AWOL on the Appalachian Trail

by David Miller

  At 2:30 the rain stops. I pack and make a break for it. Running scared that rain could start again, I do the nine-mile stretch to Brown Fork Gap Shelter in four hours. This late-day burst saves me from losing another day on my schedule, and puts me in good position to head into the Smokies. I’m happy, opportunistic, and lucky to make it here. Pulling off a move like this gives me confidence. I suspect I won’t see Mike again, so I leave a note in the shelter register, suggesting the trail name “Merlin.” I hope he sees it.9

  I lay in my sleeping bag reading by headlamp. A section hiker is at the other end of the shelter, and a mouse crawls over the foot of his sleeping bag and crosses the sleeping platform diagonally toward me. He peers into my headlamp for a moment and then scurries past, behind my head. Hours later, after I am asleep, I wake to the sound of celebratory whoops coming from the trail, and look out to see the flicker of headlamps. I see the silhouette of two small bodies outside, whispering to each other in a foreign language. One head is hairless; the other has short curly hair. I can’t tell if they are women or boys, and won’t know until morning. They slip inside and go to sleep.

  The hikers are Snail and Patience, women from Israel. They came all the way from NOC yesterday, undeterred by the rain. I am impressed. A storm began last night after their arrival, and it is still lingering. I am once again waiting for a break in the rain before leaving the shelter. Snail and Patience don’t wait. They don ponchos and go. When the rain is down to a drizzle, I’m determined to break out of this jungle. I’m less bothered by the rain since I’ll make it to town (Fontana Village) and have a chance to dry. Also, I feel a little shown up by the women. Foggy trail and the cacophony of birds add to the rainforest effect. On the trail there are a number of appliance-sized boulder fields where I can hear the roar of unseen streams underneath.

  My hiking day is spent leap-frogging Snail and Patience. Like many hiking partners, they hike separately at their own pace and meet up at landmarks. I catch up with Snail first. She gets her name from being the slower of the two, although both of them are young women fresh out of the Israeli army, and both hike more strongly than most other thru-hikers. I learn that they have an unusual plan for hiking the trail. They started their hike by walking the section of trail in Pennsylvania, reasoning that they would “get their trail legs” while hiking the flattest state. Then they hitched down to Georgia and headed north. When they reach Pennsylvania, they’ll skip ahead to New Jersey and continue north to Katahdin.

  I catch up with sarcastically dubbed Patience while she is waiting restively for Snail. She gives me some miniature Hershey bars, but I cannot find any food with which I can reciprocate since she is a kosher vegetarian.

  Fontana Dam is the highest dam east of the Mississippi. I can see the dam through the trees a few miles away, and it looks like I’m only minutes from it. It makes for a long, frustrating descent when my goal seems to keep moving away from me. I am as grungy as I’ve been on the trail. Getting rained on daily, sweating in rain gear, wet shoes, and mud everywhere make for a potent mix.

  Fontana Village is a hamlet two miles from the dam, which once housed the builders of the dam. As a tremendous courtesy to hikers, a phone is located at the dam, where I call and get a shuttle into town. I stay at a nice hotel in the village, at a dirt-cheap thru-hiker rate. Rain is forecast, so I plan to take a zero day tomorrow.10

  3

  Fontana Dam to Hot Springs

  I have entered the third state on the trail without leaving the second. The AT defines the North Carolina/Tennessee border in the Smokies. There are nine peaks over six thousand feet, including Clingmans Dome (6,643 feet), the highest point on the AT. The hike up from Fontana Dam is grueling as it ascends twenty-eight hundred feet from the dam to the ridge of the Great Smoky Mountains. This is the fourth time I’ve climbed this section.

  My first two trips up this trail were made on consecutive days twenty-three years ago. My father, my brother, a friend, and I set out to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail in the Smokies starting from Fontana Dam. My dad was roughly the same age as I am now. A few miles into the hike, my dad started falling back. All of us were tired; it was a rough uphill climb. Later I began backtracking to see if he was still coming. He encouraged me to push on. I went ahead to catch up with the other two and convinced them to come back to check on him.

