Selfless Acts
/By Willow Belden, produced by Out There Podcast
Released On Aug. 18, 2022
Welcome to Out There Podcast. Our stories are written for the ear, so for those able, we recommend listening while reading along. Transcripts may contain minor errors; please check the audio before quoting.
(Sound of breeze)
WILLOW BELDEN (tape): Alright, so I am out for a hike. And it’s a beautiful, sunny day. Gentle breeze. It’s been a really tough week/month/year for me. So it’s a gift to have days like this, where I make time to go out and spend some quiet time in nature.
WILLOW (narration): One of the things I like to do when I’m out in nature is look at maps. I love to see where I am, what I’m looking at, what’s nearby.
But often — like on this day — my map only shows the immediate vicinity. I can see all these mountains off in the distance, but I don’t know what they are.
This is where an app called PeakVisor comes in handy.
PeakVisor is one of our sponsors. Their app figures out where you are, and then it tells you all the mountains you’re looking at.
If you’re a map geek like me, check out PeakVisor in the app store. You just might love it.
(Out There Theme music plays - guitar plucking chords, wistful whistling)
Hi, I’m Willow Belden, and you’re listening to Out There, the podcast that explores big questions through intimate stories outdoors.
This season is called Nature’s Nostalgia. Each episode, we’re sharing award-winning narratives and beloved fan favorites from the early days of Out There. These stories are the perfect thing to fuel your summer adventures, and they just might give you the inspiration you need to lead a more fulfilling life.
(Theme music fades out)
Before we get to today’s story, I have a favor to ask. If you enjoy listening to Out There, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts or wherever you’re listening right now. Five-star reviews make such a difference in helping new listeners find the show, and reaching new listeners is crucial for our success as a podcast.
If you’ve already left a review, thank you so much!
And now, on to our story for today.
(Music plays, guitar, keys, wind instruments)
I’m willing to bet that at some point in your life, you’ve experienced an act of altruism. Maybe it was the sweet older couple, who picked up your entire bill at a fancy restaurant. Or the stranger who fixed your car when you broke down in the middle of nowhere. Or the person who invited you to stay at their home when you were on the road and had no place to go.
You know what I’m talking about: those acts of kindness that seem over the top.
Today’s story is about that — about generosity taken to the extreme. And it’s about what prompts someone to BE that generous.
(Music fades)
The story starts four years ago, on a hot day in July.
I was thru-hiking the Colorado Trail, which is this long-distance hiking trail through the Rocky Mountains. I had been out for several weeks by this point, and I was in the middle of cattle country. Basically just miles upon miles of dry, dusty, brown fields. No shade. No place to fill up my water bottles.
The last stream I had passed was basically just a muddy trickle, full of cow manure.
I was totally out of water, and my mouth was so dry it felt like I was chewing on cotton balls. It was starting to make me nervous. What if I got dehydrated? Like, severely dehydrated? How would I handle that, all alone in the middle of nowhere?
And then, way in the distance, I saw the glint of something silver. As I got closer, I realized it was a vehicle. Next to it was some sort of home-made storm shelter, shaped like a dome.
I had heard rumors that there was a trail angel out here somewhere — a man who gave out free food and drinks to hikers. But I didn’t actually believe he was real.
And yet, now, here he was, stepping out of his storm shelter, offering me a camp chair to sit in, handing me a blue Gatorade. He had a stoic face, gray hair, and he was wearing blue jeans, despite the heat.
I don’t usually drink things that are bright blue. They kinda remind me of windshield wiper fluid. But this blue Gatorade was the most wonderful thing I have ever tasted. It was cold, and sweet, and refreshing, and I was beyond grateful.
The trail angel introduced himself as Apple. I figured it was a nickname, just like many thru-hikers have trail names.
Apple told me he does trail angeling year-round. He spends a few weeks in Colorado, and at other times of year, he hangs out along other trails: the Appalachian Trail, the Florida Trail, the Continental Divide Trail. He brings food and water out to hikers, gives them a ride into town if they need it; he even took someone to the hospital once.
