Hike Your Own Trail

Mike - love you long time. See you in the fall. Don't get eaten by grizzlies (and everyone's been worried about us and the bears. Hah.)

Wow. It's been a while. You know, while I'm hiking I spend a lot of time thinking about this blog... all the little things I can't wait to report on, all the little literary tricks I can use to really get my point across, how I'll word this and that, and then I get here... The glowing screen overwhelms me and I'm at a loss for words. Not to mention the fact that the figurative ups and downs are almost as frequent as the literal ones. But for every figurative down I've encountered, the Trail has given me a threefold up in return. Luckily, the literal ones are about equal. So I can't complain.

"Hike Your Own Trail" is a saying that is popular among AT hikers, particularly non-purists. "Purists" are people who choose to hike every inch of the AT to get from Georgia to Maine. This seems like the most sensible way - if you're going to hike the AT... well... hike the AT! Pass every white blaze (trail markers)! There are a few problems with that theory though. For one thing, the Appalachian Trail itself is just a path that people have stamped down enough times to make it visible - but not every chooses the same path, and different paths form around obstacles, such as fallen trees... meaning that there is no real trail, just white blazes. In Virginia, the AT runs parallel to the Blue Ridge Parkway for about 100 miles. Since we will be at that section during summer, vegetation blocks any views from the trail, so many hikers choose to walk the road instead (or hitch-hike - "yellow blazing" for the yellow line). They're walking pavement, but still technically passing every white blaze. Does that count? You may recall from my previous post we were tempted to "blue blaze" - take a shortcut. We didn't because we are aiming to walk the entire AT. But, on our way out of Franklin, we were hitch-hiking and our hitch could only take us so far - causing us to miss 3.7 miles of Appalachian Trail. Thus ends our attempt. You can't exactly turn down a hitch. And were we going to hike south 3.7 miles of what we knew was an unexciting stretch just to pass every blaze? Nope. Thus, "Hike Your Own Trail". I'm sure we'll still qualify for the "2,000 mile" club by the end.

The people who started at the same time as us were... well... different from us. Apparently, the ones who start before April are the real "go-getters" - "I'm hiking the AT, past every white blaze, and I'm going to get up at the crack of dawn, hike exactly the number of miles it says on my itinerary, be done hiking by 5:30, eat dinner by 6:30, in bed by 7:30." Well, as you've all met me and/or Jess before, you probably know that's not exactly how we operate. They did make us feel guilty though, like we were doing something wrong. We'd roll out of bed around 9, sit around and eat and drink tea, take our time packing our stuff, and probably be on the trail by noon. The only people we got to know were the ones that stopped to eat lunch with us while we were eating breakfast, then we'd stop and eat lunch while they were eating dinner. We slowly overcame this discomfort by reaffirming that we're not here to complete an assignment, we're here to have an adventure. We also started avoiding shelters, which helped a lot. We just weren't jiving with that crowd (though they were all good people).
I'd also like to point out that most of those "go-getters" got their gear by going to Eastern Mountain Sports and asking the employees to sell them a bunch of stuff because they're hiking the AT without doing any research themselves before hand. Pretty fancy stuff, no idea how to use it, way to much, and way too heavy, or just plain useless. One girl had a 20-lb. limit pack stuffed with 50 lbs. of stuff because she bought 10 lbs. of food before picking up the 20 lb. mail drop she had prepared for herself months ago. Literally split the seams less than a week in. Real "go-getter". Said EMS recommended it, and the tag said "most used by AT thru-hikers". Yea when they drop all their winter gear and are doing 30 miles a day in July in PA, sure. Not in March in Georgia.
Whatever. Hike Your Own Trail.

We spent 2 nights in Franklin, successfully avoiding the snow, and hiked on. The sun finally began to peek out and give us a hint that the rains of early spring were almost over, and little green things started appearing. We started seeing flowers lining the trail that eventually spread over every hill. Short plants taking advantage of the spring sun before the trees leaf started popping up everywhere. But this warmth induced weather we hadn't had the pleasure of experiencing yet - thunderstorms. It was about 4:00, we were half-way to our destination, and suddenly the sun was gone. The skies opened and it poured. Thunder sounds in the distance and some primal instinct is triggered in my head: SHELTER. Suddenly I'm running up the hill I was just staggering up. The storm moves closer and closer and I'm getting closer and closer to the top of the mountain and before you know it we're at the top with the storm directly over our heads. Overwhelmed with adrenaline and I don't even know what as the lightening flashed I stopped and screamed at the sky, and the answering thunder was the loudest I've ever heard, and the lightening would flash and I would scream and the thunder would boom and my insides would shake and I would go running up the mountain dancing and screaming at the sky for more, more, give it to me NATURE, let me bear witness to your incredible power, and just when I thought it couldn't get any more intense, when I thought the electricity running through my veins would connect to the sky and NATURE would overload my circuits past the point of no return... Hail. And even through the pain still we yelled and danced our way down the other side of the mountain. As we got to the bottom, the hail stopped, the clouds parted, and, behold, there were 5 people from Atlanta with burgers and beer for hikers. And that's why it's trail magic.
Oh, yea: the views were nice, too. We could see Fontana Lake from the top of one mountain, and it looked so far away, and you're thinking "Wait... we're walking there?!?!?!"

