Hot Springs, NC. May 6, 2011
My legs started talking to me at about midnight. Screaming at me, actually, as the hamstrings and the quads both legs locked up.
I had rolled over in my tent in my tent at Peck Shelter, a 10-mile hike up from Newfound Gap deep in the Smokies. April had turned into May and I was more than 200 miles along the Appalachian Trail.
The cramps somehow made me laugh even as my eyes watered from the pain while I struggled to stretch me howling muscles and ease the pain. It reminded me of the aftershocks of seven-hour Saturdays at the dojo and my aging legs telling me, “that’s enough, damn it.”
I decided to stop eight miles away at Tricorner Shelter, a short hike and an afternoon to do what my legs were telling me to do and give them the rest they demanded.
Good thing.
Rested, I would do 18.5 miles a day later. It was a fabulous day of hiking that took me out of the Great Smoky Mountains and down from some of the highest points I will hike along the 2,176 mile Appalachian Trail.
It was a month after I had started thee long walk from Springer in Georgia to Katahdin in Maine, and it seemed I was about to be finding my trail legs – any my hiking head.
The 18.5 would be followed by eight as I stopped early and get out of the coming rain. That was a smart move, as I had just enough time to get into my tent ahead of the weather. It rained and rained. I slept and slept. My muscles never twitched.
Twelve miles the next day and then 14 miles into Hot Springs and here I am in Hot Springs.
It is time to “zero” and do no miles. This would be the first time since Hiawassee that I had done no hiking and that was almost three weeks earlier.
Whew.
Am I really Hot Springs? Am I really on the Appalachian Trail? Have I really hiked and lived inn the woods lugging 40+ pounds of food, shelter and other necessities for more than a month and covered 270 miles?
Pinch me. It’s almost surreal.
I carried high hopes into the woods, but my merry woodlands adventure has been even more spectacular, challenging and intense than I had imagined.
Two nights ago, I wore every bit of clothing and was still cold in my sleeping bag and small tent in 35 degree weather at my campsite at about 4,000 feet. Last night I was in a double bed under quilt and comforter in a 200-year old Victorian hiker hostel.
And, I find, I cannot seem to sleep in a bed.
My first morning in Hot Springs started with Trail Magic, a pleasant surprise of fudge from a friend in Charleston. I had forgotten that I had listed Elmer’s hostel as mail drop and just happened to see a box with my name on it. A true trail treat.
Springer Mountain seems so very far away – and so does the real world. I have been as unplugged as possible since starting April 3 and have been completely disconnected from the news. I saw the price at the pump and was shocked (and am glad I’m walking) A bird watcher from Alaska crossed my path the other morning and told me about Bin Laden. The only other news I’d heard for a month was about the devastating tornadoes.
Thinking back, Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the A.T., was more magical than I anticipated. The summit and its markers were surprisingly cool. I enjoyed a beautiful sunset and signed the trail register at the top of the mountain. And on a crisp Sunday morning, I headed north.
The first few days were exhausting; I knew they would be. Like many, I had packed far, far too much stuff and I soon rethink my possessions and send home about 10 pounds of things that I had been sure that I would need.
That first night, I camped near Hawk Mountain, about 7.5 miles out, when a barrage of not-too-distant gunfire shattered my serene surroundings, helicopters flew over, and it sounded like a gun battle erupted a mountain away. It turns out the Army Rangers have a training camp in the area. The second night, I camped near Gooch Mountain and cowered in my tent during an overnight thunder and lightning storm that brought cold and heavy rains and 60-mph winds.
And then one day folded into another, one mountain into another, one day into the next.
Hundreds of would-be thru-hikers never make it out of Georgia and dozens never even make it more than a very few days, with a few bailing after just a few hours. The AT in Georgia is said to be among the hardest along the trail. Your pack is very heavy, your legs are weak, it is difficult to breathe and it takes the mind and body time to adjust to this strange new world and to life in the woods.