Basically, a full-time do-gooder.
(Music plays, peaceful melodic guitar)
In the days and weeks and years that followed my encounter with Apple, I kept thinking about him. Something about him didn’t quite make sense. I couldn’t understand why someone would be a full-time trail angel, why you’d spend months and months out of the year just helping out complete strangers. For FREE.
Then, this summer, I finally got a chance to find some answers.
(Guitar fades)
My colleague Becky Jensen told me she was going out to see Apple.
Becky had thru-hiked the Colorado Trail two years after me, and she’d had a similar experience when she came across Apple’s aid station.
BECKY JENSEN: It was like tiptoeing down the stairs on Christmas morning. You know, you’re the only one up, and you know something magical is about ready to happen. I get emotional about this. And I went over and sat in a chair, and I hadn’t sat in a chair for a week, and I just sat there eating this buttermilk donut and getting teary like I am now, thinking, ‘Oh my gosh, this is the best thing I have ever eaten.’
(Music plays, rambling guitar)
WILLOW: It’s funny how a donut, or a bottle of Gatorade, can be the BEST THING you’ve ever tasted. They’re simple treats, but when you’re alone and at the mercy of the mountains, little moments of trail magic can be really powerful.
BECKY: I thought, ‘Someone has come out into such a remote area, scoped out this trail and knew the absolute worst, toughest spot, and brought some hope.’
(Music swells, then fades)
WILLOW: Like me, Becky marveled at Apple’s generosity. In fact, she was so touched by his kindness, that the following year, she contacted him and asked if she could join him for a day. She wanted to experience the trail magic again, but on the giving end this time.
This made sense to me. I think it’s pretty natural to want to give back, after we’ve been on the receiving end of kindness.
But I still wondered about Apple. What was up with his uber-altruism? Are some people just nicer than everyone else?
So when Becky invited me to go out with her and spend a day with Apple this summer, I jumped at the offer.
(Music plays, guitar plucking)
We showed up at Apple’s aid station with a box of fresh peaches and a giant bag of popcorn.
The place was just like I remembered it: dusty fields, camping chairs set up by a big pine tree, coolers full of soda and lemonade, and of course, the homemade storm shelter.
We sat with Apple, waiting for hikers to come through.
The day got hot. Flies buzzed. We pushed our camp chairs into the shade.
(Music fades)
I studied Apple as he sat there. He was clean shaven and tan, with a crisp white safari shirt and a bright orange hat. And he seemed oddly content.
Not that I minded being there myself, particularly. Sitting quietly in a field is pleasant enough, for a few hours. But days? WEEKS? I still couldn’t see the appeal. It wasn’t even a particularly scenic spot on the trail. And Apple had been doing this for SEVENTEEN YEARS.
WILLOW (Tape): So what’s average, how many people come through per day?
APPLE: It’s been about 15 now, it’s gone up.
WILLOW: Have you had days where nobody’s come?
APPLE: Absolutely. Yeah. Later, certainly in August, you get that quite a bit actually. That’s why I have my drones, so I have something to do.
WILLOW (narration): Drones. He really does have drones, two of them. He’ll fly them down the trail to see if hikers are coming. He even sometimes delivers cold drinks to hikers via drone.
(Sound of drone taking off, whur of propellers)
Today, he launches one of his devices and then lets Becky put on the drone goggles. They look sort of like virtual reality goggles, and they let you see what the drone is seeing.
BECKY: So I’m looking at the road, I’m following the road. Pine trees to my right, and a big open space to the left. Can you go – oh, hold on Apple. Go back down.
APPLE: Seriously?
BECKY: Yep, come back toward us. Yep, we’ve got somebody. They’re kind of in white. It’s just a little white blob.
WILLOW: So how far away is that?
APPLE: 4,163 feet.
