A PROFILE IN DETERMINATION--

Her heart was larger than her body that weekend.

Jane Matz is one of our group of ten square dancing friends who spent a recent weekend hiking segments of the Appalachian Trail.

She is a large woman and I was concerned for her comfort as we struggled with three challenging climbs on that outing; the first across the Shenandoah River from Harpers Ferry where we found parking up on Chapel Hill Rd.

The AT crosses there then ascends to a ridge line on the border of West Virginia and Virginia.

Our parking area was at 630 feet above sea level and the ridge peak was near the 1170 foot elevation giving us a hefty climb of 540 feet over a distance of likely less than an often switch-backed mile.

We were confronted with heavily forested and rocky terrain as we climbed toward a rising sun which was pushing up the opposite side of the steep ascent.

We soon left she and husband Russ behind as we headed toward the summit where we would set foot in our second state of the morning—Virginia. They smiled as we left them and told us they would rest a bit and enjoy some bird watching.

We stopped and rested often too as the steep grade penalized our aging bodies.

As we reached our summit then headed back I was pleasantly astonished when we encountered Russ and Jane slowly finishing their climb surprisingly close to us.

They were still smiling quietly as they usually do.

We had a similar experience the following day when we climbed out of the Caledonia State Park in Pennsylvania near Gettysburg.

That climb left a parking area at 940 feet and peaked somewhere near 1520 feet.

We were not concerned so much with elevations as we were with experiencing a meaningful length hike on the AT in each of the four states.

Again, we left them with their smiling blessing—only to, once again, encounter them close behind us when we reversed our course.

Our third heart-pounding climb happened right in Harpers Ferry where the AT passes into town from Maryland to the north then ascends a challenging set of worn, colonial period, stone steps up toward Jefferson’s Rock and past the Harper Cemetery where General Phil Sheridan had his headquarters during the Civil War.

I tip my hat to Russ for his quiet chivalry and want to shout my congratulations to Jane for being the kind of lady you would want to have close by when life hurls you one of its challenges.

The general would have been proud of her too.