“In a classroom, we can easily fall back into the student-teacher role,” Crabtree says. “As the Leadership Center says, ‘Leadership is an activity, not a position.’ Out on the trail, you couldn’t just fall into that student versus teacher role.” Crabtree encouraged participants to find an accountability partner to provide a different perspective on workplace challenges. She hoped the contact led to a relationship and demonstrated that hiking can evolve into part of a leadership routine.
FOLLOW ING YOUR GUT
Crabtree long wanted to take on the Appalachian Trail, which stretches roughly 2,180 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia, to Mount Katahdin, Maine. She worked for AmeriCorps 10 years ago and spent part of her time on a Virginia portion of the trail. While camping for six weeks, she read Bill Bryson’s “A Walk in the Woods,” a 1998 book chronicling a trek on the trail. Inspired by his humor and descriptions of life on the move, she vowed to hike the Appalachian Trail. Jobs, marriage and travels intervened. Her desire to explore, while unfulfilled, never diminished. It took the death of an elderly friend to inspire her to make the journey a reality. Her leadership training pushed her to embrace her promise to herself from a decade ago. The timing – no children, no elderly parents to care for – seemed right. Her experiences with short hikes as a way to combat stress and think about work differently convinced her she could benefit from a lengthy trip. “Now’s the time to take this risk,” she says. “If not now, when? My husband and I said, ‘We need this time with each other, and with nature.’” Crabtree chronicled her trip on brittanyblinks.tumblr.com, a blog full of photos and updates such as: “The sun hasn’t risen yet here in Vermont. I’m awake, though. Today will be our last day in this cabin and I’m feeling sentimental. Hiking the Appalachian Trail is the toughest thing I’ve ever done, both mentally and physically. Physically speaking, we hiked over 100
miles from New Hampshire to Vermont and those miles were intense.” In early July in Vermont, the Crabtrees stopped at Gifford Woods State Park and paid $20 a night to sleep in a lean-to. A $2 bus ride to a nearby town allowed them to do laundry and buy the dehydrated mashed potatoes, carrots and peas that fueled their legs. Rain delayed their departure, and the break in momentum changed their trip. “I finally got the feeling I was looking for – being immersed in nature, going through the daily chores of sweeping out the lean-to, cooking the meals and drinking tea at night, waiting out the rainstorm,” Crabtree says. “I knew I wanted to stay, and I didn’t need to stay on the trail. I wanted to follow my gut on that.” An 87-year-old woman named Barbara gave them a ride to the state park. They played gin rummy with the park ranger. She took them to Burlington for dinner and offered a room in her cabin. The stay gave Brittany time to write and reflect and work in the park office. Chris helped paint signs. “She had hiked the Appalachian Trail a couple years before, and she had to make tough choices on the trail, too,” Brittany Crabtree says. “So she understood where we were coming from. She did a kind thing for us, and it just was incredible.” It was in those moments that Crabtree found the leadership lessons, taught by the people and the personalities she met with a change of plans. “We met so many more people once we slowed down and stopped counting the miles,” she says. “When I go back to work, I’m going to make sure I have more physical activity and fresh air in my life. More important … I’m going to have to want to slow down and invite others to bring whatever they have to the table, too. Whatever I have, it just can’t be as good without mixing it with the great things other people offer.”
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