(laughter)
(Music plays, rock drum fill, guitar)
WILLOW (narration): Apple really geeks out about the drones. He’s a former engineer from IBM, so I guess it makes sense. You can tell he enjoys knowing when hikers are going to show up, surprising them with a beverage drop, setting the drones down EXACTLY where he wants them. He’s like a kid with a toy airplane.
(Music swells)
By mid-afternoon, a steady flow of hikers, and even a few mountain bikers, are coming through.
APPLE: Welcome, there’s all kinds of goodies, help yourself. Cold drinks are in the cooler, help yourself. And there’s chocolate donuts.
(Sound of cooler opening, people rummaging through it, ice sloshing)
BIKEPACKER: Oh my God, a coca cola. They’re so cold. Ohhhh.
WILLOW: Apple has a little notebook, and as each traveler comes through, he keeps a record.
APPLE): What’s your trail name?
SOUL SLOSHER: Soul Slosher.
APPLE: I’m sorry?
SOUL SLOSHER: Soul Slosher.
APPLE: Soul Slosher.
WILLOW: Is there a story behind that?
SOUL SLOSHER: Well when I was doing the AT, a lot of people, especially in town, they would ask, you know, “Why are you hiking? What are you doing? What are you looking to get out of this?” And I remember I was so annoyed one day, someone asked me, and I was like, “I’m just doing something different. I’m just shaking up my soul.” And someone behind me goes, “So you’re a Soul Slosher!” And it’s just stuck. (Laughter)
WILLOW (narration): The hikers and bikers are lean, and sweaty, and sun-baked. They seem genuinely grateful for the cold drinks and salty snacks. And the conversation.
You can kinda tell they’ve been by themselves in the middle of nowhere for a while.
SOUL SLOSHER: I was hiking by myself yesterday, and it was raining, but the sun had come out. And I was like, “Here comes the sun!” But it was like a zany voice. Like I was like mentally deranged kinda singing, like, “Here comes the sun.” (Laughter in background) And I was like, I shouldn’t be by myself this much.
WILLOW: Some of the hikers stay a few minutes. Others hang out for hours.
Apple seems to enjoy their conversation. He asks them about their journeys, trades jokes. But, he’s not gushy. He doesn’t share much about himself, kind of dodges questions actually.
SOUL SLOSHER: So Apple, tell us something about you, (sound of can opening) if you like.
APPLE: Well, I’m 23 years old, available. (Laughter) I’m retired long ago. From IBM. And I built that dome.
SOUL SLOSHER: OK. So how did you get your trail name?
APPLE: Apple? That is my real name. My actual family name.
SOUL SLOSHER: Oh.
WILLOW: His full name is actually Bill Appel, and he lives in Ohio. At least, that’s his home base, when he’s not out on a trail.
I still can’t figure him out, though. If you were to imagine someone who dedicates their life to committing random acts of kindness, you’d probably picture someone who’s kind of touchy feely. But Apple isn’t that. He’s just a regular person. Like you or me. And yet, here he is, spending his hard-earned retirement years, angeling.
What’s up with that?
(Music plays, joyus guitar and ukulele strumming, fades out)
WILLOW: We’ll hear the rest of the story in a moment. But first…since we’re talking about thru-hiking today, I want to tell you about something that made MY thru-hike a whole lot simpler: a pee cloth.
Pee cloths are just what they sound like: they’re reusable cloths that you can use instead of toilet paper, when you need to pee. In between uses, you just hang your pee cloth on your pack to dry.
One of our sponsors is a company called Kula Cloth, and they make luxury pee cloths. When I say “luxury”, I’m talking antimicrobial fabric, a waterproof backing so you don’t get your fingers wet, and even reflective stitching so it’s easy to find your Kula Cloth at night.
For 15% off your Kula Cloth order, go to outtherepodcast.com/kula and enter the promo code “outtherepodcast15” at checkout. That’s outtherepodcast.com - slash - K-U-L-A, promo code “outtherepodcast15”.
