Which Tells of the Second Sally, The Ferryman’s Transit, and the First Logbook

Spring arrived at Amicalola, and so did I. Let the history books mark this first day—now at hand, I thought, stepping into the hush of the morning mist.

A handful of pilgrims stood outside the lodge’s roundabout, caught in that charged silence before the first step—hesitation holding fast, yet the only answer was forward.

I stood fixated, eyes locked on the mountains that had whispered for so long. Once a distant calling, a silhouette standing eternal on the horizon, they now loomed before me. Toe to toe we stood at last.

The roundabout buzzed—vehicles rumbling, workers tending to their tasks, wanderers pacing their restless steps, shooting their day-zero vlog. I lingered at the edge, waiting. The energy was frenetic, but my moment would soon arrive.

Then, the crunch of tires over pavement.

A shape emerged—deep blue, road-worn, its jacked tires standing tall alongside the mud splattered across the wheel wells like a Jackson Pollock original. Stickers clung to every available surface, a menagerie of past conquests and cryptic slogans.

Beneath the grime, flaking gold leaf spelled out a name:

Charon’s Appalachian Shuttle Service.

A pair of oars framed the lettering, though the river beneath them had long since faded.

Then, as is customary in such crossings, the ferryman emerged. He studied me, weighing my resolve, measuring burdens. His gaze lingered just long enough to make me wonder if he already knew if I would make it or not. It didn’t matter what name he answered to in another world. Here, there was no mistaking him. Once he deemed me sufficiently ready, I paid the customary obol and took my seat among the chosen.

With the turn of a key, the Jeep purred to life—real horror show—and the journey was affirmed. Trees and fog swallowed the road behind us.

Beside me, no other passenger. Just me, the gear, and a rig stitched together with stories. Charon—or the man who answered to a more mortal name—sat in the driver’s seat and began a slow, steady litany. Bears. Weather. Water sources. Food hang zones. Shelters prone to flood. He didn’t say it like a warning. He said it like scripture. Like someone who had ferried too many across not to speak of what waits in the dark.

I tried to catch it all. I failed. My mind wandered to the dashboard—a reliquary of patches, coins, a constellation of illuminated service lights, stickers, hang tags from trails past that framed the windshield like multicolored teeth, with me, your humble narrator, staring out at the twists in the road ahead from within this jagged maw. A beast ferrying me toward whatever fates awaited.

The engine roared, and the wheels groaned over gravel and root. The axle creaked with each rut and rock the road threw at us. Trees blurred into fog. The Jeep was a beast then—one that digests pilgrims before delivering them unto their reckoning.

When it finally stopped, dust swirling like incense around an altar, the door creaked open. The maw opened, and the beast spat us onto dry land.

Charon, silent as ever, raised a bony finger and pointed down the path. A grunt—approval, amusement, or something older—escaped him. No words were needed. The direction was clear.

I gathered my grip, slung it over my shoulders, and stepped forward.

Time alone would herald my arrival.

I was now on the Appalachian Trail.

The ground changed beneath my feet. Not in texture, not in weight, but in meaning. Every step from here was no longer leading toward the trail—it was on it.

The climb was brief, a short passage of stone and root, a final incline before the summit marker. A plaque, a safe deposit box bolted into the rock, catching the afternoon light. Inside it, the logbook.

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Out the left window, you’ll see your boss cashing in on your overtime. Out the right, a parade of last year’s must-haves headed for the landfill—buy now, pay later, a lot later. Please ensure all unnecessary baggage—mental, material, and existential—is securely stowed.”

I was so engrossed in the logbook, debating what to write, that I hadn’t heard him approach from behind. The decision weighed heavily. I had rehearsed several options—quotes, names, something profound enough to cement this moment.

He stood above me, overlooking the mountains. From this angle, I couldn’t see his face.

At this point, I had no trail name. There were many I wanted to claim, but I knew the rules.

I asked if he was waiting to sign the logbook.

“Place an X,” he said.

“An X?”

“Yeah. The mathematical representation of the unknown. That which you don’t know. You want to sign the book, mark the moment, declare yourself. But you’re here because of something unknown—a calling, a challenge. Lost in today’s world, dreaming of something else, something beyond you, something not yet you.”

And you don’t know.

“X.”

I frowned. “I hardly see how that fits the gravity of the moment.”

He shrugged.

“Look, this is basic Malcolm, but the biggest question people will ask won’t be if you made it—it’ll be how you managed the time off. They admire the fact you stepped away at all. That here you are, staring at mountains, ready to sleep on dirt.”

He looked directly at me. “Why?” Another shrug. “You don’t really know.”

He knelt beside me and pointed to an X already in the logbook. “When you admit you don’t know who you are, you’ll be free to have the journey without getting in your own way.”

I hesitated. “I don’t have a trail name yet. That’s why I paused. I’m not sure if I should be making one up or waiting for it to happen.”

He grinned.

“Trail names, CB handles, porn star names, stage names, email addresses—everybody’s looking for a way to dodge the name they were given. ‘Not it!’—tag, you’re free. Or at least you think you are. You slap a new label on the same old existential baggage, hope it changes the weight. Michael tries to convince you it’s Mykal, Kelly ditches an E and calls it reinvention. It’s the lyrical cosplay of your subculture.”

He gestured to the mountains, a sweep of hand like a crooked preacher at a tent revival.

“And then maybe they’re out here, lost in the great nowhere, renaming themselves like Moses, ready to wander the wilderness and find some divine rebrand. Only, trail names don’t work that way. They’re not bestowed in some grand moment of self-actualization. They happen when you fuck up. When you bleed, when you blunder, when the dumbest thing you ever did becomes the only thing anyone remembers. Trip once? Congrats, you’re ‘Stumbles.’ Eat peanut butter with your dirty hiker fingers? Welcome to the trail, ‘Skippy.’ Try to force the narrative? It forces back.”

He tilted his head, amused. “Old-school method? First pet, street you grew up on.”

I smirked. “Snowball St. Moritz. Classy as hell, actually.”

He barked out a laugh, a sound like a car backfiring. “It’s not.”

And that’s how I met Lefty—first mile, first partner, as if the fates had conspired with their usual indifference. For what is a journey without a companion, and what is a companion if not a mirror smudged with dust and disagreement?

The Trail Provides.

We walked on.