A Walk in the Woods (Day 4)

An Appalachian Trail Tale
Day 4: Thursday, March 28th, 2013
Justus Creek to Henry Gap = 9 miles
(AT) Miles to date: 24

An Appalachian a Day Keeps the Doctor Away

I must have slept swimmingly last night; this morning I awoke in a pool of drool. I think it was my drool, but I can’t be sure. 

When camping, sleep is frequently hard to find. The ground is rarely the right texture--too hard or too soft. Lumpy and lopsided. Jagged and gelid. Wet and gooey. There are also enough threats in the woods to disrupt not just your sleep, but potentially your life--threats that may or may not exist, but keep you from sleeping all the same. When camping far from the societal safety net, human senses convince you everything is a grizzly bear.

So each time I’m afforded the opportunity to face another day (and give the day my some), I’m relieved. It means I wasn’t maimed. It means no trees fell atop the tent. It means I didn’t drown in drool, mine or anyone else’s.

Despite my drooling slumber, little rejuvenation was had. And just as it’s been for the last three days, today’s hiking tended toward the difficult, with one hilly obstacle after the other: Ramrock Mountain, Woody Gap, Big Cedar Mountain, and ultimately Henry Gap. It was a beautiful day, but I might have been better off not sleeping and instead just have chipped away at the mileage throughout the night. Night hiking is more stimulating than the daytime stuff.

Ruth at our first paved road!

‘Chipping away’ is not why I’m hiking the AT. (Although I couldn’t help noticing that, barring catastrophe, we’d pass the twenty-two mile mark today, denoting the one-percent point of the trail. It’s good to occupy the mind out here, if even with lowly numbers.) I don’t care if I hike the trail in its entirety, so long as I enjoy what hiking I do. Making mileage or making good time is not the aim; having a good time is. So far, with Ruth’s companionship, I’ve accomplished just that. Hedonism at its hardest.

The thru-hiking life isn’t free from strife, but the pluses outweigh the minuses. Although it feel like our backpacks outweigh both the pluses and the minuses, Ruth and I are happy knowing that, to this point, the pluses have more than offset the minuses. It provides hope that no matter the challenges ahead, it’ll all be worth it. We shall see.

~~~~~~~~~~

We were the first to leave our group camp spot. This was unexpected, because we both value and appreciate sleep and were in no rush to disrupt comfort. The trail’s been anything except comfortable so far, so you take luxury when you can get it, or Ruth and I do anyway. Yet here we were, walking earlier than anyone in our group.

Yesterday was a shorter day, but we felt its effects and the effects of days leading to it. For the first time we’d see gaggles of hikers and soon fell into step with Alex, a young thru-hike hopeful. “Can I work in with you?” he asked, as though we were working out. (I suppose we were.)

Al seems a bright kid, but he hikes barefooted, shoes dangling from his pack like Christmas ornaments. We figured he ran out of toilet paper and was forced to donate his socks to the cause. But just as we were about to ask, he said he had some bad blisters. “My feet are FUBAR, and my shoes are only helpin’ to aggravate.” We’d leapfrog one another a few times, passing him in the rougher rockier stretches as he tip-toed along, before he’d pass during our repose.

One of the rest spots, atop an exposed ridge overlooking the world on Ramrock Mountain, was as beautiful as they come. We could just about make out the curvature of the planet.

There were three others there, each as mesmerized by the vastness of it all as we were. We’d been socked in by tenebrific trees for three days, with just a keyhole view of the world. This was a reminder why the AT is known as the Green Tunnel. (Appalachia: Land of the Smothered Sun. Even radar cannot locate the AT.) No one was going to pass on this. One guy joked it was a chance for our bodies to manufacture some all-important vitamin D. You know you’re on the Appalachian Trail when you worry about vitamin D deficiency.

When dark descended, we pitched the home near Henry Gap. Alex was entrenched nearby. We were on official wilderness land, as designated by that magnanimous act of Congress, but we were only a few feet from private land, as designated by a pair of old rusty signs. ‘TRESPASSERS WILL BE SHOT; SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT AGAIN,’ one read. The other stated that ‘PRAYER IS THE BEST WAY TO MEET GOD; TRESPASSING IS THE FASTEST.’ Friendly folks. Now I know where to go if a Code Brown rears its steamy head.