by David Miller
Four Pines Hostel is set up in a three-car garage behind a ranch house. At least twenty-five hikers are here for the night. Half the floor is covered with cots and cot-sized mattresses where hikers laid claim to floor space. Some are sorting through their gear, and there is a line waiting for the single makeshift shower in the corner of the garage. Other than the ratty attire, the scene is similar to any other house party; small groups mingling, drinking beer, nibbling on food. A few bottles of harder stuff are circulating.
Indiana Slim is on a lawn chair just outside one of the overhead doors, offering up a bottle of whiskey. He looks a little impaired, so I ask if he remembers meeting me.
“Oh, sure…Awol…I’ve got you here in my list.” He fumbles through a tiny pad on which he has recorded the name of every hiker he has met. Good idea, I think of his list. He really is slim, no facial hair, so boyish-looking he could be sixteen. He insists on having me drink from his whiskey bottle. His smoking and drinking play like an attempt to harden his soft shell.
Another hiker approaches and blurts out, “Slim! How’d you get here?”
“Well, I hitched a ride, of course,” Slim answers jocularly.
I’m happy to be back with some of the familiar crowd. AA wants to know how I got behind. Stretch and No-Hear-Um are here. I meet Popsicle and Moose once again. They are keeping to themselves at a bench outside, and set up their tents on the lawn away from the garage. Tipperary is here. Tipperary always makes me feel as if there is no person he’s happier to see. I am greeted with a hearty “Awol!” and an engulfing hug. His unshakable good nature makes him popular among thru-hikers and certainly improves his chances of staying on the trail. On this trek, his temperament is more of an asset than conditioning or know-how.
One large group of hikers that I have been hearing about is here. The group is centered about the repeat thru-hiker Green Man. This bunch is all about having fun. They spent two weeks at Trail Days. There is beer wherever they go, noisy hotel stays, making a bit of a wake as they plow through the trail. It is a boisterous crowd, and FUBAR is the most outlandish of them, with his bare-chested exhibit of tattoos, hair cut in a Mohawk, and the demeanor of a wild man. His voice bellows without constraint. Clearly it is him we heard up on the ridge. His young wife is here, too. They were married at Trail Days in Damascus.
It is 11:00 p.m.—way past hiker bedtime—and only blissfully deaf No-Hear-Um is asleep. A circle of people just outside are passing around a guitar and doing an acoustic set. Two of them are excellent singers. Tipperary, who is not, sings anyway. Roman Around is incoherent, curled up in a chair with a near-empty bottle of vodka. The sprinkle of curse words in conversation has turned into a downpour. The circle is uproarious when Tipperary the priest joins in with an F-word of his own.
Suddenly, everyone is out of their seats, grouping over to one side of the circle of chairs. With little warning or apparent provocation, FUBAR has come behind the still-seated Indiana Slim and put him in a choke hold, and others in the crowd are trying to tug him loose. The party mood is broken, and most people head for bed. FUBAR and Slim stay just outside, now playing the roles of drinking buddies slurring out a disjointed conversation.
Slim’s topic alternates between “I love you, man” and “Why you wanna’ choke me?” FUBAR’s words are impossible to categorize. In a final act of reconciliation, FUBAR holds Slim’s head in his hands, forehead to forehead, making a final vow of friendship. Then they are bumping heads firmer and firmer, until they have a full-fledged head butt. Indiana, initially tickled over the bonding, is upset again when he finds that his head is bleeding.
The episode drags on nearly an hour, with hikers shouting at the two of them to go to sleep. The lights go on and off a number of times. More angry words, then FUBAR badgers Slim to “come take a walk” and heads out into the dark without waiting for a reply. Slim sits confused, pondering aloud what FUBAR wants from him. We all know FUBAR wants to administer a beating unimpeded by the rest of us, so we coax Slim back into the garage.
FUBAR wanders the grounds making noises, doing God knows what. Slim refuses to sleep. FUBAR’s wife goes out to rein him in, while hikers inside take turns trying to console Slim and guide him into his bed. One female hiker attempts to talk Slim through his troubles over a cigarette, adding smoke to the suffering of the rest of us. Outside, FUBAR’s screams and curses rise to a new level. We hear another voice, I assume Mrs. FUBAR, screaming for someone to call the police. A few of FUBAR’s handlers head out and round him up. Shortly, they are back inside, telling us the police are on the way to get FUBAR.
