by David Miller
After Roan Mountain, there is a series of grassy balds, providing views back to Roan. Here I meet two thru-hikers from England, Spoon and Martin. Both are strong hikers. Spoon is in his twenties. Martin is a character. He’s in his early forties, small, wiry, intense, with knobby calf muscles and a smile like a terrier baring teeth. His reddish-blond hair matches his skin tone, giving him a monochromatically ruddy appearance. He is smoking, and surely he’s a drinker, too. And yet, later, Spoon would tell me that Martin runs marathons. “Last time he finished, he ran right past the check-in and on into the first pub he could find.”
At a fork in the trail, we go left along a blue-blazed trail a hundred yards to Stan Murray Shelter. A day hiker is here, planning to stay the night. I plan to go on to the next shelter. I head south back down the blue-blazed trail on which I came in. The day hiker says, “North is that way,” pointing to the blue-blazed trail that continues north beyond the shelter.
“Yes, I know,” I respond, but I continue to go back the way I came in.
Some shelters are situated with side trails coming in from two points on the trail, one south of the shelter, and the other north of the shelter. Martin explains to the day hiker that if I were to take the other side trail back out, I would not be walking the section of the AT between the two side trails. This is part of the purist thru-hiker code to which, thus far, I am still adhering. I get back to the AT and head north. I notice that I am walking parallel with the side trail, virtually retracing my steps. The shelter comes back into view, and I walk past it a mere ten yards away. The side trail was hardly necessary. I feel silly as I again wave “bye” to Martin, Spoon, and the day hiker after my two-hundred-yard diversion. They are still discussing the finer points of purist thru-hiking.
Overmountain Shelter is a defunct barn with room for dozens of hikers. Sixteen show up tonight. The setting is wonderful, overlooking a valley of cleared land. The side of the barn facing the valley is open, and downstairs there are plywood platforms for sleeping. Spoon and I lay out our bags here, but a wispy rain blows inside. I move to the enclosed upper deck—hayloft sans hay—where most of the other hikers are, spread out at odd angles laying claim to the most even patches of the rickety plank platform.
Overmountain Shelter.
Muktuk pauses on his way to the privy, full roll of toilet paper in hand. Most hikers unwind a fistful of toilet paper and stuff it in a plastic bag, hoping it lasts until their next resupply. “This is one thing you don’t want to run out of,” Muktuk says, mocking our preoccupation over pack weight. Now that he has an audience, he discourses on the pros and cons of nitpicking over a few ounces. “I met a hiker named ‘Go Heavy’ who carried his stuff in four suitcases. He’d carry two of them a hundred yards or so, leave them, and go back for the other two. He was intense. You know the kind; he had huge veins popping out on his neck and forearms.” Muktuk’s story is replete with hand gestures, waving a cigarette in one hand and toilet paper in the other.
I enjoy the crowd and the enthusiasm that we all have at this point in our hike. We’ve been on the trail long enough to make friends and to have experiences to talk about. We feel like we’ve been tested, and we all think we will finish. There is much ahead of us to be eager about.
Crossroads is here, on floor space next to me. We have our legs in our sleeping bags and are journaling and planning by headlamp. He has a map, and we talk of how the terrain is supposed to get easier now. I’m hoping to get to Damascus in three long days. My supplies are dwindling. I’ve just eaten two of my dinners, and I’ve finished the loaf of bread I bought two days ago. I can’t get enough food. I’m shivering in my bag, and it’s not that cold. I lack body fat to keep me warm.
There is barely a drizzle, as if the fog is too heavy to stay airborne, when I leave Overmountain Shelter. My feet are soaked less than an hour into the day. The first three miles are open and grassy with outcroppings of huge boulders. It probably would be scenic in good weather, but blanketed in fog it looks like a scene from Macbeth. The rain would last with varying intensity all day.
I spook four deer, a buck and three does. This makes me consider putting in a request for reincarnation as a deer. But I’d probably get shot so they could mount my antlers on a bunny skull at some steakhouse.
