More than a walk in the woods | Penn State student embarks on historic Appalachian Trail for spring semester | University Park Campus News

Nick Malizia was looking forward to studying abroad.

The junior is currently in Harrisburg, Virginia — right outside of a Dairy Queen — a far cry from Galway, Ireland, where he had hoped to spend this past academic year.

But Malizia (junior-English and psychology) had always planned on completing the Appalachian Trail walk, which is currently the longest pure hiking experience in the world.

The majority of hikers will begin their 2,100-mile journey in north Georgia, around late January or early February, and hike north to Maine with the weather.

Hikers traverse the Great Smoky Mountains in Tennessee, reaching altitudes of just over 6,600 feet, before descending to 124 feet above sea level in northern New York near Bear Mountain.

As a freshman entering Penn State, Malizia partook in Penn State’s Aurora experience, completing some credits in an outdoor setting.

Malizia said he loved Aurora but noted the 80 miles he did there pale in comparison to the Appalachian Trail.

Currently, Malizia is 600 miles into his journey up America’s easternmost mountain range, but he has already come to feel the special connection between man and nature in the backwoods of the American landscape.

“The AT is a really social trail, and you meet so many cool people,” he said. “That’s part of the reason why I’m here, because of the people.”

His friend, student Katherine Stanton, said this had “been on his mind forever, and it was saddening to see him lose the chance to go to Ireland, but this is who he is — an outside, social kid.”

Stanton (junior-elementary education) said the isolation of the coronavirus pandemic began to get to Malizia, and “he was craving an experience.” So, now was the time to take his trip out to the Appalachian Trail.

Malizia said he was further motivated by “A Walk in the Woods,” a Bill Bryson memoir about his attempt at crossing the Appalachian Trail, and his humorous digs about its endless nature, the propensity of bear attacks and the people existing in the trail community.

Malizia and the rest of the trail community remain at odds with Bryson, however, noting his seminal coverage of the trail and his failure to complete more than half of his journey.

“He kinda just got enough for a book, and people really [look down on him] for that,” Malizia said.

Malizia read “A Walk in the Woods,” however, and according to him, Bryson’s award-winning book has served to popularize the Appalachian Trail despite the book’s shortcomings among the trail community.

But one thing Bryson mentioned — the people you meet — rings true among all who don their hiking boots and knapsacks.

“There are a lot of people who are hiking it, almost for mental health reasons, almost as if this is restorative for them,” Malizia said.

Malizia mentioned learning about a man who suffered from post traumatic stress disorder from his time overseas in Iraq who found solace in the Tennessee woods.

Additionally, there was a woman whose mother had recently passed away after four years in hospice care, he said, whose doctors had told her to do something for herself.

And then there are those like Malizia, people who had always revered the trail and took advantage of the pandemic to spend a quarter of their year hiking.

“There are a ton of people who are out for the same reason as me; there’s seven of us who are all on gap semesters,” he said.

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As much as the trail is about being one with nature, there also exists a huge bond between people you meet once on the trail, Malizia said.

“Everyone has ‘trail nicknames,’ and you hear them all the time in conversations with other people,” he said.

For example, “Fresh Ground,” who always had coffee grinds on him, often came up in conversation between hikers.

“[Someone said] Fresh Ground was here a couple days ago, so automatically we knew that he was a couple days ahead of us, where he was going and what pace he was on, even though we never actually met him,” Malizia said. “Everyone kinda knows each other, and even if you don’t know their names, you run into people who have had their own encounters with someone.”

Everyone operates at their own pace on the trail, and as Bryson put in his memoir, “walking for hours and hours upon end sort of becomes automatic,” something that takes time to get accustomed to, however, according to Malizia.

When he and his friends started on the trail 41 days ago, they started slow “to ease it in, but now [they’re] doing 22-24 miles a day,” he said.

His pack aims to be in Harper’s Ferry, the psychological midpoint of the Appalachian Trail, in just over a month. The actual halfway point is Pine Grove Furnace in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania.

At that pace, he will have traveled just over 1,000 miles in a little over 70 days — all despite Malizia “actually having the heaviest pack in his group.”

“Everyone in my group has like 10 fewer pounds than me,” he said.

According to Malizia, the primary items a hiker needs to carry are just food and clothes — while ensuring to be “super light” on the clothes and to bring an extra pair of socks.

Also included in that is a tent, a blow up mattress, cooking supplies, and for Malizia, books to write his honors thesis — except for “Walden,” a Henry David Thoreau book currently sitting on a garbage can outside of a Walmart in Tennessee.

“I was never reading ‘Walden,’” he remarked.

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I scream, you scream, we all scream for Berkey Creamery ice cream.

On an average day, Malizia and his group wake up from 6-7 in the morning, are on the trail before 8, will hike for four hours, break for lunch, hike another dozen miles, and then settle down with the other hikers in camp and reflect on the day.

“Then you go to bed, and you do it all again, every day until you go home,” he said.

As many do, including Bryson, Malizia debates the decision almost as often as he sees a deadly animal, which is very often.

“It’s one of those things where, if you’re having a bad day, it definitely comes through your mind a lot, but then you get through it and it goes away,” he said.

Jerry Adamo, a close friend of Malizia’s, said Malizia has always been a persistent person.

“Nick’s been a runner his whole life, he knows what to do when the going gets tough, and he always gets back up,” he said.

According to Adamo (junior-English), Malizia is the type of person who can just strike up a conversation with anyone, regardless of their background or political opinions — something that can only help as Malizia makes his journey.

As Malizia crosses the Appalachian expanse, he will leave behind an interesting realization.

He knew well the political climate of rural southern towns on the trail, especially early on in his trip, but couldn’t fathom “the dichotomy that existed in these places.”

Malizia recounted the time in North Georgia when he was walking into a diner and the first thing he saw was the National Rifle Association symbol — and the second thing he saw was the Confederate flag.

But the third thing he saw was a welcome sign, reading “Live, Laugh, Love,” surrounding a happy family opening their arms to all.

The stereotypical deep south livelihood and southern hospitality often don’t fuse together, according to Malizia, but here, on his journey up America, they come by the dozen.

“I would walk into these kinds of places thinking one thing, but I would leave with the owner’s phone number, and to this day — a month later — I still get texts from her wishing me luck,” he said.

Malizia said he aims to complete his trip near the end of June, and when he returns, he will await interesting questions from his two friends, people who have never hiked the trail but have undoubtedly heard exaggerations of it.

Both Adamo and Stanton said they want to know more about the friends Malizia made and the types of people he ran into on the trail, whether it be good or bad.

“I’ll have so many questions for him,” Adamo said, “but the first will probably be what surprised you the most about the trip, and the second will be about bears.”