Few hikers are able to sleep. Stretch and I sit up and talk about what to do. Roman Around comes out of his slumber and decides that he and Slim need to have a drink. Stretch packs up and hikes out into the night. It is well past 3:00 a.m. when I finally get to sleep.
I am one of the first hikers awake on a dewy, quiet morning. I take a bike lying in the yard and pedal down empty streets to a convenience store to get a breakfast of donuts, chocolate milk, and coffee. Back at the hostel, I see Popsicle and Moose fixing breakfast at the picnic table. “You two were lucky. You missed out on all that craziness last night…did you hear it?”
“We weren’t so lucky,” Moose replies.
The woman’s voice calling for the police last night was Popsicle. She was kept awake by the ruckus and left her tent for a bathroom break at the same time FUBAR was in the yard upchucking his whiskey. He wasn’t happy with the encounter, so he tried out his choke hold on Popsicle. FUBAR chose the wrong person to pick on this time. Not only did Popsicle get the better of the scuffle, she was intent on pressing charges. But the ordeal would be the end of her thru-hike.22
McAfee Knob is one of the most photographed locations on the Appalachian Trail. Near the peak of the mountain, there is a shelf of rock cantilevered above an unbounded, view of the mountains and valley below. Stretch and No-Hear-Um arrive shortly after I do, and we help each other to get photos of ourselves in this wonderful setting. The walk up to the knob was not demanding. There were even smooth pine-needle-covered pieces of trail that were delicious to walk on. The trail to Tinker Cliffs is also benign, yet rewarded with additional excellent views and interesting cliff-top hiking. I am fortunate to have good weather. On the whole, this day provided the greatest visual payoff (for the effort) of any day I would spend on the trail.
McAfee Knob.
Between the two highlights, I meet with a group of hikers celebrating on an inconspicuous piece of trail. “Congratulations!” they say in greeting. “You are at the seven-hundred-mile mark, about one-third of the way to Katahdin.”
I hike along with one thru-hiker from the group, Footslogger, until he turns off to stay at Lamberts Meadow Shelter. Near the shelter, Elwood (aka Steve O.) is fetching water. I say hello, content to have a cordial relationship with Elwood, but happy to be moving on. Footslogger knows Elwood as well, and they begin a typical hiker exchange, each asking how the other’s hike has been since they last met. Elwood gives sparse detail, obviously not intending to say anything of the ride I gave him four days ago. I move along, allowing Elwood to dissemble in private.
The day ends with an unexpectedly challenging rocky ridge walk down to Daleville. My long day (twenty-five miles) and paltry sleep probably contribute to my perception of the difficultly. Hikers have to manage their expectations during walks into town because it always takes longer than you want it to, and many times you can see, hear, smell, and taste the town long before you get there. In this respect, Daleville has been the worst, since the town can be seen six miles before arriving. The last few miles of the descent are in a corridor of land parallel with power lines. Vandals have painted graffiti on boulders, making the land feel more like an unwanted extension of the city than part of the forest.
As much as I’d like to sprint down the trail and be done with my day, my feet will not cooperate. Again my feet hurt on the descent. Although these shoes are lightweight, there is rigid plastic around the
toe box, so I feel the same clamplike pain on the front row of toe knuckles as I felt wearing boots. The pain is similar to the hand pain caused by shaking hands with a prankster who squeezes as tightly as he can. I lie on a graffiti-blemished boulder and wallow in my discomfort, picking up shards of broken beer bottles and flinging them into the woods.
The trailhead hits town on a main road just a few hundred yards from a hotel. I am exhausted but still have much work to do. I shower, eat, do laundry, make phone calls, and don’t get to sleep until 2:00 a.m. I wake during the night with leg cramps and foot pain, and I decide I will be taking a zero day here in town.