And now, back to the story.
After the last hikers have come through and Apple has packed up and gone back to town for the night, I finally get to really talk to him. I ask why he does what he does. Why he’s so selfless.
I had expected him to give me some sort of kumbaya answer: to talk about how helping others is a noble thing to do, how we should all be more generous. But that’s not what he says.
Instead, he tells me, he’s actually not being selfless at all. Quite the opposite.
(Music plays, melancholy guitar)
It all started the first time he met a thru-hiker. It was back in 2001, and he was living in Raleigh, North Carolina at the time. On weekends, he’d sometimes go hiking in the Smoky Mountains. And one day, he came across two guys with big backpacks. They looked a little the worse for wear.
APPLE: They’re filthy, and they stink, to be honest. I mean, honestly, you could tell from looking at them. They were pale, they were hungry. It was pretty obvious they were in bad shape – really, seriously, physically bad shape.
WILLOW: They told Apple they were hiking the whole Appalachian Trail. All the way from Georgia to Maine. And they were hungry. Like, really hungry.
APPLE: I had some candy bars with me, and I gave it to them, and it was like they were thanking god they were alive. It was an amazing thing. You never normally see anything like that.
WILLOW: The hikers were immensely grateful. They acted like it was so special, what Apple had done for them, giving them these candy bars. So he started thinking, ‘I hike here anyway. I could do this again, but in a bigger way. I could bring more food. Make a picnic out of it.’ It sounded kind of fun.
(Music fades out)
Apple figured a good way to reach a lot of hikers at one time would be to hang out at a trail shelter. There are a lot of them along the Appalachian Trail, kind of lean-to’s where hikers can get out of the rain or snow.
So one day, Apple loads up his backpack with chocolate and hot dogs, and goes up to one of these shelters. Turns out, he was right, a lot of hikers showed up there.
APPLE: It was pretty nasty. It was like getting cold and rainy, so they were kind of hurting. So I built a fire, and they really liked that, and then I made them hot dogs, I remember that. And I remember, I went out to get wood and I came back to the shelter — the shelter was full that time of the year — and they all stood up and gave me an ovation. And I thought, ‘Has that ever happened to me at IBM? No way. And it never will, either.’ That is so good for your ego.
(Music plays, joyus piano and strumming)
WILLOW: Apple felt like a total hero. He knew right away that he wanted to do this again. All that glory was intoxicating.
APPLE: It’s — what do they call it? The Messianic Complex. Right, you feel like you’re so powerful. I think that’s what it is, it all feeds into your ego. You just get totally addicted to it.
WILLOW: Totally addicted to it.
(Music fades out)
Like an addict, Apple kept chasing that feeling, that feeling of being a hero, a savior. He kept going back for more. Every few weeks, he’d drive four hours from his home in Raleigh, out to the Appalachian Trail. He’d hike thousands of feet up a mountain, just to bring food to hikers.
After he retired, he started doing it full time. He branched out from the AT and started hitting other trails as well. And all of this, to keep getting that feeling he loved so much. That feeling of power, that “helper’s high.”
“So you see,” he tells me, “there’s nothing selfless about it.”
WILLOW (tape): Do you think there is such a thing as doing something selfless? Does that even exist?
APPLE: That’s a really complicated question. I think no there isn’t. I think even the most selfless people ultimately may be doing it for their own ego.
BECKY: It’s not this sense of martyrdom – of, “look at me and these sacrifices I’ve made.”
WILLOW: That’s my colleague again, Becky — the one who brought me out to see Apple this summer.
Last year, when she joined Apple to do some angeling, it was her way of saying thankyou for the trail magic she received, her way of paying it forward.
But it’s morphed into something else. Bringing peaches and Nutter Butters out to the trail, and seeing the hikers’ delight, she started to feel that same helper’s high that Apple talks about. She only does it for one day out of the year, but she, too, talks about angeling almost like it’s an addiction.
