It was April 27, 1991. Beneath the boy's slick poncho was a gift from Dad that morning - a black pocket knife just small enough to fit his hand, hanging from a red cord around his neck.
That night in their tent, Adam's father, Bob, pulled out half-sheets of printer paper and composed the first journal entry. They recorded the animals they'd seen: 128 centipedes, eight salamanders, three dogs, one squirrel, one chipmunk and one crow.
That was Bob and Adam Palmer's first father-son hike along the Appalachian Trail. The weekend outing started at Springer Mountain, Ga., the trail's southernmost point, and ended three days and 21.5 miles later.
"Adam was thrilled to be with daddy, thrilled to be outside," says Bob, a longtime Matthews resident. "...the biggest challenge was getting Adam to walk and not run."
Says Adam, "I thought I was on top of the world."
In a way, their trip started when Adam was born.
Bob decided then he'd like to hike the whole trail with his son.
A Boy Scout from upstate New York, Bob grew up near the Appalachian Trail, the nation's longest marked footpath, which touches 14 states along the East Coast.
"The Appalachian Trail always had a calling, a mystery, something about it that appealed to me," says Bob, now regional human resources manager in Charlotte for Zenith Insurance Company.
They would be "section-hikers" who complete the trail a little at a time. "Thru-hikers" aim to finish all 2,178 miles in one year.
Either way, hiking the Appalachian Trail is demanding, physically and mentally, says John Fletcher, information assistant at the Appalachian Trail Conservancy in Harper's Ferry, W.Va.
"Some people have to leave because of physical problems, but a lot of times people leave the trail because...it wasn't what they thought it would be," he says. "You'll get days of rain and it's cold and all your stuff gets wet. And you just don't think it's going to end.... There are plenty of opportunities to go home."
When Adam was 5, Bob mentioned his idea to a fellow leader of a father-son church group. Interested, Grey Dixon of Matthews said he'd love to do that with his 11-year-old, Michael.
"Well, why don't you and I and our two sons give it a go?" asked Bob, then 34.
For the first three years, Bob, Adam, Grey and Michael hiked twice a year on fall and spring school breaks. Later, they started going three times a year. Each trip, they started where they last left off.
Journal tells their story
Bob kept a journal. Sometimes he'd ask for Adam's help remembering animals or describing the landscape. Other times, his entries were devoted to prayers for his family and his relationship with Adam. Every time the two returned home, Bob typed his entries and collected them in three-ring binders.
Looking back, Adam says his feelings went through stages.
Ages 5 to about 11, he was thrilled about the trip "since I was about to go do that with my dad."
That changed during his early teen years. "I was thinking, 'Oh, I've got to go spent time with my dad,'" Adam says.
"Then when I was 16, 17, 18 years old, I realized how dedicated he was to the dream we had."
An unforgiving trail
In June 2002, 11 years after they started, the pair had covered 1,381 miles.
Adam, then 16, and Bob hiked that summer from Wind Gap, Pa., to Bear Mountain State Park in Harriman, N.Y. It was their 32nd outing.
Their hiking partners varied over the years, and now the trips started far from Charlotte. They consolidated their weekend hikes into one annual, 10-to-14-day trip.
This one was particularly cold, wet and emotionally taxing, especially since Bob and Adam didn't bring rain gear. Bob wrote about it this way:
"Adam was struggling with the rain, the cold...It seemed hard to make much progress, and the wind blowing over the ridge tops wasn't helping either....(One particular day) he was visibly upset and quite distraught. He shouted, 'I'm done, not going another step!'
"Adam said he was tired of hiking for seven days, 15-plus miles each day...He was missing not being with the family."
Luckily, Adam's mother, Marion, and his sisters, Katy and Sara, were staying nearby with family. Marion drove to pick up the hikers early.
"Marion helped tremendously to pull it all together for us in talking to Adam...The mom's touch to the rescue," Bob wrote.
The next day, the family slept in, visited a flea market, then the men hit the trail at 5 p.m.
"Adam said it felt good to be back in the woods," Bob wrote.
Family encouragement was always key. "It was a family dream," Bob says.
But it was still hard to say goodbye for each hike, Marion says, especially in the days before cell phones.
"I wanted them to go, but it was always a sacrifice for the time we were giving up."
100 miles left
Last December, Adam graduated from Appalachian State University with a marketing degree.
He and Bob had only about 100 miles to get to Mount Katahdin in Maine, the northernmost point of the Appalachian Trail.
That's about when Adam decided to do a thru-hike of the trail with a friend.
The plan called for him to thru-hike most of the way, then meet Bob in northern Maine July 31. They would finish the trail together, then fly back to Charlotte.
Adam set off from Springer Mountain, Ga., in March. With him were his Irish setter, Mosey, and Dori Littman, a friend since East Mecklenburg High.
Though he'd long considered a thru-hike, Adam didn't realize how different it would be. For one, his father wasn't there.
"My dad hiked the first night," Adam says. "When he left to go back to the car, I was all choked up. It was the first time I had cried in years."
A fork in the road
Adam was just a few days away from meeting his father in late July when he came down with a stomach parasite.
That set up one of the most difficult decisions of the trip. He got medical help in a nearby town but was incapacitated for about four days. When he recuperated, he didn't have time to hike 50 miles to their designated spot - the tree where he was supposed to meet his dad.
Bob had already bought plane tickets for the return trip. They were out of time.
Their options:
Adam and Dori could get a ride to meet his dad, and not finish their thru-hike. Or Bob could hike part of the last 100 miles alone, to give Adam and Dori time to catch up.
Bob offered to hike solo. Adam wouldn't have it. The two argued.
"I said, 'Dad, I would much rather skip a section and not completely finish the thru-hike and still be able to hike every step of the way with you,' " Adam says.
Adam and Dori hitchhiked to meet Bob on time.
On Aug. 9 - after 18 years and 39 hiking trips - father and son summited Mount Katahdin in Maine.
Bob, 53, was graying. Adam, 23, wore a full beard.
"In psychology," Adam says now, "they say you always remember the meaningful things. Hiking was one of those things that sparked an interest and created all kinds of memories.
"Who knows how good a friends me and my dad would be if we hadn't gone and done something like that? I thank him every day for the lessons he taught me."
Bob says of his son: "First, I couldn't believe how fast he hiked (the last mountain). He was still running down the trail, and I'm still chasing after him.
"Then I realized, wow, he really is 23 years old. He doesn't need me anymore. He knows everything he needs to know."
Editor's note: Adam Palmer and Dori Littman did return to Maine to hike their last 50-mile portion of the Appalachian Trail.
Source charlotteobserver.com/
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