AT Hiking Adventure

I conceived a notion to go hiking on the Appalachian Trail this summer.  The AT is a continuously linked series of marked trails that stretches from Maine to northern Georgia running along the Appalachian Mountains that form the eastern spine of the North American continent.  Opened in the 1940s the AT covers a distance of about 2200 miles through wild mountain country.  There are about 250 simple shelters along the route usually with a privy and nearby spring.  There are ample descriptions both in print and online of the routes and the terrain to be expected.  It all seems rustically romantic.

The reality of actually hiking the trail is somewhat different.  Let me give you some idea of what it is really like to hike the AT.  First, you need to wear some comfortable clothes; some you really like because you will not be changing them very often.  Then take a backpack; one with some weight to it.  Put in a concrete block for starters.  Shoulder this burden and then take a walk.  Imagine a big city where almost all the people are gone for some reason.  Now think of a parking garage, a big one, one that is still got construction going on so that there are all sorts of boards, blocks and debris strewn around the ramps.  Now, with your pack on your back walk up ten or twelve levels of ramps, stepping over and around the stuff on the ramps.  When you reach the top look around for a moment, then go to the other side and walk down.  Do that to three or four similar structures, each a block down from the rest.  Then climb up the stairs of a sky scraper - a big one.   It is not unusual to see elevation changes of +1,000 feet on segments of the AT, which is more than the height of the Empire State building.  So after you do those half dozen big parking garages, walk to the top of that sky scraper carrying your pack.  Look around and then climb back down to do a few more of those 10 story garages.  Remember, you cannot hold on to the banister, either, adding to the chance that you will take a serious tumble if you are not careful.  Oh, and you cannot use your cell phone, either; no coverage.

At the end of your day, it is time to camp.  Think of joining a bunch of nice homeless people on the street.  Of course, the only toilet you can use is one of those porta-potties you see around construction sites.  Dinner is warmed up dehydrated food, prepared by adding heated water to a pouch.  You can get water, but only cold water.  You sleep on a pad about ½ inches ‘thick’.  The next morning you eat your packaged breakfast and do it again.  Every three to five days you might be able to spend the night in a hostel.  Think of a bunk in your local homeless shelter.  But at least there is plumbing available and a hot meal there.  That is a mere simulation of back country hiking.

Of course actually walking the trail is much harder than this.  The paths are full of large rocks and roots so you have to be careful of where you place your feet.  You walk rain or shine.  That means the trails, which often are cut into +65 degree slopes are wet and treacherous.  A slip could lead to a very nasty fall.  Likewise the boulders that you must clamber over also become slick in the rain.  A sprained ankle is no joke when you are five miles from any road and there is no cell phone coverage.  As far as I am concerned the whole Appalachian Trail is giant outdoor sanatorium for non-violent lunatics.  

Every year an estimated between 2-3 million people hike at least some portion of the AT.  And about 3,000 fools, called thru-hikers, set out to trip to hike the entire length of the AT in one season.  About a quarter of them actually complete the feat, typically taking five to seven months.

So, if the Appalachian Trail is so difficult why do so many people chose to hike it?  There are a lot of reasons.  First, doing any long hike in the outdoors is a challenge, one that you can tailor to your own level, from a short, simple day hike to hiking the entire length of the trail.  Many people simply enjoy being out of doors, especially wilderness areas.  They appreciate the wild beauty and incredible variety of the AT.  We went from freezing fog and rocky alpine evergreen terrain to rolling deciduous forest, to open moorlands, to open green pastures, to lush rhododendron plants which overhung the path all in one day.  It was almost like walking from one planet to another.  “Just a typical day on the AT,” commented one through-hiker.  Many hikers like the fact that hiking takes us back to the basics.  Usually there is no cell phone coverage, never mind the internet.  In fact, hiking the AT is very simple; not easy, but simple.  You have few concerns, but they are major concerns: what will the weather be?  How far will I need to walk tomorrow and what will the terrain be like?  There are other lesser concerns as well, such as how your equipment is holding up, water and food requirements, and other very mundane concerns.  That is why they are so basic: they are mundane – of the physical world which is emphatically where you are.  And there is a real attraction to some people spending time simply thinking about the basics, because tending to those basics is so essential.

