I was beaten. Not by the mountain. Not by the miles taken or the feet climbed. My body did not fail, nor did my mind suffer the heebee of the jeebees. I am writing this from home because it was just too damn cold. Three weeks from my early depart I am finally thawing from my first attempt. I was beaten by the weather.
I had expected balmy fifties and sixties when I did the Approach Trail last month. I was so wrong. It is a beautiful hike, really. The park is home to Amicalola Falls, breathtaking, makes you want to get married there beautiful. Pics like these.
Notice the thousands of stairs crawling near vertical up the canyon wall, specifically created to induce acute vertigo. Then you cross a suspended bridge over the falls.
The Approach Trail twists back and forth up Springer Mt. for about ten miles, the actual start of the trail. I wanted to do this hike to get a feel for how I was going to hold up, how Molly was going to hold up and what I was going to expect.
I spent the first night at the AT shelter at the bottom of the falls. It's hard to describe. Sort of a chimera of folk whimsy and frat house. Over the years people had left signatures and graffitos, one on top of the other making a crazy quilt of jargon and generational slang. It also had the worst topographic map I've ever seen, or the best, you decide.
That night was cold, but I didn't realize how bad it would be because I had a roof, a bag and a dog to warm me. The next day I started early and made good time. By four o'clock I was only a mile and a half from the peak of Springer. I had been chilled most of the day. I estimate the temperature was in the forties, but I had dressed warmly. That night, at an open faced shelter near Black's Gap I settled in. The wind blowing up through the gap was fierce, but the back wall of the shelter blocked it. Unfortunately the sky was clear and the mercury fell and fell. When I woke the next morning at sunrise, some of my water had frozen. My sweaty hat from the day before was frozen to the floor of the shelter and I was very chilled. And there was no sign that the wind and the cold were letting up. In fact, according to the weather report a late winter storm was coming. I bid farewell to Black's Gap.
Shivering and cursing I packed up and climbed the last bit to Springer. I've been on a few southern peaks before. Beautiful peaks. I have to admit though, that the scale of Springer has a majesty that differs from the others. Plus it has the rockin' bronze plaque and geocache tray.
Did I mention it was cold. Really really cold. So cold there was ice on the trail cold. Cold enough for me to call Moms and ask, nay beg, for a ride back to civilization. We had enough shivers for that night.
So I write this expecting to head back to the mountain quite soon. Hoping for the weather and maybe a little less hubris. And missing something else too. I realized having Molly along wouldn't be the best idea. I had to have her constantly leashed. Which meant constant stopping and spinning. It's not really fair to her. I feel guilty and I'll miss her, but it's not something I can make work. Good bye trail mate, I'll miss you.
I'm leaving. I'm putting the pack, which seems to have been growing a little, pound by pound each time I look at it, on my back and heading out onto the trail. I was going to do it yesterday, but there was a drama with Mollie's rabies tag. I must have inadvertently quantum tunneled into a rock or something because after five hours of looking there was no sign of it.
I got up today and my hat and sunglasses were missing. I think they are in my Dad's car. Plus it's storming. So I'm putting it off til tomorrow. I swear. I'm calm, and not at all a little panicky.
But I'm still motivated, I'm still doing this. And as for why? I read the webcomic XKCD. They have this to say about seizing the moment. I can't find the words to do it better.
When did we forget our dreams?
The infinite possibilities each day holds should stagger the mind. The sheer number of experiences I could have is uncountable, breathtaking and I'm sitting here refreshing my inbox. We live trapped in loops, reliving a few days over and over, and we envision only a handful of paths laid out ahead of us. We see the same things each day, we respond the same way, we think the same thoughts, each day a slight variation on the last, every moment smoothly following the gentle curves of societal norms. We act like if we just get through today, tomorrow our dreams will come back to us.
And no, I don't have all the answers. I don't know how to jolt myself into seeing what each moment could become. But I do know one thing: The solution doesn't involve watering down my every little idea or creative impulsive for the sake of someday easing my fit into a mold. I doesn't involve tempering my life to better fit someone else's expectations. It doesn't involve constantly holding myself back for fear of shaking things up.