  This time it was obvious that he was more than just tired. The workload went beyond what his heart could handle. It turned into a long day getting him down and to a hospital, and we spent a sleepless night sitting up in our car at a rest stop. The next day we headed back up the trail. Dad wouldn’t have it any other way.

  He improved and took a flight back home before we finished our hike. But he had sustained damage to his heart that would eventually lead to early retirement and open-heart surgery.

  I’ve had doubts about my ability to thru-hike, but thankfully my heart is not a problem. My challenges have been knee pain, blisters, and a swollen bunion, but for the moment these problems are manageable. Thru-hiking is more demanding than I had imagined. In spite of the difficulties, this is where I want to be.

  The morning weather radar shows clearing skies, a fact I can confirm by looking out of the window. Without hesitation, I ditch my plan for a zero day in Fontana Village, pack my things, and hop a shuttle back to the trail. I’m barreling into the Great Smoky Mountains under clear blue skies.

  Ridgerunner Roger “Manysleeps” is on the trail about a half mile up from Fontana Dam. Ridgerunners are ATC employees and volunteers who oversee the trail. Roger has manned his post from 7:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. every day of the hiking season, counting thru-hikers. I’m northbound thru-hiker number 927. He tells me that the dropout rate for thru-hikers has consistently been 50 percent before finishing the Smokies. Ninety percent of the trail is still ahead.

  There is a crowd of thru-hikers headed up from the dam, at least six from Fontana Village and eight more from Fontana Dam Shelter. It is an exciting, fresh start with so many hikers heading out from the same point. I walk across Fontana Dam with Crossroads. He comments on all the young people, and how he is the old man in the crowd at the age of thirty-five. His assumption that he is older is an ego boost. I want to put on some miles today because I fear that the first couple of shelters will fill up. Last night and this morning I ate AYCE meals at the inn. Dinner was the only time in my life that I was purposefully gluttonous. I believe it paid off, and I hike energetically all day. I feel excitement in passing other hikers. One by one they fall back. I make good miles despite gaining three thousand feet in elevation, getting a late start, and stopping with two hours of daylight remaining. Snail and Patience are the only other hikers from the crowd to make it this far. We stay at Spence Field Shelter, beautifully set among an orchard of flowering Sarvis trees that rain white petals down on the grassy terrain.

  Right from the start of my second day in the Smokies, the trail goes into a number of PUDs (pointless ups and downs), some of them very steep. This lasts until Derrick Knob. My knee is holding up better, and as a result I hike faster and wear out more quickly. The trail has few blazes in the Smokies. Many times I walk hundreds of yards without seeing a white blaze. Anxiety over getting lost adds to my weariness.

  I peter out near dumpy Double Springs Shelter. Recent rains have swamped the grounds, and puddles extend all the way into the shelter floor. Black flies (biting, gnatlike bugs) swarm the area. I take a long break, eat, and have a dose of Vitamin I.11 Feeling better, and inspired by clear weather, I march up Clingmans Dome. Once above fifty-six hundred feet, the trail buries itself in a spruce-fir forest with the look and smell of a Christmas tree lot. The dome is capped by a tower with a long ramping spiral walkway. From the observation deck, I can see that all of the larger firs have been killed.12 I have to drag myself up and over one more mountain to reach the shelter. This was a hard day of hiking. Mount Collins Shelter is in good condition, having an excellent privy and bear cables.13

  I am fond
of this shelter due to my previous visits here. This shelter is easily accessible from the road leading up to Clingmans Dome. In 2001 my family and I took an impromptu short vacation in and around the Smokies. One day we parked on the access road and hiked in to Mount Collins Shelter. I wanted to show the kids a bit of the trail and let them see a shelter. While we ate lunch, a former thru-hiker showed up.

  He had done the trail after he retired. He returned to walk a section of the trail and to place a plaque in honor of a hiker who passed away at a shelter north of here. The unfortunate hiker had a heart attack during the night, and they found him dead in the morning. He also told us more upbeat stories from the trail. On the first day of his hike, he met a retired woman who was also attempting to thru-hike. She didn’t even know how to set up her tent, so he helped her, thinking she wouldn’t be on the trail for long. They hiked together all the way to Katahdin.

