Trail Angel
By Patricia Racine
April 2025
Recently I went to a memorial service for a former customer and a hiking compatriot, someone taken from this world far too early. It was the best attended service I have ever been to which attests to the love people had for him and also the love they felt for his family. We arrived 15 minutes after the doors opened and still were in line for three hours. But along the way through the funeral home there were thousands of pictures, videos and belongings of this well-loved man to watch and look at, highlighting the life of someone who obviously brought a lot of joy to everyone he met.
I had the honor of hiking with Chris once about eight months after he finished his first Appalachian Trail thru-hike, and it is one of my top ten day hikes because I was regaled with tales from the trail in addition to getting some miles through the woods in for the day. We all have stories of interesting or beautiful hikes, but the stories that he had were far more interesting and inspiring. For example, how many of us helped a stranger find her engagement ring in between some boulders and then been invited to attend the wedding? Those stories romanticized the trail for me and also gave me a glimpse of just how magnetic this man was; you couldn’t help but be drawn into his effervescent personality and gift for storytelling. After his second trip down the Green Tunnel from Harper’s Ferry to the majestic Katahdin he talked to me about writing a book about all his adventures and I was so looking forward to reading that, because I knew it would be a book that people would totally fall in love with from page one.
But now those of us who had our lives touched by this larger than life man will have to settle for our memories of his stories from the trail and do our best to keep his love for hiking and thru-hikers alive in our own ways. He was quickly becoming a local legend on the Massachusetts section of the Appalachian Trail, and it would be fitting to honor him in some way for future hikers to know how much he loved the trail and those that set their feet in motion on that historic path. I personally have an idea, but just need to work out the logistics of it.
Regardless, I know that every time I start following those white blazes, he will be right there with me spiritually and when I face a tough section I will ask myself, WWTMD? (What Would the Mayor Do?).