This is very important so I want to say it as clearly as I can:
F***.
That.
Sh*t.
This is their permalink, read them. They are awesome.
http://xkcd.com/137
So this is Molly and I. Stepping off.
I'll be seeing you on the trail.
I'm lucky. I'm lucky I get to try to do this. I'm lucky I get the support I do. I'm also lucky I live near some really great National Forest and Wilderness Areas so that I can get out there and make my legs feel like frozen micro-waved mashed potatoes. I mean that. I've grown up a short car ride away from the highest point in the state, Mt. Cheaha, which looms, well, sorta looms over northeast Alabama from 2500 feet and I grew up tumbling around on its rocks and swimming in the lakes and creeks at its base.
I now live north of Cheaha sixty or so miles, following the border of what the geologists call the Ridge and Valley province where the land crumples up like the folds of a quilt pushed up on a bed. These mountains were formed, an orogeny about 300 million years ago, when the plate now holding Africa slammed into the Eastern U.S. and rebounded. It's a little known fact but the Appalachians were once the size of the Rockies, or the Alps. What's left is the stubbed broken and rotten teeth of the peaks and crests. These inner bones are mostly hard worn quartzites and other dense hard rocks that were once at the center on the mountain range.
For the practical hiker this means that most of your hikes go in a phase. You ascend the peak, sometimes switching back and crossing saddles till you reach the top of the ridge-line. This means evil, evil uphill grades. Then you cross the ridge line, woohoo, views, this is what you do it for. Then you do the descent, also switching back and somteimes getting into a gap or two that will take you back up a secondary ridge to continue the hike again. Then, you camp, or go home.
So distance out here, especially training distance, is not totally measured in miles walked. Which when you figure in the amount of switchbacks and dilly-dallying can make you really, really depressed. It's all about the amount of elevation you cover. I'm super serious. Here we are making ready to traverse a Pinhoti section.
Technically, this hike was only 6 miles long. But I climbed one peak that was 1600 feet in elevation and climbed out of a gap that was almost that much. When you come around the bottom of a switchback or the corner of a forest floor and see some big mean uphill that goes all the way up I usually just have to go to my happy place. Mean hill, evil, evil hill. I usually look like this at the beginning of my hikes.
I don't have any pictures post-hike... It's usually not something I'm thinking about as I flop onto my mattress and suck down diet soda. I'll try to make it more of a priority. But for right now, I'm hiking when the weather is good and maintaining an attitude on the days when my body is feeling like this whole thing maybe just might be bigger and crazier than something I can handle. But, as they say... No pain, no rain, No Maine.
Did I mention the dog??
I should have. But there is some back story. When I started doing the research on the trail I didn't get a good vibe on dog friendliness. There are two sections of the trail that outright prohibit pets; The Smoky Mountains and Baxter State Park. These are some really memorable and big points of the trail. And it's not that I don't love my dog. I do. She's great, this is her.....Molly.
Molly goes with me practically everywhere that I don't drive, and sometimes there too. But on the trail I started figuring in expenses and the fact that Molly's a grammie in dog years. I just thought I'd do better on my own. Even though she would be miserable. Probably.
But as I was getting closer and closer to the date and more and more prepared I ran into a situation that I think all through hikers are forced to confront. It's that none of us are really going to be hiking this alone.
I mean, yes... no doubt we'll meet tons of people as we tramp miles closer to Maine. But we will still be carrying a part of the people we left behind...our friends and our families. They will be worried and flustered, but also excited and proud. So, I came to realize that we aren't going alone.
We are taking hopes and fears and expectations and sometimes... guilt. Guilt about leaving your old dog at base camp. Or maybe some of the fear that every parent has when their child ventures into the unknown. Maybe hope that amazing things can still be done. Even today. When amazing sometimes seems like someone else's distant little miracle.
Coming to the decision to take Molly was a big decision, but it got big time bonus points with those staying behind running my base camp. My Mom and my sister. They didn't want to see the sad Molly face any more than I would. Did I mention Molly is a Lab, intensely loyal and of fine stick retrieving stock?
