuel? A whole bag - like 5 pounds - of candy! A lady from Univ of Ohio with a few PhD’s, “Grandpa Jim“ who sold his home to thru-hike at 64, “Gimpy”, who gave us a ride Easter weekend so we could go to church, and ”Vagabond Jim”, a 50+ hiker trying to finish the trail this year after having to leave last year for a family emergency. These are just a few so far!

And this week we will dub International Week on the trail. In the first 3 days alone, we had great conversations with folks from China, Japan, Tasmania, Scotland, Germany and Israel!

The folks from Japan, Germany and Scotland were all passing conversations. They were mostly curious about our thru-hike, and probably left those conversations wondering more about our sanity than the fact we were doing the hike. 😀

Yusi (goes by Diana in the US) from China slowed down to hike with us for about an hour or so. She’s on a student Visa, just graduated from college with a degree in Environmental Studies, and doing some hiking and trail running while waiting for her job to start in CO this fall. She was fascinated with all aspects of the AT and peppered us with non-stop questions about our preparation, supplies and the trail. We were just trying to breathe at the time, but answered as best we could -😀!

We set up the tent next to two guys from Tasmania, who seemed delighted to visit with Becky about her visit there many years back. They shared some oatmeal and powdered milk with us, and they loved the bison snack sticks we gave them in return. Great guys who have hiked international trails all over the world. They gave us some recommendations for future possible adventures!

Our most in-depth conversations were with Tsiki and Hagay (actually the same spelling in Hebrew as Haggai from the Old Testemant). Tsiki lives in NJ now, but these two 40+ year olds have been friends since their time in the Israeli armed forces. They try to do an adventure together every year. We saw them several times over the last few days, and genuinely enjoyed every conversation. They also loved the bison we shared, and introduced us to Medjool dates stuffed with English walnut - nature’s energy bar! Later we discovered they were both software entrepreneurs, which gave us even more common ground. We are pretty convinced they will take a trip to see the bison ranch on one of their future annual adventures!

I could go on and on, but will sum it up by saying this: We asked our church to pray for 3 things as we started this trip. 1) Safety, 2), a great time for us to grow as a couple, and 3) a chance to meet folks and share salt and light. I guess we shouldn’t be surprised that He’s come through in all ways so far. Can’t wait to see how He continues that work!