  This planted the seed for doing a thru-hike. I had imagined that only young people did this sort of thing, but speaking with this man made me consider the possibility of thru-hiking with Juli when we retire. I immersed myself in books, magazines, the Internet, anything I could read about hiking. The more I read, the more interested I became.

  A few months later, I was peppering Juli with stories I had read about the trail. This was just weeks after I had shared with her my interest in an AT thru-hike being a potential retirement activity, and I was revealing to her that reading had changed my attitude. I was completely uncertain of her reaction, so I said with a tone of jest, “Maybe I should go by myself. Maybe I should go now.”

  Her reply was immediate: “Maybe you should.”

  I was just testing the waters, and I surprised myself with the wave of enthusiasm I got from Juli’s go-for-it response. All of a sudden, hiking the AT went from a crazy whim to a real possibility. And I wasn’t intimidated by the possibility. When the path is clear to pursue a fledgling goal, the path is also clear for deeper insight into your desires. Sometimes the reality of it is less romantic than the fantasy, and you get cold feet. Not this time. The inner me was elated, screaming, “Hell yeah, let’s go!” Outwardly, I tried to give Juli the impression that my question was hypothetical. But I knew she was not indulging me with a flippant response. She was serious and supportive, and she knew that the answer she just gave was a commitment.

  I hit Newfound Gap midmorning on a Saturday. This is where U.S. 441 crosses the mountains, and there is a major parking area. Tourists stop for pictures at the overlook or take a day hike. I am shamelessly setting myself up for venerated trail magic. “Trail magic” is a broadly used term covering any form of serendipity encountered on the trail. Hikers believe that good karma exists in the hiking community, which manifests itself in the form of assistance when the hiker is in need: a hitch from the middle of nowhere, lost equipment turning up, and, most coveted of all, hot food or cold drinks offered at road crossings.

  Most often, trail magic comes from previous thru-hikers or family members following current thru-hikers. When you encounter tourists unfamiliar with the needs of thru-hikers, you have to wheedle your way into their coolers. This fine art of giving karma a little push is called Yogi-ing.14 Sometimes the trick is to look pathetic without looking scary.

  Or you can engage in conversation about the trail:

  “Walked all the way from Georgia…

  “…Haven’t seen a bear yet…

  “…No, I don’t carry a gun…

  “…I’m headed for Maine…

  “…About five months.”

  If they don’t catch on and break open the cooler, subtlety goes out the window: “Yeah, I get pretty tired of eatin’ nothin’ but raisins. Tried to catch me a squirrel last night…”

  The problem is, I’m terrible at Yogi-ing. Best I can do is linger to increase my odds of being seen by the right person. I splash-bathe over the bathroom sink and set up to cook in a high-traffic area between the men’s and women’s bathrooms. I take out my tiny stove to boil water for oatmeal, trying to look none too happy about eating it. No success. Plenty of tourists around, but only one diffident couple speaks to me.

  “Thru-hiking?” the man asks.

  “Yep.”

  That’s the whole conversation, verbatim. He gives a grinning glance back to his wife, as if to say, “I told you we’d see one of them here trying to beg for food. Isn’t this fun to blow him off?”

  The section just north of Newfound Gap is austere. The ridge is sharper, more open. At times there is enough sun exposure to make me uncomfortably hot. The terrain is rocky, and evergreens are the dominant trees. The weather is clear, and I am treated to excellent views from Charlie’s Bunion, a rocky feature four miles up from the gap. I’m headed for Tricorner Knob Shelter, which will make for the third long day in a row on my sprint through the Smokies. I am tiring from the effort, and again I feel knee pain.

  Charlie’s Bunion, Great Smoky Mountains National Park.

