by David Miller
Typically, I start the day with my bottle empty and my bag nearly full. At around three pounds, a full water bag is the heaviest single item in my pack, so I always give some consideration to how much water I’ll need. If I have less than ten miles to travel, I’ll be tempted to take less than a full bag of water. Sometimes in the final hour before I expect to reach a town, I’ll pinch the bite valve with my fingers and drain the unnecessary weight. Springs are abundant. Only on rare dry parts of the trail would I head out with water in my bottle as well. Those days are still far ahead of me.
Since 1987, Damascus has been home to Trail Days, an annual mobbing by thru-hikers past and present. For past thru-hikers, it is a reunion. For current thru-hikers, it is a party. There is dancing, drinking, talent shows, and of course eating. Some hikers stop for the entire week of festivities. Vendors set up booths to present new gear and capitalize on the extraordinary collection of hikers. As many as twenty thousand visitors come to town, a town that only has about one thousand full-time residents.
Trail Days ended the Sunday before I arrive, and the outfitter is low on stock. There are no trail shoes my size. I poke around the store for anything that will lessen the foot pain and blisters, or anything that will lessen my load. I buy new blister bandages, the fourth type that I will try, and new socks.
I eat at the Side Track Café, a diner with a bar and a row of computers hooked up to the Internet. Hikers sit at four of the machines, eagerly checking e-mail, typing their own journal entries, and looking up journals of other hikers they have met on the trail. Even though pay phones are available in every town, I prefer to send e-mail rather than to talk with friends on the phone. Using e-mail, I still retain a degree of separation from the “real world.” With family it is different. I talk with my family on the phone at every opportunity. Tonight, I speak with Juli about plans for her and our kids to come visit me. They will fly into Richmond and drive over to wherever I am on the trail seventeen days from now.
Dave’s Place, the hostel run by Mount Rogers Outfitters, is my home for the night. The small contingent of hikers lounges out front in the evening. A gregarious couple, Jason and Shelton, share their beer with the rest of us. The hostel caretaker, a hiker himself, edifies and entertains us with the techniques of shitting in the woods. He demonstrates the positions: sitting with your back leaning on a tree, squatting facing and holding onto a tree, unsupported full squat, and my personal favorite, the half squat.
The caretaker tells an anecdote about a hiker always intent on putting a good distance between himself and the trail to ensure excretory privacy. The hiker bushwhacks down, down, down from the trail until he finds his spot. He goes leisurely about his business, assured that this bit of nature is his alone. In the clean-up phase, a backpacker walks by and says hello. A switchback had brought the trail to within a few yards of where he thought he had privacy.
I look for my spot on the downhill side of the trail, preferably where I can walk down far enough to use the curvature of the land to conceal my situation. I certainly get further from the trail than is necessary. I always shed my pants without taking off my shoes, taking off one pant leg and leaving my shorts hanging on the other knee. An oft-muddy shoe will make two passes through one pant leg.
Going off the trail provides a truer feel of the wilderness. The ground is spongy with moss and duff. Branches and deadfall impede the way. I get poked by stray limbs and harvest spider webs. Undergrowth can completely fence me in. Without the trail, I quickly lose my place in the woods. I try to remain attentive to landmarks and keep my path simple. Even so, I rarely return to the same point where I left the trail. Our ribbon of beaten path—the AT itself—is a luxury afforded us in the wild.
There are more outhouses (most often called privies) along the trail than I expected. They are at most shelters and some campsites. Inevitably there are times when I have the urge soon after leaving a place with a privy or leaving a town, and I admonish my body for its poor timing.
In my pre-hike talks with acquaintances, more than a few drew the line at porcelain. Hiking they felt they could handle. Sleeping in a shelter, okay. Shitting in the woods, no way. In truth, I feel completely at home with this aspect of hiking. There are a few tracts of the trail ingrained in my memory specifically for having made a relieving trip into the bushes.
5
Damascus to Bland
The waitress is skeptical. “You sure you can eat all that?” she asks, referring to the Barn’s Hiker Breakfast that includes massive blueberry pancakes, scrambled eggs, a half plate of hash browns, two slices of ham, a biscuit and jelly, a big bowl of grits, coffee, and orange juice. She should be skeptical, because I look pretty scrawny now, weighing well less than 160 pounds.
