No Ego in Pisgah

The story didn’t begin at the trailhead. It began weeks earlier, after I returned from the wilds of Wyoming and Montana—lands of vast skies and jagged peaks. That trip had left me riding a high of adventure, the kind that gnaws at you once you’re back at sea level, staring at the flat expanse of beach where “elevation” means negative ten feet.

I was restless. Fortunately, I had Jackson. Friend, fellow glutton for punishment, and the kind of guy who thought pain was just another word for training. Together we had taken up rucking—hauling 45 pounds in a pack for miles on end. The military had forged it as preparation for war; we borrowed it as preparation for the mountains. Within thirty minutes your shoulders burned, your back screamed, and your legs plotted mutiny. But when you pushed through, when you carried that weight long after you wanted to quit, you discovered something deeper than muscle—you discovered grit.

By the time we stumbled across the Art Loeb Trail in North Carolina, we thought we were ready. We’d rucked for months, two or three times a week, and figured sixty miles in the Appalachians would be a worthy test. It was laughable hubris, the kind only a pair of twenty-one-year-olds could muster.

The plan: out and back, three and a half days, sixty miles of hard trail. We convinced ourselves it wasn’t so bad. After all, hadn’t we been training? The reality was we were about to be educated in the difference between walking Florida sidewalks and carrying your life on your back over mountains.

We rolled into Pisgah National Forest on a cool North Carolina afternoon, the air crisp compared to Florida’s eternal humidity. Spirits were high. We shouldered our new gear—mine freshly bought from REI after a bout of retail confidence—and marched to the trailhead. This was it.

We didn’t even make it a minute before disaster struck. Jackson’s water bladder had sprung a leak, soaking through his gear. He pulled it free with a grimace. No fixing it out here. Just like that, we started a sixty-mile trek already short on water.

Still, we pressed on, laughing at omens, shaking off doubt. For a few minutes the trail was pleasant—flat, shaded, a stream trickling nearby. But then the ground tilted up. And kept tilting.

“This is the hard part,” Jackson said, almost cheerfully. “First mile, thousand feet of gain.”

I thought of my father’s old saying: “It’s just a hill for a mountain climber.”

The trouble was, we weren’t mountain climbers.

Each step dragged at our legs, the packs growing heavier by the minute. Sweat poured, the promised cool temperatures replaced by a suffocating seventy-something heat. With water rationed and lungs burning, we fell silent. Conversation had no place on that climb. Survival did.

By the time we hit seven miles, our original fifteen-mile goal had withered to ten. Somewhere along the way we found a stream and filled our bottles, grateful for anything that kept us moving. The forest never opened as the pictures promised—no grand vistas, just endless walls of trees. The mountains teased us, hidden just beyond reach.

Then came the switchbacks. Steep, cruel, relentless. Every turn promised the top, only to betray us with another climb. We fought through, egos unraveling with every step, until at last we staggered onto a flat patch of ground that we claimed as camp. The so-called “viewpoint” was nothing but a sliver of mountains through a five-inch gap in the trees.

That night we sat by the fire, licking our wounds, laughing at our arrogance. The motto was born: “No ego.” There would be no pride in breaking ourselves for a trail that had already beaten us.

Morning brought rain, humidity, and a restless sleep behind us. We packed in silence, fueled only by the thought of escape. The descent was treacherous—slick roots, loose rocks, webs spun overnight that plastered across my face as I led. We ran when the ground allowed, stumbled when it didn’t, shaving time off the trek with reckless urgency.

And then, suddenly, it was over. The trail spat us out at the parking lot, battered but unbroken. Relief washed over us in waves.

We hadn’t conquered the Art Loeb Trail—it had conquered us. But we’d learned something more valuable than mileage or summit views. We’d learned respect for the mountains. We’d learned that preparation is never enough. And most importantly, we’d learned that sometimes the greatest victories come not from charging forward, but from knowing when to turn back.

Egos shattered. Lessons burned deep. And somehow, even through the suffering, good times were had