  Of more urgent concern is the gastric percolation that I am experiencing. While all of the woods are potentially a rest stop, thick forest growth prevents me from getting off the path. When there is a clearing, there is a steep drop-off. I can wait no longer and crash through the foliage. Hurdling fallen branches is a true test of my continence. I’m forced to make four more stops like this before reaching the shelter, sputtering like a near empty bottle of mustard. I’m worried that I may have picked up the dreaded Giardia bug, and I think back through my stops at springs to get water. I have used a water filter or water treatment chemicals every time I have refilled my water bottles, but I may have been careless enough to get a residue of untreated water on my bottle.15 Could I get sick from a tiny residue of bad water? My supply of toilet paper is exhausted after the second stop. Then I recycle my Georgia guidebook pages. Next I move on to rocks—the smoothest, cleanest ones I find. They’re not as bad as they sound.

  After a restful night’s sleep in the crowded Tricorner Knob Shelter, I head out into a windy, gloomy morning with an irrational fear of a tree falling on me. With the recent storms, there are blow-downs all over. I have heard but not seen trees falling. It rains for over two hours. In the midst of the storm, I come to another shelter and go in for a reprieve from the downpour. Another hiker and a ridgerunner named Ron are in the shelter. They’ve stayed the night and are getting ready to brave the rain. The hiker is decked out in a hooded rain poncho and high gaiters. He makes an unceremonious exit from the shelter, making it clear that there is no love lost between them. Ron makes a “Wall Street” comment about the hiker, who is attempting to thru-hike, so that becomes his name.16 I also tell Ron of my fears about falling trees. He reassures me by telling me I am much more likely to get struck by lightning. For good measure, he tells me the story of two hikers who were killed some years ago when lightning struck a shelter.

  By the time I reach the next shelter, the rain has stopped. A hiker is out front having lunch. I introduce myself, and he answers with disdain, “You just met me at the last shelter.”

  It is Wall Street, but I failed to recognize him without his poncho. We have a curt conversation while I eat my lunch. I look over the shelter register and see an entry from the Cardinal, with the familiar bird sketch. This entry is longer than most, because it is his last entry. The Cardinal explains that he is grateful for all that he has learned about himself, but will be stopping now, with 234 miles on his boots.

  “I haven’t seen your name in any of the shelter registers,” I mention to Wall Street.

  “I don’t sign them,” he retorts. “I don’t see any reason why I should.”

  Instead of a privy, there is a PRIVY AREA sign to one side of the shelter. It is a minefield of soft spots where droppings of previous shelter denizens are buried in shallow holes.

  Beyond the shelter I am on a nice downhill stroll. My stomach is more settled, and I am certain that I suffered only garden-variety diarrhea. I’m relishing the success of making it through the Smokies. Not long ago I viewed this park
as the first test of my hike; a test that I’ve now passed. I feel an itch on the back of my right heel.

  North of the Smoky Mountains National Park, there is a confusing road walk on segments of three different roads to get hikers over the Pigeon River and under Interstate 40. Each time I have to guess when to change roads and which way to go, since there are sparse markings. Over the entire length of the trail, I spent more time searching for my way on roads than I did in the woods. On the last leg of the road walk, I take a turn down a gravel road away from the trail, headed for Standing Bear Hostel. Wall Street is stomping down the road toward me, cursing the lack of marking. He had made an unintended trip down to the hostel only to find he is off the trail. I’m happy that he won’t be staying and not unhappy that he is astray.

  On the trail, “hostel” is a generic term for any inexpensive or free lodging. This could mean bunkrooms at a private residence, outfitter, or church, or steerage-class accommodations at a hotel or bed and breakfast.

  The Standing Bear Hostel is a wedge of land with a stream running through it and an assortment of structures. One building is the home of Curtis and Maria, the owners. Curtis started this hostel. He’s proud of his handiwork and gives me a tour. He’s built bunks in what used to be a garage. He built a bunkroom on top of a bridge over the stream. There are outdoor showers, an outhouse, and a fire pit. There is a small shelter with laundry machines, a phone, and a laptop computer for Internet access (it’s not working). He has converted a tool shed into a storeroom where he sells an assortment of trail foods.