There have been many odd but wonderful scenes along the way. There was a man playing a battery-powered electric cello at a stream crossing, a 'food dump' where an over-packed hiker shed excess weight (I snagged a pepperoni log and some breakfast bars, there were the trail angels who waited along the trail to offer cold drinks and snacks to hikers or, at Blood Mountain, to offer a bit of chocolate with a Biblical passage attached.
We are hiking a particularly religious part of the country where Jesus Saves, and there were Bibles in many shelters. A church group fed lasagna, peaches and salad to ravenous hikers one night at Neels Gap and then hamburgers the next morning. It was free, no prayers or sermons, and they offered us the opportunity to add our names to their prayer list.
I came into the woods alone, but there is no shortage of company or opportunity for fellowship. A day of virtual solitude along the trail ends with a night at a campsite or shelter and hikers sometimes travel in pairs or small groups or otherwise just end up in the same place.
I am surprised in Hot Springs to be reconnected with folks who I have met much earlier in the hike.
Meat Loaf is here. So are River Dog and Winnie and Mowgli, as is Terri, who is hiking in honor of her grandson, who died of SIDS. Surprisingly, Henry (the Marlboro Man) is in Hot Springs. I met him at 6 a.m. in the Atlanta bus station two days before I came onto the trail and I never thought he would find the trail, much less hike a big chunk out of it.
The Wolfpack is also camped near the springs. We hiked the Smokies together after meeting up at the first campsite. Fish and Lemon (a married couple from my hometown of Lakeland, Fla.) with Spork from Cincinnati, BeerBurger from Illinois and BearBait, a German.
My young friend, Strider, 20, from Virginia Beach also is in Hot Springs. We have been hiking together for a hundred miles or so, and he was planning to meet his mother and sister here. I had fallen a day behind and didn’t get to meet them, but Mom had paid for a pizza for the two of us at the Smoky Mountain Diner.
You tend to forget that you are a member of a trail community and your actions and presence affects others. Strider told me that he had posted an entry on his blog – Enter Grasshopper – and that he had been writing about our hiking and camping together. (I haven't seen what he has written, but may soon.)
I also met a young hiker named Chuck, who had yet to take on a trail name. He was hiking before starting graduate school in philosophy. Being a Dad, I resisted the urge to ask what in the world he expected to do with that. A few hours later, I offered him a trail name - “Chuckrates (as in Socrates.) He laughed, and said he liked it; we'll have to see if it sticks.
But I digress.
Hiking comes in segments – from resupply to resupply and the schedule often shifts because of supplies, weather or health. Taken in chunks, thru-hikers chart progress like Neels Gap, Hiawassee, NOC, Fontana Dam, which tells us in shorthand how far we have to go and how many days of food it will take to get us there.
Neels Gap – this first stretch from Springer is about 30 miles and has a hiking store that gives hikers a chance to scuttle their packs of excess weight, ship stuff home, and resupply to Hiawassee and beyond.
This was the first BEAR SCARE!! I was camped up and behind the hostel bunkhouse when I heard some noise and a shot and stirring around from a hundred yards or so away. Then someone with a flashlight came to my tent and told me a bear had been seen prowling around and I needed to move my food inside.
I was anxious about staying outside while my food went in, but figured I was going to be living on the bear's home turf for the next months, so I might as well stay in the tent. A bear had twice gone into a shelter at nearby Blood Mountain twice the night before and that night would steal two hiker's food from a campsite a half mile away from mine.
The Trail in Georgia features long and touch climbs and sharp descents through forests that have yet to bloom and offer stunning views of surrounding mountains, ridges and valleys. Rhododendron tunnels and mountain laurel.
I stayed in Hiawassee for two nights, waiting for a new tent to be shipped in, using the time buy more food and also eat subs from Subway and take several hot showers.
A lady named Almost There was the main topic of conversation and concern along the trail. She was a most odd woman about whom I had heard passing but nonspecific trail gossip, but had never encountered her until one morning. I had broken camp early for a six mile hike into NOC, and a possible resupply.