Of course many more people do shorter segments or just day hike the trail.  At least in these cases the discomfort is of shorter duration.   There are a number of benefits to even short trips.  For one thing hiking is a certain way to lose weight.  It is estimated that a hiker will typically burn ~5-8 thousand calories a day.  Further, the activity seems to dampen your appetite.  I personally lost between eight and ten pounds over four days.  That is not unusual for the early stages of a hike.  Hiking in remote areas also provides a welcome break from our routine.  There is plenty of enforced ‘alone time’ to think.  That can be a curse to some, but when you are engaged in consistent, demanding physical effort, for some reason things become clearer and problems less tangled.  

 So how was my own experience?  I had a long way to go to find out.  I drove from my home in The Woodlands to Hattiesburg, MS, where I met up with my friend David who was visiting there himself from his home in Lake Oswego, Oregon.  We left bright and early the next morning to head up to Banner Elk NC, a tiny place east of Boone, where my nephew Andy had graciously offered to put us up and then drive us to and from the AT.  Since it was about 650 miles or so with the last hundred winding through mountain roads I planned on spending a day after we arrived to rest and prepare for the hike.  However, with the help of David and a book tape we arrived in good time feeling ready to go.   

It is a testament to modern GIS systems that we were able to find Andy’s home.  You do not ‘pass by’ where Andy and Lacy live. Andy and Lacy live way up on a hill back in the hills right where the North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia borders meet.  It is a lovely place to bring up their two young daughters, Maddie and Ceci.  After some debate, and looking at the weather which was predicted to be rainy on Monday we decided to go a day early, leaving Friday and having Andy pick us up in Damascus, Virginia on that rainy Monday instead of Tuesday.  As David put it, ‘you do not want to have to make camp with wet gear.’   

Andy dutifully dropped us off at Grayson Heights State Park, a goodly distance from his home.  On the way there he swung through Damascus and showed us a coffee shop where he could pick us up on Monday afternoon.  Assuming we made it.

 

Andy and Lacy’s home in the woods                   Tom and Dave at the start of the adventure

We headed up the hills into Grayson Heights State Park around 1030 on Friday, 4 April.  Our planned route on the first day would be only six and half miles up to the Thomas Knob shelter, located near Mt. Rodgers, the highest point in Virginia.  Although relatively short, we would have a climb of around 1400 feet.  What did not dawn on me was that we were starting at around 4,000 feet which meant we would be spending the night up pretty high, fairly far north, very early in April.  

The hike started well - we were fresh and set a good pace.  The AT is generally well marked using a white blazes of paint about six inches by two inches.  The path is usually very obvious.  Almost immediately we encountered our first Nobo (north bound) thru-hiker, a young man wearing shorts and a determined expression.  He informed us that he had been on the trail for 39 days.  ‘About 14 miles a day; you get used to it.’  Wow.  He had started hiking in February during the worst winter in 40 years.  He was moving on and did not stay to chat.

We had not been walking thirty minutes before Dave asked me, ‘Did that should like thunder to you?’  It was.  We soon began to feel rain drops and so quickly put on our pack covers; so much for our plan of avoiding the weather.  We were both well equipped with rain gear so we moved on between intermittent showers, so many so that I had to remove my rain-streaked glasses.  The path was mostly over rocks, which grew slippery as we climbed steadily past the painted white blazes.   It grew colder and the wind began to gust hard.  Abruptly we came to a shelter hard by the trail, much sooner than we had expected – around four hours into the hike.  I was glad for the cover.  We found space in the shelter with a couple who were north bound.  Soon they were dried out and headed on.  David and I set up on the wooden floor of the shelter and wandered about.  The spring was down about a hundred yards away from the direction the shelter opened to and with the wind now blowing strongly, it was a cold walk.  On the other side the ground also fell away but with low evergreens which provided a surprising amount of protection from the wind.  The terrain on that side was very different from the treeless tundra-like windward side of the ridge.  Low evergreens shrouded moss-covered boulders in an altogether softer atmosphere. 

