Backpacking with Jolene in the Appalachian Mountains

Backpacking with Jolene in the Appalachian Mountains

fiction
edward w pritchard

Jolene met me at the Mount Rogers National Park and we walked fifteen miles together backpacking through the Appalachian Mountains of Western Virginia.

The scenery was inspirational in the muted morning light as Jolene and I traversed the ridges and rises of the Mountains heading North toward the Shenandoah Valley. What I will always remember about that trip however was when Jolene first formally shouldered her heavy backpack. Nonchalantly Jolene stretched and flexed and methodically inhaled deep gulps of fresh mountain air to get the backpack into a comfortable position across her back for our walk. Adjusting the various straps tightly Jolene gently swayed side to side and back to front to balance the weight of the bulging pack properly on her chest and shoulders. I busied myself with little duties as Jolene bent forward and back and kneeled up and down to prepare herself for carrying the heavy orange backpack through the mountains of Mount Rogers Virginia.

Birds warbled, a light wind whistled through blooming dulcet rhododendrons bursting with purple passion and small musky animals scurried about the ridges and clefts as Jolene and I enjoyed the mild warming sunshine one morning nearly thirty years ago backpacking through Mount Rogers Park.

 Often I reminisce about the scenery backpacking with Jolene for seven hours on the Appalachian trail in Western Virginia.