The next "town" we came to was Wesser, NC, though they recently "lost" their post office, so it's not technically a town anymore. Really, it's a white water rafting/kayaking resort with a hiker hostel. In need of town food, we chose not to stay at the nearby shelter and continued down the mountain, less than a mile, but in the rainy dark. My $5 Target headlamp is no good for hiking at night as it turns out (shocking I know). Our little guide book said there was a pub in town with live music on weekends. It being a Saturday night ~9 pm, we were surprised to find that everything in "town" shut down. We knocked on the local restaurant and a waitress, closing down for the night, told us that the pub was shut down this week only for renovations. Go figure. She felt so sorry for our pathetic souls that she gave us her dinner! 3/4 of a pizza she got from her restaurant, 20 minutes old, free, and absolutely delicious. That's a real trail angel.
On our way back up the hill to the shelter, we ran into another thru-hiker (who we had met at the trail magic mentioned previously), who told us there was free camping down the river in town. The next day we woke up right on the river, sun shining, and the trees leafed out in response to the first really sunny day we'd had, and it was so beautiful we decided to stay there for the day. By that night, 10 more thru-hikers had found our spot and we had our first little party. Unfortunately, Jess is unaccustomed to having a low hiker tolerance to alcohol (something I thankfully already had and have finally gotten used to), and woke the next morning feeling quite ill, so we stayed for another day. We wandered up to the hostel part of the resort and got to use their showers and laundry for free:) Go Stealth Camping! Good thing our tent is green! That night we hung out with Gary, who has thru-hiked 4 times, and he gave us several tips for up the trail, including the "Aqua Blaze". From some point in Virginia to Harpers Ferry we may choose to take the Shenendoah River instead of the AT - it'd be nice to be able to throw our packs into the bottom of a boat instead of on our packs, and to be able to use our arms instead of our legs. Hike Your Own Trail!

We hiked on, now on much tougher mountains as we worked our way into the Smokies. By now, many of the people we started with that we weren't jiving with were ahead of us, and we started meeting April people. This new group is a lot chiller. We also met a few people who started before us and kept to a similar schedule to us, which was a huge breath of fresh air. Instead of having to silently cook dinner for fear of waking the shelter, we actually had a few people to hang out with around campfires.

We got to Fontana Dam. Our little guide book had labeled the general store there as a good resupply, which it was not. We spent $100 on less than 4 days of bad food. Luckily, we had decided to stealth camp rather than stay at the resort (yes, another fake town). Though we thought we would be in Fontana weeks too early, our slow pace had landed us right in time for the Hiyak "Festival", which was a local band and a handful of thru-hikers. Someone really dropped the ball on getting the word out. We met a ton of awesome people. Finally! We had been feeling so lost - where is our crowd? Where are our people? When I described this feeling to the people we met while at Fontana, they knew instantly what I was talking about - one even called us a Family, and a biker-temporarily-turned-hiker-chick named In The Wind refers to us as The Tribe. If I could describe better what I'm talking about I would. I guess the best I can do is to say that these people aren't out here to complete an assignment either. We still didn't have trail names, and we were wondering if it was because we weren't cool. Well, we met a group that didn't have any either - Marc & Liz, Katy & Jen - but by the end of Hiyak I had been named Graveyard. Yes, Syracuse, it's because of you. Because that crew did get a room, we were once again able to get free showers.

We hiked on, but not on the AT. We knew of an awesome campground on a trail that ran parallel from our previous trip to the Smokies with Syracuse friends over Spring Break of 2007. This particular campground is a huge green plain surrounded by a river with huge granite rocks stacked into 8 armchairs and a fire pit - let me tell you, a chair with a back is no small thing out here. We were so excited to go back, remembering its beauty. The last time we were there, there were 8 people to sit in the chairs. What a lonely place for 2 people to arrive at. We sat down and looked at the empty chairs and were suddenly overcome with such an intense feeling of loneliness and isolation from our friends... I cried for a while. We miss you guys. And we are sooo happy that we found each other, that we're not really alone, and that we'll always have each other, even when we're worlds away from everyone else we love.

The next day, April 20, just as we were almost done packing up our gear, Marc, Liz, Katy, Jen, and In The Wind come waltzing up. What a beautiful thing life is. For life to give us one day to remember the friends that aren't with us and to really meditate our separation with those empty chairs staring at us, and the next to give us 5 new ones so that we know loneliness is a temporary condition...wow. Hike Your Own Trail. We'll see you on up the way.

We walked up Eagle Creek with them, taking the first 9 stream (read RIVER) crossings April 20 and the other 6 and the 2000 ft 1.5 mile up hill April 21. When we got back to the AT it was only 4:00 so we decided to hike on to the next shelter because we were low on the bad food we got in Fontana so we could get to Gatlinburg ASAP. Our little guide book told us the elevation change wasn't that bad. Marc & Liz had friends to meet, so they hiked on with us. Turns out, our little guide book scaled down the Smokies. Hey Syracuse, you remember that really baaad mountain? Yea that's the one we climbed. We got to the top at sunset, absolutely beautiful, but I once again got stuck hiking with my Target headlamp. We got to the shelter at 11:00 pm. When we got there, I was tired and angry and cold and Liz goes "We're ROCKSTARS!" and BAM I felt 100% better.

The next day we didn't leave until 2:30, putting us at the top of Clingman's Dome, the highest point of the AT, exactly as the sun was setting. (Marc and Liz left much earlier to meet their friends at Clingmans Dome.) Wow, what a beautiful sight. Unfortunately we have no pictures - I guess we get to keep that one for ourselves. We hitchhiked down to Gatlinburg, go to one of the motels, and who's signed into the register ahead of us? Marc and Liz. Their room was right next door to ours. We were sooo happy to see each other - we survived! The next day, Katy, Jen, and In The Wind were all there too, not to mention Tent Sticks, Jedi, Knuckle Pancakes and Improv who we hadn't seen since March, and tons of other thru-hikers, and Marc and Liz's friends Anna and Collin. Yea we partied hardy and yea Jess was sick again and yea we're still here. My mom did me the huge favor of adding up our speed and determining that it would take us a year and a half to finish at this rate. Don't you love moms?

Whatever. Hike Your Own Trail.