Thousands of people set out to hike the Appalachian Trail every year. About a quarter of those people finish. In 1973, Mike Rayder was one of a small number to attempt the feat and likely one of the first 100 ever to finish the trail.
Rayder, now 74 and retired from Dunkin Donuts where he worked as a liaison between franchisees and the company, details this hike in a new book, “Altered on the Appalachian Trail.” He draws primarily from a diary he kept as he made the trek from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to the summit of Mount Katahdin in Maine five months and some 2,200 miles later.
Rayder said his wife came up with the idea to write a book to relay the saga that was his hike. He’d talk about his journey from time to time to his teenage grandson, Mason, but never in much detail, so she was afraid the full story may never be told.
“Wouldn’t it be great for Mason to read that and know who his grandpa was and what his grandpa was all about?” she suggested.
“I got right up and walked into my office, and I sat down and started to write,” Rayder said. “I didn’t stop writing until I had my story down. I remember leaning back and thinking ‘nobody’s going to believe this is a true story, that this stuff actually happened to me.’ My hike was very eventful.”
Rayder’s right; his story is astounding. To begin with, unlike the hikers now who set out to conquer the Appalachian Trail with the latest ultra-light technology, Rayder left from his home in Connecticut with just a bulky, heavy external frame pack. The book begins depicting a young man, out of shape (he would eventually lose about 100 pounds during the hike), who isn’t quite sure what he wants to do with his life, when he stumbles upon a magazine article about the trail. What may have initially seemed like a fleeting interest blossomed into an earnest desire and soon became a plan.
He set out with a friend to hike the trail. Considering how early he began his hike, the duo encountered weather-related hardships neither was quite prepared for, but thanks to some skills, hard work and an open mind, they became more confident and fit as they went, even gaining a reputation among other hikers.
Mike Rayder on the trail. Donated photo
However, it wasn’t long before fate tried Rayder as he injured his ankle and was out of commission for several days. By the time he was ready to hit the trail again, the friend he’d begun the trek with had gone home and left him behind. While many would pack up and leave after adversity and abandonment, Rayder decided to carry on and complete the rest of his hike solo, and along the way, there were plenty more adventures.
“I never felt sorry for myself; there was no ‘woe is me,’” Rayder said. “Mentally, I was still right in the game.”
As many through hikers experience, Rayder said finishing the trail and trying to get back to regular life was difficult.
“I hated to leave, but once I got back on the trail, I was glad. I was back,” he said. “I went kind of crazy and acted like a wild man for a bit. I felt like I was part of nature; I wasn’t any longer part of the world I knew. I felt that I should just keep hiking the trail for the rest of my life and never get off the trail.”
But once Rayder accepted reality, he found he was again able to satisfy his lifelong sense of wonder by hiking other trails across the country, and even parts of the Appalachian Trail again. These experiences are also included in the book.
“Altered on the Appalachian Trail” contains more than just a narrative. It serves as a sort of guide, as Rayder included dates, mileage and waypoints in a chart in the back. He said that including these things in his journal was a thrill to revisit but it was also crucial to the project.
“I wrote every day, the specific distances and a lot of particulars,” he said. “I remembered the most memorable parts, but the journal also did bring back a lot of the feelings that I was able to put in. Reliving that through those journals 50 years later was, for me personally, pretty neat.”
Mike Rayder in a primitive shelter along the Appalachian Trail. Donated photo
Rayder has one book under his belt, but he isn’t done yet; he’s already wrapping up a second project. In fact, that project about his love of fly fishing, is turning out to be so long that he’s breaking it into two separate books.
“The first book is going to be about fly fishing in Western North Carolina,” he said. “It’s going to be from the time I retired and moved down here nine years ago to the present day. And then I’m going to do like ‘Star Wars’ and go backward, so the book after that will be from when I started fishing at eight years old up until I retired — all those stories — fishing in Alaska, fishing out west, ocean fishing, Cape Cod.”
“Altered on the Appalachian Trail” tells the story of Mike Rayder’s eventful hike. Donated photo
Rayder said the course of his life was drastically changed by his five months hiking the Appalachian Trail and the confidence the experience gave him. He thinks anyone who has the gumption to make the trek will discover parts of themselves they’d never known, something that will inevitably add “tremendous value” to their experience on this earth.
“There’s really something to be said for knowing and feeling comfortable with yourself and who you are,” he said. “Once you discover that, then be true to yourself. I didn’t cheat once. I hiked every one of those 5 million steps.”