Huckleberry Knob

Story & Photography By Zoë Hester

We had spent weeks planning the perfect trip to Costa Rica: seven days in a beachside villa, four days in the jungle. Vegan restaurants scouted out, hikes chosen. As we’ve all learned by now, travel plans don’t always work out as intended. We booked our flights and Airbnb’s just mere weeks before the words Coronavirus and COVID-19 began popping up regularly in the American news, and after a couple months of well hopefully things will be better by then, we finally accepted that Costa Rica wasn’t happening when the airline emailed that our flights had been canceled.

After months of anticipation, I brooded that there would be no new adventure, which had been partially intended to celebrate my upcoming graduation. And of course, there would also be no graduation, although I hadn’t expected it to be much different than the one I had two years before. I was bummed. I was thankful that I was safe—that my loved ones were safe—but I was still bummed.

Sensing this, my partner Alex suggested we break our self-quarantine and leave the living room for a mountaintop somewhere. The ideal hike for the day needed to be two things: short enough for our nearly fourmonth-old puppy, Basil, and out of the way enough that we would not be putting ourselves or others at risk by going out into the world. These criteria led us up the Cherohala Skyway, where we parked on the roadside for a short hike up to Huckleberry Knob.

Alex and I had been aching for a hike all spring, having stayed home as much as

possible because of the pandemic and the new puppy, and this day trip was much needed. After a short mile up, we arrived at the bald where two other groups had arrived earlier in the day to do just what we were doing. Luckily, balds are big places, and once we walked a bit, we couldn’t see or hear the other hikers. We picked our spot, gave the pups some lunch, and sat down with ours: peanut butter & honey sandwiches, bananas, and chips. Basil tried to steal a sandwich or two, and her big brother Bob sat and smiled as she did it, happy to not be the only dog on the hike anymore.

As we sat up there in the sun, I thought about a lot of things. I thought about the trip we weren’t going to get to go on and the graduation I wasn’t going to have. I thought about the jobs that I knew I wouldn’t be able to find during a pandemic-induced recession. But I also thought about how lucky I was to be sitting on a mountain in the sunshine with

someone I love. I often find myself feeling guilty for feeling sorry for myself over things that a non-privileged person would never even have the chance to do. Who am I to mourn a trip to the beach when people are dying? Even so, I know that it’s okay to be sad about things, even when they are not the worst things. It’s also okay to celebrate life at a standstill: in the kitchen or on a mountain bald. After all, life is what we should all be celebrating.

So, even though in my small part of the world, there will be no trip to Costa Rica this year,

I celebrate peanut butter sandwiches.I celebrate mountains.

I celebrate puppies running through tall grass.

I celebrate Appalachia, my home.I celebrate life.