The meal is such an impressive spread I am tempted to take a picture of it, but I am too embarrassed to do so in front of the other customers. About thirty seconds later the waitress returns for the empty pancake plate. “You’re doin’ great; remember to chew.” I polish it all off, except for a few spoonfuls of grits so I wouldn’t look completely barbaric.
The AT heads north from Damascus on the Creeper Trail, an old railroad bed running parallel to a sizeable creek. The AT cuts into the woods and runs up and down the hills parallel to the Creeper Trail, staying so close that I can often catch an enticing glimpse of the wide, level path below. Twelve miles later the two paths end up at the same spot.
I walk leisurely most of the day. Over the past week, I have been constantly stretching to reach one destination or another. Today I am starting out with an unplanned foray into Virginia. I spend time chatting with a trail maintainer. He is out with a sickle, battling kudzu for ownership of the trail. It starts to rain, so I pull in to Lost Mountain Shelter. I meet two other thru-hikers who are staying here tonight. Old Bill is a fiftyish police officer from England. Crash is about half his age.
Old Bill has a compendium of motivations and goals. He decided to hike in part because of job dissatisfaction. While in North America, he’d like to see New York City and Washington, D.C., and he talks of venturing into Canada. This all cannot fit into the time he has available if he hikes the entire trail. Old Bill admires another hiker who he perceives to be having a more spiritual adventure, stopping and lounging in his hammock whenever the mood strikes him. Old Bill would like to spend more time contemplating. He is also proud to be fit and is aware of the hike as an athletic challenge. It probably worries him that meandering along the trail could have the negative connotation that he can’t keep up with the young bucks.
Crash, Old Bill, and I walk much of the next day together. In the early hours, fog and sun fight for control of the skies. There is a light drizzle. By the time we enter Grayson Highlands State Park, the sun has the advantage. There is a sign marking a side trail to the summit of Mount Rogers. Crash pulls out his guidebook and reads, “Left one-half mile to summit. No views.”
“I think not,” Old Bill says. We get a laugh out of the invitation to walk another mile out of our way to visit yet another mountaintop covered with trees. The AT is sometimes referred to as the “green tunnel” for the endless miles of trail that are shrouded by trees. Another reason that we pass on the side trail is that the next ten miles are a highlight of the southern section of the AT.
Much of the trail through Grayson Highlands is grassy and open. For the first time I can see long stretches ahead, cutting through the grass and up conical hills. Rocky outcroppings erupt from the hilltops. Some craggy monoliths stand over twenty feet tall. The trail passes through a body-width split in a huge boulder, in a tunnel-like pass of about thirty feet. The isolated trees are shapely evergreens. Trees and scrubs in this region gather around the rocks, projecting a landscaped appearance.
Wild ponies roam the park, keeping the shrubbery in check and providing us with this welcome break from the green tunnel. We pass three herds, all with about a dozen ponies and some foals. The most daring of the ponies approach us for food; one chews on the loose end of my
salty shoulder strap.
As we exit the park, we pass through herds of cattle. Late in the day, we pause at Wise Shelter, a large, comfortable shelter with a clean privy. It looks like the three of us would have the place to ourselves, but we move on to Old Orchard Shelter, which is old and full. A mile of the trail between the shelters is intertwined with a shallow, ill-defined stream, so I end up saturating my shoes in ankle-deep water. My feet feel bruised from the rocky trail.
A hiker is in the shelter, lying “rest-in-peace” style, wearing headphones. I recognize him as Russ, the hiker I last saw plotting a blue-blaze around Standing Indian Mountain. I have not seen him since and assumed he was well behind me.
“Russ! How’d you get here?” I ask.
Russ lifts an earphone and answers curtly, “I walked.” He lets the earphone spring back over his ear. End of conversation.
Did I offend him? My question was really just stated as a greeting. Only after his reaction do I realize that he may have interpreted my question as an accusation or condemnation of blue-blazing. I regret that I did not phrase it more aptly, like, “How has your hike been since I saw you last?” When I spoke with him a month ago, he had been candid about his plans to take an abbreviated course along the trail, so I didn’t anticipate his defensiveness. Maybe he just didn’t feel like talking.