So, last week, I asked Molly if she wanted to walk to Maine. She asked if they made french fries in Maine and I said yes, of course. And so we've agreed to go. Together.
Sorry, dear readers. I had to put the blog to bed for the Christmas months. As I was running around trying to finish projects for gifts and then getting myself full of the goodness that is Charleston seafood and beach time, I let the blog go. Mea Culpa.
I took some time off hiking for a month too. One, to let any stress or repetitive chronic injuries in my legs and knees heal up and, two... it's whitetail season down here in Dixie and I don't want to mess with someones bag limit... or end up in it... as it were. But, during the months that the blog was down I was able to finish getting my kit together.
My 'system,' backpack, shelter and bag, came together in early December with the addition of Sierra Designs Ridge Runner 30 degree down bag. I love this bag. I mean it. I'm in a committed relationship with this bag. I know it's down and that she temperamental and mean when she gets wet, but when I snuggle into that loft and the temp outside is below forty I feel like I'm in the arms of a loving fuzzy ducky mother.
So she don't look like much, but she's got it where it counts. Ahem.
For shelter I combined my Eno double nest with Kelty's Noah's Tarp, which is an enormous but surprisingly lightweight, crushable swath of rainproof fabric. It looks like this when it's in the machine.
The third part of my system was a real trick. I'm doing this whole thing on a budget. Probably a budget of a quarter of what a standard through-hiker normally spends. So I've been constantly adding a little bit of gear here and there, when it was on sale or when I could find something on close out.
When it came to my pack, however, I was in trouble. I and everyone involved was leery about ordering a bag online. Plus, new bags, good ones, are expensive. But it turns out I happened to have a really excellent bag left over from my sisters backpacking trips years ago. It is a Glissade from Eureka, and though its old it still had a lot of fight left in it.
I'll get some better pics up soon.
All the other little essentials soon fell into line. And I've come to love wool socks in a way I've never believed possible.
I promise to start posting at a frenetic pace. Upcoming posts... My kitchen that is smaller than a kitten, pictures of my Pinhoti section hiking, more gear more gear and some thoughts about adding my dog to my trip
.
And to Matt, sorry I was late getting to the response, feel like the Smokies??? I'd love the company, it'd be epic. Drop me a line at the hushmail address and we can figure something out.
-Josh
Hopefully well. Ha. But seriously, I'm a wretched sleeper. I fear sleep. I dread the thought of laying in bed trying to sleep. Add to that I sleep on my stomach and I'm what backpackers call a 'hot' sleeper, which means that my metabolism is high when I sleep compared to someone who gets cold when they sleep. Eh.
What this means is that I've never enjoyed the traditional, sleeping pad, bag and tent combo. I'm also hopelessly fadish. So I decided to try a hammock sleep system. It's an ENO system doublenest hammock. It looks like this.
Quite cute in its natural setting, no? And it was sooo easy to set up. You literally just throw some straps around a tree and clip some biners in place... And it held my fat ass. Prop. Also prop? It weighs about 3 pounds. And comfy!
Let's hope it holds up in the field. Gonna break it in next week. Woo!
They say that the only way to train for hiking the AT is by doing it. The trail is notorious for its P.U.D's (pointless up and downs) and the rough terrain. Living as close as I do to the base of the trail at Springer Mountain, GA, I do hill climbs and walking every day. I'm active.
But yesterday was a surprise, both a good one and bad. I did a six mile hike with a 20 pound bag. Now, I've done this hike plenty of times. It involves climbing the fire road to the ridge top, hiking east along Big Tank and dropping back into the valley on the Pinhoti. The first third is a long hike up. The second is a nice gentle hike down. The third is a couple of miles back along the road to the house. But I've never done it in full pack.
I was expecting my feet to give out or blister and to experience a lot of pain from the pack. I got neither. It was amazing how quickly I got use to the feeling. That was the good part.
The bad? To get to Maine I'm going to do twice what I did yesterday... everyday. Lots of NSAIDS.