In preparation for hiking the AT, I purchased the full set of guidebooks and maps from an advertisement in Appalachian Trailway News. I decided against carrying the maps before getting out of Georgia, so the maps themselves gave little return for the money. However, I gained more than my money’s worth by meeting the seller of the maps, 2002 thru-hiker Arrow. Arrow kept in touch throughout my planning process, during my hike, and beyond. He had encouraged me to call him when I reached Daleville so he could put me in touch with the Witcher family, friends from his 2002 hike.
Homer Witcher maintains a section of the trail for the Roanoke Appalachian Trail Club. He put me up at his home and let me use his car to run errands. Homer, his wife Teresa, and their two children thru-hiked the AT last year. The kids, whose trail names are Cascade and Rockslide, were eleven and eight years old during the hike. At dinner they tell of the challenges of keeping the kids motivated. Cascade and Rockslide are filling out questionnaires about their thru-hike for yet another magazine article. Both kids are sincerely happy to have completed the AT.
I speak with Juli on the phone about our plans for tomorrow. I will hike nineteen miles from Daleville to Mills Gap Overlook, one of the places where the AT crosses the Blue Ridge Parkway. During roughly the same time frame, Juli and the girls will drive thirty miles from our home in Titusville to the airport in Orlando, fly 667 miles to Richmond, rent a car, and drive 175 miles to our meeting place.
In the morning, Homer drops me off at the trailhead. I hike with my pack but take only what I need for the day, leaving my tent, sleeping gear, and stove with the Witchers. With a light pack and much anticipation, I fly down the trail. Near lunchtime I pass Elwood, who has paused for a break, leaning heavily on his hiking pole. Elwood has a new set of clothes since the last time I saw him and has added gaiters to his ensemble.
As I cross a streambed, I scan the smooth pebbles along the bank. All along the trail, I have been picking up rocks as souvenirs. I select rocks that have an interesting shape or color and are near the size of a quarter. I collect only a couple each week, and when I reach a post office, I mail them home. I’m not sure if my actions are environmentally sound. I’ve asked other hikers what they think of me taking the rocks, and they wish I’d ship home some of the larger ones. Luckily, I spot a near-perfect heart-shaped rock in this pile of pebbles. It is the fourth heart rock I’ve found so far, one for every girl I will be reunited with this afternoon.
Toward the end of my hiking day, the AT crosses the Blue Ridge Parkway a half dozen times. The trail and the road run parallel for the next two hundred miles until reaching the north end of Shenandoah National Park. The road is known as the Skyline Drive in the Shenandoahs. My expectation had been to see a convoy of vehicles carrying binocular and camera-wielding tourists. But this is not the case. All of my trail crossings on the Blue Ridge Parkway are at lonely overlooks and vacant parking areas. The parking area at Mills Gap Overlook is empty when I arrive, so I lie down for a rest, using my pack as a pillow. Within minutes, Juli pulls up in a rental van, and Jessie, Rene, and Lynn pile out for a joyful reunion. “You smell,” Rene says, soon followed by the observation that I look old.
Even though I have washed my pack a couple of times, foul odor is hopelessly trapped within and released by the heat of my body when I walk. The same is true of my clothes. Going unshaven has aged my appearance, but I will keep the beard to Katahdin (and beyond). The brown hair on my head still holds firm, but gray hair has made significant inroads in my beard.
We drive back to the Homeplace Restaurant in Catawba, a family-style restaurant serving country food of great renown among thru-hikers. I dazzle Juli with my newfound eating prowess. We have three and a half more days to spend together.
Jessie, Rene, and Lynn walk with me for 1.8 miles from Mills Gap to Bearwallow Gap, in a token bit of adventure sharing. The trail is misted over by fog, but the girls are giddy, skipping along, singing their impromptu song which consists of the five-word lyric, “We’re hiking the Appalachian Trail,” repeated until their dad asks them to stop.
Even though our walk will take less than an hour, I bring food and my water filter so we can stop at a stream and take a break, just like I would do on my own. During the seven weeks I have been hiking, my daughters have seemed to be doing fine. That is what they say when I talk to them on the phone, and that is what Juli tells me. To dig deeper into their thoughts, I pose a question to them: “Would you like for me to come back home, or would you like me to continue hiking?” I don’t really know what answer to expect. It would hurt me to know if they felt strongly about me coming home.