I set up my tarp in a field in front of the shelter, with eight other tents. A crowd gathers around the campfire, telling trail stories. A group of three section hikers are here, and they have pieced together more of the trail than we have traveled. I make a pan of Jiffy Pop popcorn over the fire. One of the section hikers pulls out a bag of extra Snickers bars he carries for encounters with hungry thru-hikers. Retreating to my tarp, I notice how late we’ve stayed up; it’s 9:30 p.m.
I get off to one of my best starts yet and cover fourteen miles by lunchtime. Crash and Old Bill catch up to me at Partnership Shelter, where we all stop for the night. This shelter is one of the more elaborate shelters on the trail. It is a two-story structure with a steeply pitched wood shake roof and a solar-heated shower. By the time I take a shower, it is a torturous, cold, icy spray, and I dance around trying to wash myself with minimal water exposure. The shelter is adjacent to a ranger station that has a pay phone and vending machines outside. The phone number for a pizza delivery service is posted by the phone. Hungry Hiker, yet another hiker from Israel, already has his pizza. This is our first meeting, but I had been taking notice of his elaborate drawings in shelter registers. He carries his own pen for his artwork. He’s young and not yet filled out, except for a big toothy grin, which has grown ahead of the rest of his body. He is thin with a pale complexion and red hair cut to stubble.
I don’t feel too worn after covering forty-eight miles in the last two days. An assortment of foot pains nag at me, but otherwise I feel as though I am hitting my stride. I get up early and drag my unpacked gear up to the visitor center so I can cook my breakfast without waking anyone. I buy two sodas from the vending machine to carry on the trail with me.
When I hit the trail, I see Crash starting his walk, too. I have enjoyed his company. He also left an engineering job to hike, so we relate on the tedium of cubicle confinement. He is tall and lanky, and his pace is compatible with my own. He perplexes me when he tells me that the two days we just walked have been his longest, and that he started the trail much earlier than I did. He must be wise to walk well within his capabilities, or he has become more capable as his hike progressed. The name “Crash” is from the Kevin Costner role in Bull Durham, though he actually bears a stronger resemblance to the character played by Tim Robbins. Halfway through our day, I surprise him with the smuggled soda.
We stop again to look at Settlers Museum. There is an open but unmanned schoolhouse exhibit. There are even undisturbed textbooks on the desks. Hot Dawg is taking a break at the schoolhouse. He carries his pet, “Stubby Cat,” atop his pack, and he poses while we take pictures of them.
Hot Dawg and Stubby Cat.
The cat is a star at shelters, where he has caught sixteen mice. Hot Dawg grins widely and speaks just a little slowly, like he is feeling no pain. Literally. “I took eight Advil this morning,” he tells us. The rest of the walk into Atkins is mostly through waist-high fields of grain. There is just enough of a downhill slope that my steps land heel first. Pain builds in my left heel. What first feels like the prick of a splinter grows to the feeling of a bamboo shoot thrusting into my heel on every landing. With town in sight, I shake it off and press on.
All that we see of the town are a few businesses near an off-ramp of Interstate 81. It is the typical cluster of businesses that serve passing traffic: a gas station, a restaurant, a Dairy Queen, and a motel. We would visit them all, starting with the motel. As Crash checks in ahead of me, he shuffles through a small stack of bills and cards kept in a Ziploc bag, the hiker version of a wallet. Wordlessly, he extends one of the cards to me. The card has a picture of a clean-shaven young man, heavy, with a round face. I don’t know why he is showing me this person. Finally it dawns on me that it is a picture of him on his driver’s license. That’s how he looked before the hike.
Awol south of Atkins, Virginia.
Crash started out with a good bit of weight to lose. He struggled early on. People from home doubted his ability to thru-hike, and before getting through Georgia, he started to agree with them. It was tough, he was lonely, and he started to wonder why he was doing it. He hitched to Blairsville, and from there he arranged a bus ride back to Atlanta. As it happened, he had to wait a day for the bus’s departure. In that day, he had time to reflect on his situation. He didn’t want people to be right about him. He didn’t want to go back feeling like a failure. He put his pack back on and returned to the trail.
