A Walk in the Woods

For the next two days, Mary Ellen continues to tag along and camp with Bryson and Katz, but they devise a plan to hike a fast 14 miles the following day to where they can get on a highway and hitchhike into the tiny town of Hiawassee and stay in a motel. Their plan works, and they’re able to outpace Mary Ellen by the time they reach the highway. Their hitchhiking plan works too: A drunken young couple on their way to get married picks them up and drives them to Hiawassee. Bryson recalls that the 1970 novel Deliverance (as well as its film adaptation)—in which four city men are stalked by depraved mountain men—was set in the region and admits that “Hiawassee did feel palpably weird and unsettling” (92). They check into a motel, shower, and go to a restaurant but began feeling guilty about ditching Mary Ellen. Back on the trail the next day, they ask another hiker if he has seen her. He responds that he camped with her the previous night and tells them that she referred to them as “overweight wimps who didn’t know the first thing about hiking” (98).