It happens every year.

I take my last backpacking trip in late October or early November. I say to myself, last trip till Spring…

And I mean it, when I say it.

I go on with my life. The busy holidays in December. The short, but cold and dreary days of January. And then it gets to be February. The days begin to get longer. There will be a mild weekend. And I get the itch. And it won’t go away.

Next thing you know, I’m packing my pack; wearing layer over layer of clothing; getting ready to go out backpacking in sub-freezing weather. This invariably leads to huddling in a sleeping bag, shivering, hoping to make it through the night with out having my extremities fall off.

Well, maybe it’s not quite that bad. But it gets cold. In this day and age, most of us just ignore cold. Cold is something we endure between the house and the car. And again from the car to inside of an office building, or grocery store, or whatever. But when you are out in it, with no where to go in to, it is a different thing. A persistent force to be reckoned with.

As I type this, my pack is packed and I have several layers of clothes laid out. I’m going backpacking. Tomorrow will get up to about freezing. On Sunday it will be warmer, in the high 30s, of course it will probably rain. Guessing the weather is aways hard. The mountains, even small mountains (like the ones we’ll be hiking this weekend,) keep their own weather. But I don’t think it’s gonna be pretty.

I don’t care. I can’t wait till late March. I’ve the itch. I need to get out there and be away from everything else. Even the huddling and shivering is therapeutic. It’s not much fun while it happens, but when you get back to work and deal with the everyday annoyances, they don’t seem so bad.

At least that is what I’m telling myself tonight. Monday, when I get back, I may have a different story to tell.

A tale of two hikers.

7:36 AM

We pull in to a gravel parking lot and begin to get our packs ready for a 3 day hike that would take us from Blue Mountain (just southeast of Palmerton, Pennsylvania) to the Delaware Water Gap; where the Delaware River cuts through Kittinany Mountain at the PA-NJ Line. After some last minute adjustments and finishing our coffees; we start walking north on the Appalachian Trail.

Northbound would actually be more accurate. The Appalachian Trail stretches from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine. Maine is obviously north of Georgia, but it is also considerably east of Georgia. The stretch of trail we plan to walk on actually runs West to East.

7:57 AM

I sit down on a rock to catch my breath and wait for dad. We’d only walked a half mile or so, but we had climbed nearly 400 feet. Like much of the trail in Pennsylvania, the climb was extremely rocky, not so much a trail but stepping from boulder to boulder. The mountain was covered in a thick fog this morning and visibility was limited. After a few minutes, Dad caught up. He didn’t sit down.

“Are you good or do you need minute?”
“I’m ready.”

We start walking. To our left, the trees opened up and an exposed outcropping of rock jutted out over the side of the ridge. Beyond the rocks there was nothing to see but swirling white mist. “Beautiful view,” I note to Dad before moving on.

The next time I would see my dad, he will be standing on crutches.

8:07 AM

After a stretch of trail that was more rock than trail, the trail improves. I pick up my pace to take advantage of the improved terrain. The trail dips and then climbs and eventually levels out at 1500 feet or so. The weather is gloomy, but the walking is good.

8:09 AM

Dad walks across a rocky section of trail, ahead he can see a better stretch of trail. He comes to a large boulder, it had a flat surface but was angled relatively steeply. He considers going around briefly, but instead steps on the boulder.

The difference between tragedy and trivia is so small that sometimes its hard to find at all. It’s difficult to accept that what will occur hundreds of times without incident, will occur another time with serious repercussion.

As he steps on the boulder one foot slips, he slips two, maybe three feet. His other foot, however, remains firmly in place. His left foot ended up laying next to his hip. Although he had felt a stab of pain when he fell, he isn’t in any pain as he lays there. He tries to lift his left leg, but it simply doesn’t respond. He calls out for help, but no one answered.

He picks his left leg up with his hands and moves it to a more natural position. He tries to stand up, but the left leg still isn’t responding.

8:12 AM

The trail is level and in good condition. I can’t believe it. Pennsylvania has a reputation for being rocky and treacherous. I had walked, at one point another, every step of the AT in Pennsylvania except for this stretch and had experienced the what seemed like every kind of rocky trail possible. I had expected this section to be as bad or worse than any of the others, yet the walking is easy and I am making excellent time. It looks like luck is on our side.

8:14 AM

Dad sees that his knee is beginning to swell rapidly. He rearranges himself so that he can lean on his pack and elevate the knee.

8:19 AM

I stop for a drink of water. I estimate that I’ve walked about mile since I’d stopped at the top of the climb.

8:27 AM

The swelling has gone down, but it is becoming increasing clear that this isn’t a problem that is going to get better by itself. Dad pulls his cell phone out of his pack and dials my number. It goes to my voicemail.