I was surprised to be comfortable in just my thermal undershirt and fishing shirt.  We were so far ahead of schedule I was even able to take a short nap in my summer weight mummy bag (rated for 32 degrees) before dinner.  I had heard the forecasted low that night would be about 32, so I planned on bundling up inside the bag.  This was stupidity based in part on inexperience and part on, well, sheer stupidity.  First, I did not know that synthetic fill sleeping bags like mine tend to lose effectiveness over time.  My bag, like most of my equipment, was a legacy from my Eagle Scout son Travis and was over ten years old.  Second, I did not consider that the forecast was for a place a thousand feet lower than the shelter.  Finally, I did not think about what might happen if the winds which were now blowing hard increased to over 30 knots with gusts even higher, and what would happen when freezing fog and sleet moved in.  When those things happened an hour or so before midnight combined with a wind shift that changed the shelter from merely drafty to downright windy.  It also went from uncomfortably chilly to very cold.  David responded by moving up to the shelter’s loft where he passed a reasonable night.  I instead lay down below and literally shivered through the night, trying various ineffective palliative measures such as putting on another pair of socks and bringing my towel into the sleeping bag.  Of course I did not think about the silver space blanket I keep in my daypack; just another of my blunders that night.  All in all I think it was just about the most uncomfortable night I have spent since the one in ICU.

I was delighted to see the first lightening of dawn, which revealed the low evergreens opposite the opening covered in a proper Christmas coating of white frost.  Freezing wisps of fog blew past the entrance.  Once I was up, dressed, and moving around I started warming up.  Hot coffee and oatmeal finished the job and we hit the trail.  David and I knew that this would be the longest leg of our trip: about 12 ½ miles to Lost Mountain Shelter, and even though it was primarily downhill, the hardest leg as well.  We had no idea how hard it would be.  We made good time for the first hour.  Then when stopped after an hour and took off our packs I noticed that I no longer had my sleeping bag and pad that I had on top of my pack.  Somehow they had come off and I had not noticed.  There was nothing for it but to go back and find it.  I shucked my pack while Dave stayed behind and waited.  I found the pad about ¾ of a mile back down the trail – the sleeping bag about another ¼ farther on.  I hurried back to David, well aware that my boneheaded blunder cost us about an hour of time.  It also put an extra two unnecessary miles on my legs.  I would pay for my carelessness later in the day.   

Despite the unnecessary delay we were able to track right along, moving from alpine regions to deciduous-covered hills, and eventually down to a golden meadow that lead up and over another hill, thence down to a road at the foot of a very serious hill.  We took our lunch break there and headed up the hill, feeling confident.  

I was to find out that everyone tends to walk at a different speed on the trail.  David was slightly faster than me on level terrain, a bit faster downhill, significantly faster when it came to negotiating uneven footing and vastly faster going uphill.  David goes uphill relentlessly, trying to walk those upgrades into submission.  My style was more take a few steps, then take a few more. 

 Tom at Thomas Knob in the afternoon with gray sky           Tom and Dave on the long winding road

The day, and the hill, went on and on.  David held back waiting on me until we made it to the top of that long grade.  There was a spring just past there we used.  Springs were fairly common there; usually a horizontal pipe or gutter came out of the ground where the water was welling up so it was easier to fill your bottles.  Although we were assured the water was safe to drink, we still put the purification pills in – well usually.  One thing for certain: the fresh mountain spring water was perfectly delicious.  