The next stretch of the trail in northeastern Tennessee was made possible by eminent domain land grabs that didn’t sit well with the locals. Hikers tread lightly here. I pass with ears peeled for dueling banjos. The trail crosses a paved road, where there is an ominous sign warning of vandalism and advising against leaving cars parked at the trailhead. There are more road crossings, paved and unpaved. Few buildings are within sight of any of the crossings. Trash is dumped at one roadside where the trail crosses. I see a makeshift, handwritten “Shelter” sign, pointing down a side trail, and I wonder if it is an attempt to lure hikers off the trail. Barking hounds, distant gunfire, and rusty remnants of barbed wire fences add to my uneasiness, but my passage is uneventful.
Before starting my hike, about half of the people I spoke with showed a great deal of concern for security on the trail, much more concern than I had myself. “Are you going alone?” “Are you taking a gun?” All questions showing disbelief that I would venture out unarmed among deranged, inbred mountain folk.
I went to a gun shop to buy some pepper spray. Better safe than sorry; something small just to give me peace of mind. The guy behind the counter was exactly what you might expect: big, gruff, bearded, tattoos, and one earring.
“Do ya want somethin’ fer four-legged critters or the two-legged kind?”
“Both, I guess. What would you take?”
“I’d take me a gun. And a big knife, like that one,” he answered, pointing to a Rambo model. “Ya see, if I wuz a low-life up there, I’d just hang out near that trail and get me some easy pickins.”
So I got the pepper spray, but not the peace of mind.
The trail parallels the Laurel Fork River for a few hundred yards. Near the bank, a hiker is standing in the rain like a sentinel, wearing a poncho. His pack is off at his feet, leaning on his legs.
“Hi.”
“Just taking a break,” he says. “Wish this rain would stop.” Rain drips off the hood of his poncho and runs down his face. Droplets hang in his beard. Both of us are too weary for conversation.
I “hit the wall” after twenty miles and have a new assortment of blisters from walking with wet feet. The last six miles are a struggle. There are a number of stream crossings. The water is narrow enough to step over, but the banks of the stream have eroded, forming a deep “V” of land that I have to negotiate. Lunging across the gap hurts my feet. I stop and sit on a wet stump to put a bandage on the worst of the blisters. I have to stop thirty minutes later when the bandage peels off and forms a lump in my sock. Mud extends up the inside of my legs, where I nick each calf with the opposite foot. The large blister on the back of my heel, the one I popped in Erwin, is a mass of loose, soggy, white skin.
I arrive at Laurel Fork Shelter with just enough light to cook. Four other hikers are here already. Two are day hikers, and two are thru-hikers. None of the other thru-hikers from Overmountain Shelter did this wet, twenty-six-mile walk. I have a spot in the shelter next to one of the thru-hikers, an older gentleman with dense white hair and beard, with looks that place him between Santa Claus and Richard Harris, with the demeanor of the former. His trail name is Tipperary, named after the county in Ireland that is his home.
At this point on the trail, most thru-hikers have trimmed the fat from their packs and from their bodies. There is a notable absence of hikers who don’t have it together. Few look like they don’t belong, and Tipperary is one of the few. He’s carrying a heavy sleeping bag and a seven-pound tent. Although he has already lost forty pounds, he is still overweight, and he has his sore knee in a tight wrap. I introduce him to the wonder drug ibuprofen. In my mind, I unfairly judge that he won’t be finishing the trail. Hearing of my long day, Tip treats me as if I
am a trail master. We are both wrong.
Less than half the shelters so far have had a picnic bench, and this one does not. At most shelters, there is a fire pit out front. Hikers drag logs around the fire for seating. Here, I am seated on a skimpy branch only eight inches in diameter. It hardly qualifies as a log. I see pinholes in it, and the tiny red bugs that made them. It is an awkward place to make dinner. My stove burns isobutane, a gas that is compressed into a canister about the size and shape of an upside-down soup cup. The canister serves as the base for my stove. The stove itself only weighs four ounces and screws onto a threaded nipple on top of the fuel canister. It’s just a burner with wings to support a small cook pot.