“Jeckles, if you get this message you may want to turn around. I’m in need of some assistance.”

He hangs up the phone. He knows that my phone would be turned off to conserve battery and that I’d have no reason to check it. It is unlikely that anyone was going to find him and even if they did, they wouldn’t be able to move him anyway. He needs help. He dials 911 and explains his situation. The 911 dispatcher took the information and says that the search and rescue operation will start immediately.

8:36 AM

I stop to take a drink. The trail is good, the walking is easy and I feel great.

8:42 AM

Ed, a 12 month employee of nearby Blue Mountain Ski Lodge, finds my dad. He radioes the others searching for him and soon they are putting a make shift immobilizer, made of cardboard on his knee. They bring a gurney and proceed to put him in it. They then begin to discuss the best way to get him off the mountain.

“You guys are gonna have fun carrying this 220 pound body off the mountain.” jokes Dad.
“What? How much did you say?”
“220 pounds.”
“That’s a shame, our limit is 219. Let’s go fellows, nothing we can do here.” retorts one of the rescuers.

9:02 AM

Five good old boys carry Dad on the gurney on the AT till they reach a clear cut that allows power lines to run to the ski lodge. They tie a rope to the gurney and slowly lower it down the steep slope that is the side of the ridge.

9:34 AM

After being lowered, Dad is put in the bed of a pick truck. They drive down a gravel road to the waiting ambulance.

10:15 AM

Dad is admitted to the ER at Palmerton Hospital. He is one of two patients.

10:37 AM

I take off my pack to take a break. I’ve walked just over five miles and there is supposed to a spring near here. I eat trail mix and jerky, while looking at the map. I estimate that we will arrive at the shelter around 2:00 PM.

11:02 AM

I’ve snacked and I feel rested, yet dad hasn’t shown up yet. He should have been here by now. I decide that if he doesn’t show soon, I will backtrack and see if he isn’t stopped some where behind me.

11:04 AM

The Carbon County 911 dispatcher tries to contact me on my cell. Volunteers coordinted by the Fire Chief attempt to locate me on the trail. They don’t know my exact location, but Dad has helped them to narrow it down to a ten mile stretch of trail, between where he fell and the shelter we planned to camp at.

11:21 AM

I grab my trekking poles, but leave my pack, and start back tracking. I reason that maybe Dad has stopped for to take a break somewhere behind me. I walk a mile without any sign of me. There is no longer any doubt in my mind, something is wrong. Dad is hurt or lost.

I fight down the panic and the urge to sprint down the trail that comes with it. My backpack, which has my cell phone and my car keys in it is a mile in the other direction. I decide that I will need, in all likelihood my keys and phone, so I turn around and walk back to my pack.

11:56

I return to my pack and immediately get my phone and turn it on. I check my voicemail first and hear Dad’s message. I hang up and try to call him but there is no answer. I leave message to tell him that I am on my way.

That panicky feeling begins to rise again, his call was from 8:27 he’s been hurt and alone for over three hours. Leaving my phone powered on,I strap on my pack and begin to walk as fast as I can. Before I’ve gone a half mile, I misstep and painfully roll my ankle. I fight down the panic, telling myself that I can’t help anyone if I hurt myself.

12:02 PM

The ER doctor gets the X-rays back. Dad has separated the tendon that connects his patella to his femur.

12:09 PM

I’ve walked a mile and still see no sign of Dad. I fairly certain he must be near where I had last seen him, but I have no idea what his condition is. I stop and try to call again. Still no answer. I call my voicemail again hoping to pick up some detail I had missed in his message. I discover that there is a second message.

“Mr Jeckles, this is Carbon County 9 1 1. When you get this message please call 9 1 1!”

I feel a sense of relief that 911 is aware to the situation, while at the same time it confirms my fears that Dad is injured, perhaps severely.

After a few attempts I am able to connect to 911. The operator seems to be aware of our situation and transfers me to Carbon County 911. The dispatcher informs me that dad has “wrenched” his knee and is at Palmerton Hospital. He believes that they will release him soon. He wants me to get off the mountain so that they get me to my father.

I tell him that my truck is about four miles from my location and that I can get there in about 2 hours. The 911 dispatcher would like me to be off the mountain, sooner than later. After a brief discussion, I help him pinpoint my location. I’m near a clear cut for a large set of powerlines crossing the mountain. He asks me to follow the powerlines down the north side of the ridge. He’ll have the Fire chief meet me at the road at the bottom of the ridge.

I follow a rough ATV track down the slope. Before I’ve gone far, the Fire Chief calls my phone. He confirms that he will meet me at the bottom. He says that it will take him 30 minutes to get there and that he will lose signal as he drives down the mountain. He will call me when he arrives.

