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Article published Nov 2, 2008 Happy trails: Jenkins shares adventures in new book
By Linda Braden Albert of The Daily Times Staff
Sue Jenkins has hiked the 900 miles of Smoky Mountain trails twice and is well into her third repetition, keeping detailed journals each time she hits the trail. Now, she is sharing her adventures with others in a recently published book, appropriately entitled "Backpacking Stories of a City Girl Who Apparently Loves Misery in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park."
"I love to write and I love to hike, so it just made sense that in time, I would write a hiking book," Jenkins said recently. "I just love to do both of them."
Jenkins began hiking in the Smokies in 1987 and has kept a hiking journal through all those years -- written from notes she took while still on the trails. To date, she has 14 of the three-inch-thick, ringed notebooks full of memories.
"It was great reviewing my journals to zero in on which ones to use in the book," Jenkins said. "It was hard for me to condense. I had to condense every single chapter several times. I tried to keep it lighthearted and funny."
Jenkins' book focuses on her overnight trips on the mountain trails, the first one of which was in September 1999.
"That was easier than reviewing all 14 books," she said. "From 1999 to now, I have spent the night in the mountains 63 times. If I had known I was going to do it that much, I would have bought better equipment from the start!"
Friends and memories
Jenkins' trail buddies figure prominently in her book. One of her favorite memories is of the night she and two of her friends spent on Mount LeConte.
"We had reservations to stay in the shelter," she recalled. "But the weather got so bad that, without asking permission, we just stayed in the office, which is the community room, really. The next day, in The Daily Times, we read that the winds got over 107 miles per hour that night. It was truly one of the longest nights of my life. Now, 100 percent chance of rain doesn't bother me; 107 miles per hour winds did bother me."
Jenkins said she and her hiking friends have never had a really scary experience on the trail, but occasionally they have had a momentary fright. On one hike, Jenkins and her companion were in a shelter and had settled down for the night when a man walked in.
"He looked like a wild man," she said. "And for a few minutes my heart skipped a few beats and pounded out of my chest, but then, when he rested and ate some food, he was really a nice guy. It's funny, I kept thinking is this Eric Rudolph, do you reckon? I couldn't think of his last name at the time but then I'd tell myself, well, Sue, don't even try to think of it. That's not going to help anything even if you do think of it, so don't go there." Their sheltermate had hiked over 50 miles in two days, Jenkins said, adding, "No wonder he looked like a wild man. He was exhausted. It wasn't Eric, by the way."
(Rudolph, also known as the Olympic Park Bomber, was a terrorist in the mid-1990s who committed a series of bombings across the southern United States, killing two and wounding at least 150 others. He escaped into the mountains of North Carolina, where he lived, but was later caught by the FBI.)
Jenkins has had some bear sightings, but said the bears are more afraid of humans than the humans are of them. "Usually I get a picture of their rear end as they go around the bend," she said with a laugh. "I have a great respect for bears but I'm not afraid of them enough that I don't hike."
Trail talk
Some of the chapters in the book have intriguing names -- "Elly Disappeared After This Momentous Trip," "Used WHAT as a pillow?" and "A Blood-Curdling Scream in the Dark!" The most unusual is "Don't Park Gum in Crotch." You'll have to read the book to find the story behind this one, which was inspired by Jenkins' biggest supporter, her husband, Joe.
The book has proven to be popular with hikers and non-hikers, which surprised Jenkins. Sales have been brisk even though the books are only available from the author at present. "It's amazing," she said. "People have been buying it without any publicity."
Jenkins is in the process of creating an audio version of her book in honor of her friend and hiking companion, the late Margaret Stevenson, said to be the first woman to hike all 900 miles of trails in the Smokies.
"She was a wonderful lady and is still influencing my life," Jenkins said. "In the last few years of her life, her eyes were so bad that she could not read, so she loved audio books. I just thought how much Margaret would have loved this book. She would have listened to it over and over, she would have visualized the places I talked about, so I decided to put it on audio book and make that available, too. I'm going to donate it to the assisted living places in town."
Jenkins will set a price on the audio book, which will be available for purchase at a future date, after she discovers how much it will cost to produce.
"I love to share my fun times," Jenkins said of her book. "It's a very satisfying thing to see some of the stories in my collection in print."
She also enjoys the beauty of the Smokies in all seasons and plans to continue hiking as long as she is physically able.
"I just love the Smoky Mountains, and I'll keep on, keeping on," she said.