Lynn is reticent, but Jessie and Rene answer resoundingly, “We want you to finish the trail!” Having braced myself to hear of how they have missed me, I am surprised by the “you better not be thinking of quitting” tone of their answer. They have seen newspaper articles about my hike, and they talk about it at school. They have taken ownership of the endeavor, and it is fortifying to know that they are proud of what I am doing.
Juli meets us with the van at Bearwallow Gap. She brings many varieties of Little Debbie snack cakes, a cooler full of sodas, and some fruit, so we are able to do trail magic for a group of hikers: Bad Ass Turtle and Footslogger, Ballou, Rumbler, Skidmark, Beth, and Jersey. Many other thru-hikers pass through town during our stay. I see Old Bill for the first time since Grayson Highlands. The Dude, No Pepsi, and No-Hear-Um are here. We are all doing the same errands—going to the outfitter to mull over equipment changes, picking up mail drops, resupplying our trail food, cleaning up, rejuvenating for the next leg of the AT.
I buy yet another pair of trail-runner type shoes, recalling my painful descent into town. Thus far, I have alternated between using a Mountainsmith Auspex and Kelty Satori backpacks. Both are lightweight internal frame backpacks. Both are serviceable, and both have their shortcomings. The Mountainsmith pack, which I have been using most recently, has a less padded hip belt and has bruised my hips. I will use the Kelty pack for the remainder of my hike. It has detachable side compartments and a removable mesh pouch on the back of the pack. I remove one of the side compartments and hang my water bag to the side of the pack with carabiners. Another addition I make now is to buy two pouches the size of a paperback book that attach to the front of my waist belt on either side of my camera case. The getup has an ammo belt appearance, but is very functional. I have no hesitancy to take pictures since my camera is readily available. I will keep snacks in one pouch, so I can snack on the move. In the other pouch I carry my knife, spoon, toothbrush, and toothpaste. I brush my teeth while walking.
I do not have a strict “finish what you start” attitude about completing the trail. Nor would I end my hike after having a bad day or even a bad week. I know that there is a large component of delayed gratification in hiking. I am likely to appreciate it as much or more after I am here, so it is unwise to quit on a whim. Before starting my hike, I read to Juli a passage from a thru-hiker journal about a hiker who wearily called home and told of how he was having a difficult time of it. His spouse told him he had done enough and he should come home. That was the end of his hike. I wanted Juli to be prepared for times when I might sound ready to give up. Staying motivated could be dicey, so she should not encourage or endorse any thoughts I might have about quitting the trail.
The closest Juli ever came to breaking this rule is
in Daleville. The morning before returning to the trail, Juli is in the shower at the hotel, and I am talking to her through the curtain. “When I woke up, my legs were still sore. I’m surprised that I feel this way after taking off three of the last four days.”
“David, we’ll be proud of you whatever you decide to do,” Juli answers, thinking that I am considering getting off the trail.
I don’t feel like quitting. Sometimes I want to be done faster; always I want it to hurt less. I haven’t had any day that has been entirely bad, and I’ve yet to have a day when I wished I was back at my job.
7
Daleville to Front Royal
The Appalachian Trail in Virginia is 535 miles long, roughly one quarter of the overall trail length, and longer than the trail through any other state. It is said that the trail in the state is easy, but that has not been my experience. I reached Damascus in less than a month, but my progress has sputtered since then. It is June 15, I’ve been in Virginia for twenty-two days, and I still have 156 miles to hike before leaving the state. Thru-hikers are so often worn down by this stage of the hike that there is a name for it: the “Virginia blues.”
On the morning that Juli, Jessie, Rene, and Lynn are to fly home, we dawdle, using all the time they can spare before returning to the airport. I had been looking forward to their visit and had not contemplated the fact that I was setting myself up for another painful parting. They drop me off at featureless Bearwallow Gap, fittingly, in the rain. Before being engulfed by the woods, I look back to get a last look at my daughters. The view of them waving through departing car windows is reminiscent of them back in Georgia, but my attitude is entirely different. In Georgia, all was new and exciting and imprinted itself in my memory. Here, I am resuming the long walk through Virginia, and no detail of the trail, other than rain, makes an impression on me. On my first break of the day, I discover Juli and the girls have slipped drawings and notes of encouragement into my pack.