It was around 1430 and David estimated we were just past the halfway point.  Because I was not carrying a tent I needed a spot in the shelter.  David said he would walk ahead to reserve me a place.  We figured that the last six miles had to be downhill so we could probably make the next shelter in two and a half or three hours.  We were wrong.  Although we lost a total of nine hundred feet over the twelve and a half miles there were two places where there were serious hills.  He had just climbed one; another waited a few miles down the track.  

I felt pretty good the first couple of hours walking down that hill.  The ground changed substantially as I walked down.  I crossed a gravel road and entered a green pasture.  That lead to a stunning lane, overhung with rhododendron; it looked like something from Better Homes and Gardens.  The trail led through a number of low, heavily overgrown hills, eventually crossing a paved road.  This was unexpected.  On the other side of the road the trail led through more undergrowth and then up a hill – a sneaky big one.  By this time the sun was trending down.  By my calculations I should have been there by now.  Had a somehow walked past the shelter?  There was no help for it but to keep on trudging up that long hill.   At times I thought I heard voices – oh boy, the shelter!  But each time I just being optimistic; the trail just went on and up.  I was running out of energy.  My pack began to weigh on my shoulders.  Later I would find that this was because my pack belt needed to be tightened by more than an inch.  Worse, I was almost out of water.  My backup plan if I did not find the shelter by dark was to find a level place near the trail and sleep outside.  It was not as cold as the night before and the wind was down.  I had the stove so I could make a meal.  Then it dawned on me – without water I could not cook a meal.  Adding to my miseries, after ten hours of walking I was beginning to get chafed.  I had Vaseline in my pack, but I did not want to stop and dig it out.  All in all Tom was pretty darn cranky at that point.  I finally saw the top of the ridgeline just as the sun was touching it.  Shortly thereafter I smelled smoke, and – there it was, the Lost Mountain shelter.  

There was room for six in the shelter and five thru-hikers were already there.  Dave had saved me a place and pitched his tent.  I ditched my pack and hobbled down to the spring.  There was still ample light for me to tend to my physical problems, change clothes, set up for the night, and prepare dinner.  Although Dave had had an easier time than I, that did not mean he had an easy time.  After dinner he went straight to bed.  I stayed up for a while chatting with these men who had walked over five hundred miles over the past month or so and would be hiking like this for another four or five more months.  

The life of a thru-hiker is by necessity austere.  It is almost like taking several months’ worth of monastic vows of simplicity, poverty, and walking.  Most of them are either in their early twenties (pre-work) or their sixties (post-work).  They tend to be very nice people who are lean and fit.

To my astonishment my long hard walk (14.5 miles in 10 ½ hours) left me with virtually no aches and pains.  I guess walking is inherently a low impact activity.  For whatever reason, neither Dave nor I had any really joint pain or sore muscles during our hike.  

Tom on the trail amidst trees on a rare flat place               David against some rocks and rhododendrons

The next day would be an easy one – only six and half miles to the Saunders Shelter.  We took our time getting underway but still were on the trail an hour after light.  Other than breakfast there is not much else to do on the trail but get ready.  We must have been getting more accustomed to hiking as things were much easier on the third day.  David moved ahead with promises to leave marks to direct me to the Saunders Shelter.  

We noticed a several things while walking, aside from a few walking staffs almost everyone had what they called tracking sticks; what I thought were ski poles.  Something like that is absolutely essential.  We would each have fallen several times a day without the support they provided.  Further, they reduce the stress put on your lower body.  I found it interesting that not only were there a number of young women walking alone in the wilderness, no one even remarked upon it.  That, in and of itself, is a testament to how safe people feel on the trail.  We did notice several dogs accompanying their masters on the long walk.  Most had dog packs that carried dog food, and in one case, a small rug for sleeping.  We saw a fair number of people on the trail, perhaps a hundred, mostly heading the opposite direction which is only to be expected.  There was one only minority, a young Asian woman.  Discussion with experienced hikers confirmed that wilderness hiking is definitely a Caucasian pursuit.  No one seemed to know why.  

