It's August, and I've been walking since April, 15 to 20 miles a day. I've walked 1370 miles to get to this spot, and I have two months and 786 more miles to go. I'm on a pilgrimage: I'm walking from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine, on the Appalachian Trail. And tonight, like pilgrims throughout history, I'll find shelter in a Franciscan friary. Graymoor Friary, the home of the Friars of the Atonement, is right on the Trail, east of the Hudson River in the tiny town of Garrison, New York.
For months, I've been sleeping in the woods, in the open or in rough shelters. Last night I slept in a crumbling stone shelter with a dirt floor, so damp that mushrooms were growing inside. Other hikers and I burned green leaves and damp chunks of bark to create a heavy pall of smoke to drive the mosquitos away while we ate our noodles and beans. I didn't sleep much; my bug net kept out mosquitos, but it didn't work against ants, which crawled in and bit me repeatedly. In the morning we woke to rain and fog, which turned to blazing heat by noon.
Through it all, we keep walking.
When my friend BB and I reach the friary, Father Fred, the guest master, who is dressed in a long brown robe and sandals, shows us to our room.
The guest "cells" are tiny dormer rooms on the top floor of the Old Friary building, which was built in 1926 and which until recently was crumbling, with a leaking roof. The roof was so bad that in 1995, the friars closed the rooms. The Appalachian Long Distance Hikers Association offered to do the repairs, in thanks for past hospitality the friars had given to hikers, and many hikers volunteered to help with the work. Now the hiker hostel is open again.
