birthday, I baked him a cake, lit candles, and sang. That evening started our wonderful friendship.
When Adam and Tom hiked past my home on the Appalachian Trail, two-and-a-half months after our evening together and a little over a thousand miles into their long hike, I offered them some trail magic—showers, meals, and some “slack-packing”—the term for when a thru-hiker gets to day hike a stretch without the burden of overnight gear and supplies. (With our children grown and out of the nest, Todd and I enjoy helping hikers). I kept their gear and returned them the next morning to the same road crossing where I had picked them up the evening before. I slack-packed them for four days and got to hear more of their stories.
Tom called Adam by his trail name, “Machine.” There were two reasons for the name: he was a machine gunner, and he hiked like a machine. Adam could hike seventeen-mile days in Georgia when most thru-hikers struggled to do ten. “Tom was the only one who could push himself like me,” explained Adam, “and I like to think I was the only one, back then, who could push him to greater heights.” The two men had a lot of fun competing with each other and took turns leading and setting the pace. “Whoever had farts that day was in the rear,” Adam clarified.
Adam did a lot of thinking on the trail. He relived scenes from Iraq, but with each mile he was processing his emotions, doing the thinking necessary to grieve, heal, and grow. Gradually, he replaced those scenes with new thoughts about how to move forward and live better. “I was exposed to fucked-up shit before the military and also in the military,” he said. “I didn’t want to continue living like that.” While in the military, Adam participated in a study on post-traumatic stress. “This shit isn’t going to go away,” he realized. Losing brothers, with no opportunity to grieve but moving on to continue with the mission; getting rocket-propelled grenades (RPGs) shot at him, and picking up body parts—it all took its toll.
The VA wanted to prescribe a cocktail of meds for Adam, but he never took them. His troubled childhood showed him what abusing prescription pills looked like, and he wanted nothing to do with drugs. He had even refused prescribed Vicodin in 2009 after a motorcycle accident required seventy stitches. Adam had tried talk therapy before the thru-hike, but it had not been a productive experience. His therapist had been a chaplain in the Middle East, and when Adam shared how he had prayed over dead bodies, the chaplain began to cry. “I felt like the therapist,” he said. “I thought, ‘fuck this shit’ and I left there with more post-traumatic stress than when I came in.”
ALTHOUGH ADAM HAD FOND ASSOCIATIONS WITH NATURE FROM HIS grandfather, he never felt its true power until he was on the Appalachian Trail. On the journey, he finally began to trust people again. He met strangers along the way and started to feel that he wanted to embrace them. “Once you have seen evil in the world, you assume it is everywhere,” he explained. “But I came to realize that I fought for these people. So many things changed on the trail. I also fell in love with Nicole.”
One week before leaving for the hike, Adam met Nicole and fell in love at first sight. For more than a thousand miles, the couple stayed in close contact and talked nearly every day. As a surprise, I arranged for Nicole to be at my house in Pennsylvania when Adam passed through on the trail. “At first, it was really hard for me to deal with Adam not showing any emotion,” Nicole recalled. “For so long he had suppressed them. He saw many terrible things. He didn’t talk openly about his feelings before, but his time on the trail really helped him open up.” The trail had provided some clarity, peace.
“I was a whole different species,” Adam said. “I never wanted to settle down before Nicole, but as soon as we met, we were so immediately sure of each other.” After fifteen hundred miles, he decided to get off the trail and begin his life with Nicole. “You are out here to benefit you, to find peace in nature. If it becomes more stressful to stay, then it’s your time to go. I celebrated that I got as far as I did on the trail. The AT showed me how to long-distance hike. It showed me that I can go back out there, again and again, and I will return to the AT in my life.” It was a very hard decision, but the trail had worked its magic on Adam.
The couple planned an epic nine-month trip. They sold their belongings and their vehicles, found homes for their dogs, and headed to New Zealand. “As far as walking goes,” Adam said, “if anyone gifts themselves a long period of time to walk, and allows their mind to let go, they will realize that thinking is not a bad thing. Out here, you are finally able to think. You go into the Marines and throw your hat in the air when you graduate, but when you get out, you are absolutely lost. You don’t know what to do, and if you take the wrong road you’re fucked. You learn out here to accept, not forget what happened in the military.” After all, acceptance is the final stage in the grieving process.
AFTER NICOLE AND ADAM’S AROUND-THE-WORLD TRIP, THE COUPLE MARRIED and settled in Las Vegas, and he started his own guide business. Like Nicole, Nevada had captured Adam’s heart. Since his AT hike, he has a different way of going about things. Instead of pretending his trauma is not there, Adam has learned to accommodate it and cope. He still has his moments and nightmares, but he handles them a lot better. And Nicole helps. “She grounds me,” Adam says. “Without my foundation, I could never stand up.” He isn’t trying to get back to who he was. He doesn’t want to be that type of high-anxiety person anymore. He is much calmer and has that same effect on others.
Adam is working on accepting that his PTSD won’t disappear, but he can manage the symptoms when they show up. “Now I go with the happiest choice,” he says. “I go with the outcome of fun. I decided that I will always choose the path that creates joy. I aim to never get disgruntled. I laugh at flat tires. I can stay optimistic when it gets really shitty. I know it will come out better. I have no regrets in my life. If it wasn’t for all those hardships I experienced, as well as being a Marine and serving my country, I would not be the man I am today.”
On the AT, Adam learned to make conversation with strangers. Having thru-hiked the AT and lived on the trail gives him credibility in the eyes of his tour customers. As a guide, he goes a few steps farther than most. He takes a lot of photos of his clients, and within hours they have a direct link to their photo album. He has guided folks from the Netherlands, Germany, Israel, and Tasmania, all within the first year of his business.
People might get scared out here in the desert on our hikes, but they experience a breakthrough when they leave their comfort zone. I go out of my way to encourage them. I show them how to lock hands and help one another over an obstacle. It is extremely gratifying to help people realize what they are made of. I get that amazing honor by revealing how hiking has benefitted me and is everything in my life. Some of these people have never seen the screen on their phone say ‘no service’ except in an airplane, but it is wilderness out here. Some have never been on a hike before. It isn’t all butterflies and rainbows, but it is hard to get an awkward moment out of me. I won’t let it happen.
ADAM LED ME ON TWO EARLY-MORNING HIKES BEFORE THE SUN CLIMBED high in the desert sky and grew hot. We went to one of his favorite spots, called “Fire Wave.” We saw an amazing array of flowering cacti and watched lizards emerge from rocks and pose for their portraits. Adam offered me his hand when we traversed a ledge and gave me a boost when we took a long step. On the way back to his vehicle, as I watched his calf muscle flex and move his AT tattoo, I was reminded of his start in nature and all he has overcome and accomplished since then. He has learned to notice beauty, he has learned new things that are not related to survival, and how to share them with others—all aspects of peacetime living.
Adam has come a long way, thanks to the healing power of his time on the trail. Leading researcher Simone Kühn of the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin explains it this way: “Living in the vicinity of nature has a profound and far-reaching impact on longevity, levels of aggression, cognitive development, and even how kind we are to others.” Adam has some advice for veterans: “Try to go as natural as possible with your healing