Our motel is a simple one-story motel with a single row of rooms. More rooms have backpacks, boots, and hiking poles parked out front than cars. I get clean and take a look at my troublesome left heel. The bamboo shoot pain I had was in the same location of the blister I had in Erwin. Dead skin from that blister has peeled, leaving a circle of ragged skin around an inflamed red area. In the center of the whole mess is a new blisterlike abscess. All my other blisters I have treated with apathy, but I put effort into this unhealthy-looking wound. I clean it, coat it with antibiotic ointment, and paste a bandage over the top.
Crash and I have dinner at the restaurant and dessert at Dairy Queen with two other thru-hikers, Jeff and “Double A” (written as “AA” in shelter registers). I tell AA that she should have the trail name “Snow White” instead. She has jet black hair, a pale complexion, and looks that are too clean and soft for a thru-hiker. She has heard this suggestion enough times for it to raise her dander. AA is simply the initials of her name, Allison Allen. I comment on the coincidence that my next door neighbor has the reverse name: Allen Allison. I go on to explain that I always had difficulty with the neighbor’s name because the previous neighbor in the same house had the last name “Allen,” like AA. To further compound the coincidence, we learn through our conversation that AA went to a small college in Georgia (Toccoa Falls) with Lisa Allen, the daughter of my previous neighbor.
We talk of motivations for thru-hiking. “I’ve always wanted to thru-hike,” AA says. “My dad and I hiked some when I was little.” Answering that you want to do a thing because you have always wanted to do it seems somewhat circular, but it is as common as any other explanation.
Writing daily journal entries is a welcome part of my routine. I also write a newspaper article every two weeks for the Florida Today newspaper. Writing for the newspaper does not come easily. I must submit an article before leaving Atkins, so I spend the morning collecting my thoughts and getting them composed into e-mail. At the moment, I regret having committed to writing the articles, and I am dismayed that the act of recording is interfering with the trip that I have proposed to record, but these thoughts are temporal. I am glad that I write. Experience is enriched by reliving it, contemplating it, and trying
to describe it to another person.
This is the first time on my hike that I feel burdened by tasks I put on myself. Back in the real world, I routinely enlisted myself in an excessive array of activities. I recall a formative decision I made soon after starting my first job out of college. An acquaintance had asked if I would reroof his mother’s home. I spent two days pondering the decision. I had a job programming. I didn’t need to labor on roofs anymore. When the decision finally came, it was an epiphany. No way was I going to allow myself to settle into an ordinary life because it was the easy thing to do. I didn’t want to be pigeonholed, defined by my career, growing soft and specialized behind a desk. I would continue to resist specialization and stretch myself by undertaking new endeavors.
If not for that attitude, I wouldn’t be here. But because of that attitude, I can be too demanding of myself. Now I see an unexpected benefit of thru-hiking. It is an escape from me. It is a forced simplification of my life; being on the trail limits the opportunities for me to pull myself in multiple directions.
By the time I leave Atkins, all the other thru-hikers who were here last night have left, and a few new ones have trickled in. After I check out, I pass the open door of a room full of hikers, catching a glimpse of one with a green hat. I don’t pause to do a double-take, because unmistakably it is Steve O., the hiker I believed—hoped—I had seen for the last time in Hot Springs.
It is raining when I head out, and it rains on and off all muddy day. The first two miles are through waist-high grain, and it is like walking through a car wash. The trail goes through a number of cow pastures, each time entering and exiting the barbwire-bound fields over stiles: wide, stubby, wood ladders with three or four steps. The path in the pasture is rutted, about the size of a bowling lane gutter, with red clay showing where the grass has been pounded away. The bottom of the gutter is muddy at best, or flowing with a stream of orange water. I try walking on the shoulder of the gutter, but a misstep catches the rain-slicked clay and I slide, toppling over on my side. Venturing off the trail, I get thrashed by tall grass, splatter through a few piles of manure, and find that the ground below the grass is also uneven.
