A Walk in the Woods

The brief respite in Waynesboro is quite eventful for Bryson and Katz. After checking into a hotel, Bryson sets out to buy insect repellant and must navigate car traffic while on foot. Rather than crossing a busy intersection, he takes a shortcut through yards and gets stuck in the mud while crossing a creek. Meanwhile, Katz visits a laundromat and meets a woman named Beulah, with whom he plans a rendezvous later that night. Bryson thus dines alone and is enjoying his meal when Katz wanders in and tells him that Beulah’s husband confronted him at the planned rendezvous spot. Terrified that the jealous husband is looking for him, Katz hurries back to the motel, barricades his door, and doesn’t emerge again until the cab is waiting outside to take them back to the trail.

The cab drops them at Rockfish Gap, the southern gateway to Shenandoah National Park, where they’ll hike the 101-mile length of the park’s AT segment before taking a break to see family and tend to business. Bryson notes that Shenandoah National Park suffers from a funding shortage, overcrowding, and pollution but is beautiful and well-run and “almost at once it became [his] favorite part of the Appalachian Trail” (198).