BECKY: It feels SO GOOD. It must be like the little oxytocin or endorphins or dopamine, whatever the chemical is flowing through my body —I’m not the scientist here — but some happy thing is happening inside of me when I’m bringing joy to others. And it just kind of flows through me and kind of shoots out of my fingertips, and I have a perma-grin on my face that I can’t wipe off.
WILLOW (tape): A perma-grin! That’s going to be a new vocabulary word. (Laughter)
(Music plays, guitar strumming)
WILLOW (narration): And there it is. This urge to help, to go out of your way for complete strangers — it’s not the result of some rare generosity gene. It’s not like Apple or Becky are inherently more gracious humans than the rest of us. They’re just drunk on the helper’s high.
I guess it sounds a little jaded, this idea that there might not actually be such a thing as pure altruism — that generosity is often actually kind of self-serving.
But you know what? It’s also kind of beautiful that life works that way. Because it means those mental highs we all crave might be easier to come by than we think.
(Music swells, concludes)
That story first aired in 2018. And it won a national award. It got first place for best independent podcast from Public Radio News Directors Incorporated, or PRNDI. Getting a PRNDI award was a huge honor, and I’d like to give a big round of congratulations to everyone who helped out with this story.
(Music plays, rambling guitar)
Coming up next time on Out There, we often hear that “the outdoors is free” — that it doesn’t take money to enjoy nature. But it’s not really that simple. For some folks, even going camping for a weekend is a luxury that’s out of reach.
CHARLSIE SHAVER: I grew up with a single dad, and he, like most of the adults where we lived, struggled to make ends meet. There were no summer vacations. Getting a job was all about practicality. And chances were, if you knew someone who was living in a van, it probably wasn’t by choice. From a young age, I got used to hearing, “No, we can’t afford that.” And, “That’s for rich people, not for us.”
WILLOW: What happens when you’re too poor to dream? Tune in on September 8 for that story.
If you enjoyed this episode, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you’re listening right now. Seriously, pause the episode and do it right now. Five-star ratings and kind words from listeners like you make a huge difference to independent podcasts like us, because they help new listeners find the show.
If you’ve already left a review, thank you so much.
Speaking of thank yous, I want to give a shout-out to all the listeners who are supporting Out There financially, including Shannon and Peter Rogers, Eric Biederman, Phil Timm, Doug Frick, Tara Joslin, and Deb and Vince Garcia.
If you’d like to make a gift of your own, go to patreon.com/outtherepodcast — or just click the link in the episode description.
(Sound of breeze)
WILLOW (tape): K, opening up PeakVisor…
WILLOW (narration): Remember, from the start of the episode, where I was out on a mountain top?
WILLOW (tape): Oh, this is cool. It tells me — it pops up, it knows where I am. It says, “Oh, you’re on Medicine Bow Peak,” and it says, “Tap to sign in and claim your visit.” So you can kind of keep track of what mountains you’ve climbed.
WILLOW (narration): PeakVisor is one of our sponsors. Their app not only lets me keep track of my accomplishments; it also shows me a panorama of all the mountains I’m looking at, with every peak labeled.
If you’d like your own personal mountain guide, check out PeakVisor in the app store. You just might love it.
(breeze fades out)
(Out There Theme music plays - guitar plucking chords, wistful whistling)
If you’re new to Out There, check out the Best of Out There playlist. This is a collection of some of our favorite episodes of all time, and it’s a great introduction to the range of stories we do on the show. You can find Best of Out There on Spotify, and at our website, outtherepodcast.com.
Today’s story was reported and produced by me, Willow Belden. Story editing by Becky Jensen. Out There’s advertising manager is Jessica Taylor. Our audience growth director is Sheeba Joseph. Our ambassadors are Tiffany Duong, Ashley White, and Stacia Bennet. And our theme music was written by Jared Arnold.
Have a beautiful day, and we’ll see you in three weeks.
(Theme music plays out)