12:15 PM

The trail I had been following ends. I start bushwack down the side of the ridge. This section is extremely steep and very overgrown. I consider calling 911 and telling them that I can’t go down this way, but in a funny way, I don’t want t let them down. So I push on. I can see below where another ATV trail picks up, I just need to get past the steep descent.

The further I go, the mover overgrown it gets. I slip and fall several times. I now know I should not have proceeded this way, but I’m too far down to go back. I have no choice, I’m committed. As I near the end of this steep section, the Fire Chief calls. They’ve spotted me and they are sending a local up with a “four wheeler” to meet me. All I can pitcure is myself strapped to the back of an ATV, but I don’t argue, I’m exhausted.

12:39 PM

I reach the bottom of the steep descent and begin to walk down the ATV trail. My legs are shaking from the exertion of the climb down to this point. I am bloody from countless little cuts from the brambles I made my way through. And I am luck that I didn’t hurt myself worse going down that slope.

I don’t walk far before I see an old Ford Ranger spring from the tree line. I throw my pack in the bed and hop in for a hair raising ride down the side of the mountain.

12:46 PM

We reach the road and I get out. The Fire Chief is waiting for us. He shakes my hand and looks me over. He apparently decides I’m okay.

“So… you guys drove all the way from Maryland to walk on a trail on this mountain?”

I have no doubt that he has no idea what the extent of Appalachian Trail really is, even though he lives within a few miles of it.

He drives me to my truck, and then I follow him to the hospital.

1:05 PM

After a little re-arranging, we get my dad situated in the back seat of the truck and begin the four hour drive home.

He will need surgery to put his knee cap back where it belongs, but he’ll be fine.

I went backpacking. Again. I know, it’s almost boring. It was a great weekend.

I’m sure its just me being paranoid, but as the end of Dubya’s term gets closer, I keep waiting for some one to announce that they are extending his term indefinitely, citing terrorist threats and what not.

Thanks Monty, Mango and WK for sponsoring me in the blogathon. You can sponsor me too. Dammit.

Two weeks till training camp starts. I can’t wait.

I got a promotion at work. I am now, officially, a Network Engineer. But you can still call me Jeckles.

I’ve changed my gym routine around a bit. I’ve added more emphasis to muscle training. I’ve also added protein shakes to my diet. I’m seeing good results.

Shitty Blog Radio is stupid. My mother has never listened to it. (And this is a good thing.) But for some reason she keeps telling everyone in my extended family about it. I spent an uncomfortable 15 minutes yesterday, trying to explain to my nice Christian cousins what is I do on the internet radio. Maybe my mom should listen. I bet she’d stop telling family about it.

Shitty Blog Survivor is even dumber.

And now my lunch break is over.

When planning a backpacking a trip, I always look at a detailed map of where I will be hiking. I look for places that we camp, taking into account the distance between camping spots, and the amount of climbs in any given stretch of trail. But sometimes, the map just doesn’t have enough information.

The map indicated that after Marble Springs, we would have a 500 foot ascent up High Cock Knob. It showed that the climb would be steep in a few spots, but really it didn’t look bad. The map doesn’t, however, show trail condition or take into account the heat and sun.

The trail up High Cock Knob started out okay. I was able to ascend 300 feet, to an altitude of 2500 feet according to the altimeter in my watch, without any problems. The trail became rockier and much steeper. At the same time the sun was now directly over head and the temperature was above 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The canopy was getting much thinner, and it was obvious that I was getting sunburned on my arms and face. I kept going, but my pace slowed to a crawl as the trail got much steeper. Slowly, using my willpower to force one foot to step in front of the other, I proceed up over rocks until I finally reached the summit. Over an hour had passed since I had left Marble Springs. This climb had taken much longer than it should have.

I found a rock to sit on and drank the bottle of water I had carried up with me. The water bladder in pack was now empty too. The summit was beautiful, but I felt too hot and exhausted to care. I put on my wide brimmed hat to keep the sun off my face, and started walking again.

The descent was as bad as the climb had been, slow going over rocky trail. The day was only getting hotter, and I was getting tired. I was beginning to get concerned, I still had over 5 miles to walk. The descent ended at Petites Gap, and now I was faced with a 1200 foot ascent up Thunder Ridge

The trail up this ridge was better and the walking went easier, but I was hot. There was no shade, my arms were turning a brilliant shade of red and there wasn’t any relief in sight, as the sun was still nearly directly overhead. Eventually, I reached a spring on the side of the ridge. I took of my pack and filled a bottle with water, I sat on a rock that almost let my arms be in the shade. When I had finished with the water, I refilled the bottle and drank it’s contents again. The temperature was now close to 90 degrees, and it was nearly 4 o’clock. Instead of being at the shelter, as I had believed, I was till over 3 miles away with a lot of climbing left to do.