(It became a hot shower, laundry, a burger, two beers and ice cream before getting back on the trail for 2.5 more miles and 2000 foot elevation gain, which is my definition of a triple double - two beers, 2000 feet, two miles.)
I had left at 7:30 a.m. and had just turned a corner a half mile out and there she was -- disoriented and literally babbling. She told an odd story about hiking at night, not being allowed to stay in a shelter, being off her medication which was for focus. Then of she went, north like me, She skipped and sometimes ran while all the time chanting Hail Marys. Walk About, a young Pennsylvanian, said later he had found her sleeping in the stone lookout tower at Wayah Bald. Like me, he worried about her, but we figured she must be OK or she wouldn't have made it all this way from Springer.
Then there is Trail Magic.
A few days later, Strider, Spider, and I decided to hitchhike the 10 miles from Stecoah Gap into Robbinsville and, with luck, we hoped to be back on the trail in time to get to a shelter or a campsite with as little off-trail time as possible,
Strider met Nina, a day hiker, on the trail and she agreed to take us into town and bring us back. She waited patiently while we grocery-shopped at Ingle's, stopped by McDonald's and offered to let us come to her community house and shower and get cleaned up. We spent a delightful 45 minutes at her home and I found myself talking about tai chi, chi gong breathing, and eastern spirituality with her husband while the others showered. It was unreal.
Three hours after leaving the trail, we were again hiking and I would cover another five miles before making camp.
My goal from the start has been to avoid towns and other civilization and to make the resupplies stops short so I can get back into the woods. Many hikers mail food packages ahead; others,l like me, buy food along the way.
I did an overnight stay in Franklin, hiking in one day and out the next, and joined eight other hikers for food shopping at Wal-Mart. I spent $35 and left with a week's supply of food – and a new watch.
The Trail in Georgia features long and tough climbs and sharp descents through forests that were naked as spring had yet to bring its leafy shelter, although there were numerous Rhododendron tunnels and much mountain laurel. The climbs were brutal at times, but there were always stunning views of surrounding mountains, ridges and valleys through the trees.
Cold winds often whipped through the gaps and around knolls and knobs. I sometimes hiked in thermals, fleece and a rain jacket to fight off the cold, only to then come around a bend into the hot sunshine and away from the cold.
One goal had been to make it to Fontana Dam and the Great Smoky Mountains by Easter. I was a day short.
But I did sleep at Cody Gap that Saturday night, not needing a rain tarp. My tent was open to the skies and a brilliant star show with shooting stars.
The Easter sunrise was unforgettable, a reminder that I also hike to the glory of God. I thank Him each day for His blessings – the air in my lungs, the food in my stomach, the strength in my legs, the courage in my head and heart, and the wonder of His forest and trails.
The Smokies are magnificent. They are higher and flatter, more open and inviting. The forests had already begun to bloom at lower elevations, with lush meadows filled with green grasses and flowers of white, purple and orange.
Camping is restricted to shelter areas or specific campsites. I found Spence Field after a 10-mile day and was delighted to find it was near a high meadow with spectacular views. I enjoyed a quiet meal watching the sunset, but moved into my tent as the weather began to change.
The wind started howling after sunset, turning a glorious sunny day in the Smokies into a roaring night in the woods. The hiking was about to turn nasty. It was very cold that next morning with the wind continuing to whip across the mountaintop, making it hard to walk. It rained sideways and began to sleet, the frozen rain bouncing off my face and the hood of my jacket.
That afternoon we received word of horrible weather coming in. While we missed the brunt of the storm that devastated Alabama and other parts of the south, the storm rocked the shelter and pelted it with hail.
And so it goes. Now it is on to Erwin, TN by midweek and than a decisions as to whether to leave the trail for a few days and hitch to Damascus, VA, for Trail Days. I am thinking about staying on the trail and avoiding that crowd scene. I have finished my Zero Day in Hot Springs and am ready to get back on the trail.
Happy Trails everyone.
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