I have pasta for dinner. I cook pasta in one pot and dehydrated sauce in the other, then dump the pasta into the pot with the sauce. The pasta pot is still considered clean. For breakfast, I make the meal that I have most often, two packets of instant oatmeal and hot chocolate. I don’t carry a cup, so I mix hot chocolate in the smaller of the two pots. When I finish the oatmeal, I pour hot chocolate into the pot I ate from. This cleans out the oatmeal; I drink the dregs in my hot chocolate.
It is raining again today. I make a short day of it, hiking only six miles to Kincora Hostel. I wanted to stop here anyway, since it is a renowned trail stop. Owner Bob Peoples has built the hostel in a building adjacent to his own home, a few hundred yards from where the trail crosses Dennis Cove Road. Bob is retired and works as a trail maintainer. Thru-hikers stop in to shower, wash clothes, and stay the night, all for the charitable price of four dollars.
Bob drives a truckload of hikers into town, and we quiz him about his work as a trail maintainer. He says the dumping of trash that we’ve seen near road crossings has gone on for years. He has picked through the trash, looking for anything that might identify the perpetrator, but the trash has always been scrubbed of identifying material. The animus towards hikers in this region comes in part from Irish landowners who had their land taken away to make the AT corridor more than twenty years ago. A long time to hold a grudge? Not for families who have owned the land for generations. Bob himself is Irish; Kincora is taken from the name of a castle in Ireland.
Next year, Bob will be rerouting part of the trail south of here. He assures us that the new trail will maintain a low grade and won’t go over peaks unless there is a view. I’ll believe it when I see it.
A group of us are early enough to make it to the lunch buffet at Chopsticks Chinese Restaurant. Later, when another wave of hikers arrives at Kincora, Tipperary and I tag along for a second trip to town. Spoon is here for this trip, and he and I split a pizza. Then he eats half a dozen doughnuts.
There is a talkative bunch at the hostel, happy to have reached the four-hundred-mile mark and eager to get to Damascus, Virginia, just fifty-one miles away. We load up the couch and every other sit-able surface for a group discussion. Tipperary wings me with his elbow whenever he is tickled by the conversation, which is often. I do surgery on my shoes. The tendon just above my left heel is raw because the padding on that part of my shoe has deteriorated. I cut a lumpy seam from the inside back of my shoe. The Dude has the same problem. His solution is to get a ride to Damascus to buy new shoes. He’s a handsome young man, with utter confidence in his ability to charm his way to Damascus and back.
I am the first one up in the morning, so I can cook pancakes for the crowd. Spoon is up a little later and cooks a second breakfast of scrambled eggs and toast for everyone. Yesterday, I spoke with Juli, and she relayed a statement made by our oldest daughter, Jessie. “Mom, you know what I miss about Dad? His pancakes.” The thought of my family having breakfast together at home recurs throughout the day.
North from Kincora the trail weaves through a small gorge formed by the Laurel Fork River and Waterfall. Just past the waterfall, the trail follows a ledge between the river and a rock wall. From there, the trail turns skyward for an arduous climb up to a plateau known as Pond Flats. Nine miles into the day, I reach Watauga Lake. There is a road and a picnic area.
In the vicinity of the picnic area there is a bit of litter that didn’t quite make it to the trash can. It is a minimal amount of trash that I may not have taken notice of had I arrived by car. On the trail today I had seen small, square Jolly Rancher wrappers at regular intervals. I cursed the hiker who was thoughtlessly dropping them, and I put them in my pocket along with the wrapper of a candy bar that I ate while hiking. I go to the trash can to unload my pocket full of wrappers and find that my own wrapper is not there. It must have been dislodged when I was stuffing the other trash into my pocket.
I follow the trail on an arc along the shoreline, then across Watauga Dam. The dam is more like a dike—mounded earth topped by a gravel road crenellated with boulders. On the climb up from the dam, I catch up with Tipperary. He has stopped with three hikers who were going to hike through the upcoming weekend (today is Friday). One of the weekend hikers is ill, and they plan to get off the trail as soon as they can. The two who are well have stuffed most of the sick hiker’s gear into their packs.
“Awol, would you like to take some of their food?” Tipperary asks. “They are unloading whatever they can.”