I was fortunate that as I approached the Saunders shelter around 1430 to encounter several NOBO hikers who assured me the shelter was just ahead.  For the only time on our hike I became a bit confused about the trail.  I saw some blue blazes which indicate a path to water.  I not only needed to get more water, I also knew the shelter would be close by the water.  Somehow I managed to get to the shelter from the wrong direction, surprising David who was watching out for me. 

Like the other shelters, Saunders was a three sided timber structure located near a spring.  There was a simple privy the other direction.  No water there, and bring your own TP, but clean enough.  Two segment hikers joined us later in the day.  They would be out for ‘just’ a month before returning to work.  The next day, Monday, was still supposed to be rainy so we all made preparations for the wet predicted on the morrow.  It was humbling to hear that these two men expected to hike the two segments that took us two days, one of them a hard day, in one day.  Youth and experience are a strong combination.  We were a bit concerned that the shelter log book said that the shelter had lots of mice, a common problem.  You do not hang your food from trees to protect them from bears; you dangle them from cords with lids blocking the pesky little rodents from getting to your snacks.  In the event, the mice were not a problem – okay, a couple ran over David’s face as he slept, but that is okay; he is a tough veteran Navy Seal.

We did get the expected rain about 0200, which felt cozy in the shelter, and as predicted it was still raining lightly as dawn broke.  We had nine and half miles to go to reach our pickup point in Damascus and were on the AT by 0830.   The rain slackened and then ended within an hour.  The only problem was that the steep downhill trail was slick.  It is no joke to slide off the trail when it is cut back and forth into a  very steep slope going down several hundred feet.  Your best hope would be that a sturdy tree truck would stop your slide, although probably at the expense of some broken bones.  Much of the AT is out of cell phone range; our segments certainly were.  If you are hurt you have to find a way to hike out to the nearest road.  Sprains, breaks, snake bites, and illnesses happen, but the death toll is somehow very low.

Despite the conditions we made good time getting down the long slope of the hill.  We were moving well, right next to a beautiful mountain stream when I noticed the Virginia Creeper trail on the far side of the little river.  That is a bike/hiking trail that runs through Damascus. 

‘Hey, Dave,’ I pointed, ‘that goes where we are going, and it is nice and wide and even, and does not go over that hill up ahead.  Too, bad it is on the other side of the river.’ 

‘I saw a footbridge.  Let’s get on that trail.’  There are advantages and disadvantages to hiking with a Seal.  Yes, David is very fit, and treats hiking up a mountain as a personal challenge, leaving lesser mortals (that would be me) far behind.  On the other hand he is resourceful.  And he cheats whenever he can.

David on the bridge on the last day                 A scenic creek; usually we were too involved to take photos

Five minutes later we were on a nice flat stretch of trail making excellent time.  It was so nice I was even able to keep up with David.  Although the Creeper Trail was a bit longer than the AT route, it was so nice we walked about three times faster.  Soon we were paralleling a black top road that led into Damascus.  

When we saw we were actually entering the outskirts of town I called Andy to let him know.  He was astonished that we had covered the nine and a half miles in just over four hours.  So were we.  That did not stop us from heading to a lovely local coffee shop where we had coffee and then breakfast – a big one.

I have to admit that hiking the AT was much more demanding than I expected.  However, I admit that most of my problems were due to my general inexperience and specific dumbshittedness.  We did not take many photos in part because the going was too tough, I had to manage my cell phone battery, and frankly the terrain was not all that scenic.  It was a bit too early in the year for flowers or even much early growth.  We were fortunate that Andy provided us with hospitality, 

transportation, guidance, and some necessary loaned items – a lightweight stove and some warm wool socks.  We are indebted to both him and his lovely wife Lacy.

Besides, it was supposed to be difficult, challenging, and a bit dangerous.  It was not a vacation, it was an adventure.