Sandra MacKenzie walked with God for 2,100 miles.
Beginning Feb. 17 on Springer Mountain, Ga., MacKenzie, who’s Christian, pointed north with her canines Smokey, Shepherd, Colt and Marley. She finished July 16 on Mt. Katahdin in the middle of Maine.
“I wanted to do it since I was 8 or 9,” said MacKenzie, now 31. “My older brother did part of it and I thought, ‘That’s something I might could do.’ ”
Married for a time, then divorced, she took the divorce hard. Her marriage ended in 2006. “I was so angry,” she said. A nurse at Columbus Regional’s Specialty Hospital, MacKenzie thought again of the “A.T.” as a way to heal and get reconnected with her faith.
“I thought, ‘God can take care of me, no matter where I am,’ ” she said. “I learned to rely on God, wherever I was.”
After getting her finances together, MacKenzie figured out this was her year.
Hiking the trail in one season makes a person a thru-hiker. Depending on life circumstances, some do it in sections, thus the term “section-hiker.” Most do it south to north, like MacKenzie did. She started out with a friend, Kelly Odom-Smith, but she dropped out at Harpers Ferry, W.Va. She had to get back to obligations at home.
And in addition to her four companions, MacKenzie had added support along the way: Her father, Malcolm MacKenzie, drove a truck containing a cab shell. “He said, ‘I’ll drive the truck in case you need me.’ ” They would connect every two or three days, where the trail crosses roads.
After awhile, MacKenzie and Odom-Smith thought about slack-packing, leaving most of their heavy gear with him and taking their provisions just for the day.
“If he hadn’t come, I couldn’t take the dogs the whole way,” Sandra MacKenzie said.
For one, the Great Smokies National Park doesn’t allow dogs; and neither does Baxter State Park in Maine. Malcolm MacKenzie had to dog-sit at times.
MacKenzie encountered a few tight spots. A place called the Knife Edge in Pennsylvania took some tricky footwork, especially with four dogs on leashes; and the same day she encountered Baker’s Knob, with boulders going straight up. “I just prayed to be safe and not get hurt.
“I could look down from the mountain and see some construction workers; I thought if I fell off, they’ll see me and call 911.” She lived to tell about it.
Like most long-distance hikers, MacKenzie took on a trail name. Aptly, she was “Girl With Four Dogs.” Her dogs had names too: Colt was “Mountain Goat”; Shepherd was “Cujo”; Smokey was “Instigator”; and Marley was “Golden Digger.”
Around Hot Springs, N.C., about 200 trail miles from Springer, MacKenzie and Odom got the idea to slack-pack. Otherwise, they camped in tents. The shelters along the trail, spaced within a day’s hike of each other, aren’t very conducive to dogs — much less four. Shelters house hikers who don’t carry a tent, or who want to rely only on shelters. The majority of A.T. hikers head north from Springer in March or April, so they can make it to Katahdin before winter weather hits. Her February start made MacKenzie one of the early birds. That also meant snow in the higher southern elevations. The Smokies surprised her with an abundance of snow and cold.
“In the Smokies, I did a lot of praying,” she said. “I started at Fontana (the southern entrance) and it was in the 60s. A girl came with ‘trail magic’ — surprises of drinks and food for hikers — “and she said the weather should be good over the next couple of days.
“But the Smokies have their own little weather system. I made it to the first shelter and these guys had a fire going. When you’re moving, you’re not too cold but when you stop you get really cold.” She ended up taking a break in Gatlinburg, Tenn., a tourist town about midway through the park.
Over the 2,100 miles, MacKenzie went through one pair of boots (by the Shenandoahs in Virginia, they weren’t waterproof anymore); two pairs of tennis shoes and one pair of trail runners.
Her overall favorite part of the trail: Vermont and New Hampshire, which contain the White Mountains. They’re known for their ruggedness and being over tree line, meaning they’re bare of trees on top. Weather can be wildly unpredictable. One of the most popular is Mt. Washington, where the record wind gust ever recorded was 231 mph in April 1934.
“I loved them, but hated them too,” she said of the White Mountains. “They slow you down.”
After Odom-Smith got off the trail in Harpers Ferry, MacKenzie was particularly nervous about traversing the Whites alone. She found herself praying hard. Then some hikers who’d passed her in March showed up. She joined them.
“So many things like that were answers to prayer. I’d pray about something and God would answer,” she said.
MacKenzie averaged 20-25 miles a day over the whole trip. The beginning was slower, as it goes for most, adjusting to hiking and trail life. Her longest day was 28.8 miles.
Thankfully, she suffered no major injuries along the way, which could wipe out someone’s dream if the injury were severe. Marley cut his foot once but MacKenzie took care of it with her first-aid kit. The weather was mostly favorable, too, except she remembers it rained through most of Pennsylvania.
She lost 20 pounds along the way, but said she’s regained most of it since being home. Her exercise locally is roller-blading on the Columbus Riverwalk with all four dogs.
Her next big adventure? “I’d like to go white water rafting in the Grand Canyon,” MacKenzie said.