The food is a major score for me, but I try not to look too greedy at their misfortune. I take four breakfast bars, six bagels, a tuna packet, and a Little Debbie cake. Tipperary and I walk along with them until they reach the next road crossing. As soon as they are out of sight, I dig in. Of course the Little Debbie is first to go, then three of the breakfast bars. It is a long afternoon. By the end of the day, I have eaten five of the bagels and the tuna fish.
Vandeventer Shelter is nicely placed along a rocky ridge. Two thru-hikers are sitting on boulders behind the shelter, looking north to Virginia. They warn me that they have just seen a bear, and they believe the bear is still near the spring that is the water source for hikers using this shelter.
I am motivated to stretch the day, with hopes of getting to Damascus tomorrow. I hike seven more miles to Iron Mountain Shelter, and I am here alone. Recent entries in the shelter register tell more bear stories. A bear or bears have been lurking in the area between these two shelters, rummaging for food.
I have about twenty-five feet of string, with a carabiner tied to one end. After dinner, I toss the carabiner over a tree branch and clip on my food bag. I lift the food by pulling on the free end of the string, using the branch as a pulley. Then I tie the free end to the tree trunk, leaving the food suspended.
This technique is standard practice for thwarting bears. There are still drawbacks. Hikers lose food that has been hung too low; this was the case with Jean, who lost her food on her first night out. Bears push over trees that are too small and allegedly are smart enough to gnaw on the rope. In Georgia and a little way into North Carolina, campsites would have been adorned with hanging food bags. By now, most hikers have tired of the routine and tired of leaving their food out in the rain. Most of us just hang our food from the shelter rafters, as I have generally done from the start. But tonight is the exception, as I don’t want to wake to the sight of a bear in the shelter playing piñata with my food sack.
Woods are never silent. Pine cones drop, branches rub in the wind, squirrels skitter. Any of these sounds, amplified by darkness and the absence of other hikers, could be mistaken for a foraging bear. Most of the suspect rustling comes from the unviewable back side of the shelter. To the right, there is a dense stand of rhododendron; perfect cover for a stealth attack. I lie down, uneasy, and pull one trekking pole by my side. The trekking pole is not enough. I slip out of my sleeping bag and gather up the rest of my arsenal: pocketknife, mace, and a whistle.
Morning comes without a showdown. Daylight emboldens me, and now I wish I would see more bears on this hike. A slab of fungus on the side of a tree glows bright orange as it is hit by a ray of the rising sun. Damascus, the most famous of trail towns, is my goal. All days on which there is a town stop are exciting, this day more so because I will also be crossing in
to Virginia, the easy state. It will all be downhill from here. I have a long day (twenty-six miles), and I want to arrive before 6:00 p.m. so I can get my mail drop from the Mount Rogers Outfitters. I’m eager for the challenge. I’ll make a game of racing the clock.
The trail is conducive to a fast pace. There are only minor hills in the early part, and the last fifteen miles into Damascus is the easiest long span so far. To speed things up, I’ve put a protein bar and a bag of trail mix in my pockets and filled my water bottles, so I can eat and drink while walking.
I carry a two-liter water bag and a one-quart hard plastic bottle. My water bag has a tube that I thread through the top of my pack and over my shoulder. It rests in a loop on my pack’s shoulder strap. At the end of the tube, there is a “bite valve,” a soft plastic mouthpiece with a slit in it. When I pinch it with my teeth, I can suck out water. When I’m not drinking, it dangles at the ready without leaking. I learned of water bags with bite valves when I started gearing up for my hike, and I consider them to be the best innovation since my last extended hike ten years ago.
The one-quart hard bottle is good for mixing drinks. Infrequently, I will mix a protein powder shake or powdered Gatorade. I also use the bottle for getting water; my water filter screws onto the threaded bottle top. The filter has a pump at the top and a tube that dangles down into a water source. With this setup, I can pump a clean quart of water out of the murkiest puddle in less than thirty seconds.
My water bag has the brand name Camelbak, and my bottle is made by Nalgene. These makers are the dominant suppliers for these items. It is common for hikers to refer generically to a water bag as a Camelbak or call any bottle a Nalgene, just as we call a facial tissue a “Kleenex.” I doubt that I ever heard the word “canteen” on my hike.