Hello, Friends!
I got home from the mountains on Sunday night with a van's worth of gravel dust and a heart that hasn't quite settled down yet.
We start here.
Last Friday, Jonathan and I drove a fifteen-passenger van from Charlotte to Asheville to support the fall Cystic Fibrosis Xtreme Hike. Our job for the weekend was toting hikers to and fro, a great job if you don't mind driving a big ass van up and down gravel roads in the mountains. I was looking forward to it. It's historically a weekend of a ton of Advil, a lot of hugs, a few tears, and a lot of love.
When it came time for dinner, the dining room was already loud with people who hadn't seen each other since spring. I deliberately found a table of people I didn't know. Two gentlemen I didn't recognize, so we sat with them. "Hi there, I'm Matty and this is my husband Jonathan." They introduced themselves, and thus began the exchange that happens with every new person you meet at the hike. "Is this your first hike?" and "What's your connection to CF?" are always among the first questions. For both of them it was, in fact, their first hike, and neither had a direct connection to CF. They had simply happened upon it and decided to give it a try. Jonathan and I gave our answers. For me: I've done the hike twice, and this was my first time volunteering. Then came my connection to CF. "I don't have a direct connection," which is shorthand for: no one I love has it. As soon as I said it this time, it felt a little off.
Six years earlier, just before COVID shut the world down, I had joined my first three or four training hikes in preparation for what should have been the spring 2020 Xtreme Hike. I'll never forget that first training hike, or a hiker named Abby, who spent a few miles at the back of the pack with me. I met a few other people, Billy and Rob, that I'd hike with in future years and who are still my friends today.
I had come to the hike through my best friend's dad, known to the hiking community as Doc. He'd known me since I was eighteen, and he thought I would love this cause and this crowd, and that I'd fit. When he told me about it, I was on one of the several fitness journeys I've been on in my life. You'll remember from "The Sweep" that my weight and I have a long history. And I wasn't wholly unfamiliar with Cystic Fibrosis, either. More than fifteen years before, I had met another of my best friends only months after he lost his wife, whose body had rejected the double lung transplant her CF had made necessary. That was my first exposure to what the disease was. But none of this was a direct connection, and so my perfunctory answer, "I don't have one," remained true.
Back in Asheville this past weekend, we got started Saturday at 2 a.m. Jonathan and I loaded our hikers and set out on the hour-plus drive to the start. In complete darkness, a caravan of vans made its way up the side of a mountain on switchback roads, and we arrived at the trailhead. The energy was high, and by 4:15 we had sent the first hikers off. We drove ahead to the first aid station and set up everything they could possibly need or want after the first eight miles, still in the dark. One of the hikers who was volunteering as a sweep had brought her whole family along, including her two youngest. My favorite moment of the day was watching hikers come into that station and these two boys, maybe six and eight, be the biggest source of light on the mountain. They made sure each hiker got the right flavor of Gatorade, or a cold bottle of water, and they meant it. I know it moved people forward.
At the next aid station we set up with the foundation staffers and camped for about six hours, because over a day like that the hikers spread out and you need to be ready well before they arrive. We dodged the yellow jackets, unfolded chairs, made jokes, cooked grilled cheese sandwiches, and celebrated the progress of every hiker who came through. We doctored them up and sent them on their way. Jonathan, volunteering for the first time, found two teenage girls who were working the station while their parents hiked, discovered they were cheerleaders, and by mid-afternoon the three of them were conspiring between hikers about what a Sunday morning cheer could look like. It was a highlight of the day. In the long gaps, I asked the staffers why they were part of the foundation. Thirteen years, fifteen, twenty. Not one of them described it as a job.
We closed the day seeing everyone safely across the line in what turned out to be an exceptionally hot and difficult hike. First-time hikers crashed into the folding chairs, and we let them.
The next morning we gathered for breakfast and the closing ceremony, which opened with Jonathan and his two cheerleaders performing their cheer for the whole room. Gretchen, the foundation's development and hike director, led with recognition: top team fundraiser, top individual fundraiser, Hiker with Heart, among others. The hikers had raised more than $127,000 as of that morning and would keep raising for a few weeks yet. There was a lot to celebrate.
Then came the pinning. Every hiker, staffer, and volunteer has the chance to bestow a pin on someone who had an impact on them over the course of the training or the weekend. Everyone in the room is recognized. As each pin is handed off, you hear a brief story about what the next person means to the one giving it, and as you listen it's nearly impossible for your chest not to pause and your eyes not to fill. Each bestowal is a small window into the meaning of this community. A glimpse into the love bubble that it is.
My name was called, as the man who braved driving vans full of people up a road of questionable judgment. We chuckled, and I got up to accept. And standing there in front of that group, I felt an instant need to say where my heart had been moving all weekend. So I began.
"Ya know, I'm sincerely full of gratitude to be here with you. It's funny. When you introduce yourself to anyone new, one of the first questions is what your connection to CF and the hike is. And for six years now, my answer has always been, 'I don't have a direct connection.' And sitting here this morning, I don't think that's true any longer. I feel like my connection is you. I'm so grateful you've included me as part of this community, so thank you."
A lot of people nodded. Several clapped.
My pin went to Abby. Six years ago, on my very first training hike, she dropped back and walked a few miles with a stranger who was struggling. And every single time I have seen her since, at every trailhead and aid station, she has greeted me exactly as she did that day: my name first, then the hug, the kind that tips you back on your heels before you've finished saying hello. She had no way of knowing what that had done. A greeting that hasn't changed in six years was one of the first reasons I understood I was somewhere I belonged, long before I could have said so out loud. I suspect I'm not the only one.
The ceremony ended as they all do, in hugs and a shortage of tissues. One of the two men from Friday's table was in that room. I didn't see him while I was talking; I wasn't looking. I don't know what he heard.
Three days earlier he had given the same answer I'd been giving for six years. On Sunday, he heard mine change. One day he'll be on a trail, keeping pace with someone a little slower than he is, and at some point he'll stand in front of this same group of people and hear his own answer change. I hope I'm there when it does.
If you'd like to know more about the Xtreme Hike, or to be part of it, my page for the spring 2027 hike is here.
—MB
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