I have to assume, that I had the beginnings of heat exhaustion at this point. As I write this, I know that I should have taken the bladder out of my pack and filled it. I know that I should have changed in to the long sleeved camp shirt that was in my pack. But sitting there on the side of the mountain, in the heat, I thought about these things and decided against them. The idea of digging through my pack seemed to hard. I didn’t want to lose anymore time than I already had, yet I still sat at the spring for nearly 30 minutes. I also didn’t want to add the weight to my pack that a full bladder would have added. These things which make so much sense now, I could not think clearly about at that time.

After finishing a 3rd bottle of water and clipping a fourth bottle to my pack, I started walking again. Instead of feeling refreshed, I still felt beat. My muscles were tired of climbing. I tried to walk at an even pace, but I found myself stopping after just a few steps. I’d have to make myself start walking again, just to find that after a few steps, I had stopped again. It went on like this till I had reached the top of the ridge.

The trail leveled out a bit and I was able to walk at a slow but steady pace. I pushed on till I came to a road crossing, the Blue Ridge Parkway. I checked my map, and saw that I had about a mile to go. I wondered about Shutter, who I hadn’t seen since I had left Marble Springs six hours ago. I considered waiting for him at this point, but I decided if he was feeling even worse than me, I wouldn’t be able to help him much sitting here exhausted. I decided to push on, get to the end and if he didn’t show up I would go looking for him.

Between me and the shelter at this point, was one last climb, about 500 feet to put us over 4000 feet of elevation. On the map, it appeared that 300 of those feet had to be climbed in less than a quarter of a mile. As we had looked at the map, we had dubbed that last unnamed ridge, the Fuck You. As in, “you are almost to the end, but Fuck You, you have to climb this.” It lived up to its appellation.

As soon as the trail started to ascended, I again slowed to nearly a crawl, taking a few steps and stopping. I finally got to the top of the Fuck You, and sat on a log and caught my breath. After a few minutes, I pushed on. When I arrived at the shelter it was after 7 o’clock.

I ate a big snack and drank a liter of Gatorade. I set up my tent, and tossed my gear inside of it. There was still no sign of Shutter. When he hadn’t shown up by 8 o’clock, I grabbed my trekking poles and headed back the way I had come on the trail. I felt better for having rested, the snack and drink had helped and the temperature had gone down. I didn’t have to walk far to find him. I saw him at the base of the Fuck You.

“Dude!”
“Dude. I’m off the trail.”
“What do you mean?”
“My legs are cramped, I can hardly walk. I feel like shit.”
“Let me take your pack.”

I carried his pack up the Fuck You, and to the shelter. He followed at a very slow pace. By the time we got to the shelter it was nearly 9 o’clock. Thirteen hours had passed since he had set out that morning.

I made myself some dinner and drank some tea. Earl Grey, hot. The wind had picked up and was gusting across the ridge, there wasn’t much point in staying up, so I crawled into my tent and fell asleep quickly.

We both slept in the next morning. I felt much better, but Shutter still felt awful, his legs were still cramping. He was dehydrated. After a bit of discussion, we decided we had to get him off the trail. We walked back to the Blue Ridge Parkway, and made a few calls.

Our trip was done. I could have gone on by myself, but two things stopped me. First, 9 days is a long time to be alone. I wasn’t sure that I wanted to endure that. Secondly, even though I didn’t feel as bad as my friend, I still had a pretty bad sunburn and had pushed myself very hard. I didn’t want to find myself alone and exhausted and wanting to get off the trail in a day or two. If I was going home, this was the time.

The trip may have ended early, but that climb will stick with me.

I was so excited about being started on my big hike, that I climbed the first stretch using nothing but adrenaline, I think. But the climbing continued. I soon set into a good stride and was making great time. I took in views of the James River Gorge and was amazed at the thought of a river slowly cutting it’s was through a mountain range. I also took note at the changes that came with increased elevation.

Many of the changes are subtle, but they are there if you look. The Rhododendrons that had been in bloom at the beginning of my hike were only showing buds by 2000 feet. The vegetation was thinner in general, especially the leaves on the old hard woods that cover these mountains. Over the course of the day, I went from walking under a lush green canopy at 700 feet to bare limbs with only the hint that a leaf would someday be there at 4000 feet.

The day was going to be a challenging one and we knew that going in. We would be gaining over 300 feet of elevation over the course of the day, but actually climbing much more that that. The day broke into 5 climbs; a 1000 foot climb out of Matt’s Creek Hollow to Big Cove Branch, another 800 foot climb that would bring us up on a ridge and then to Marble Spring, a 600 foot climb up High Cock Knob and the 600 feet back down to Petites Gap, an 1100 foot climb up Thunder Ridge, and finally a 700 foot ascent to the shelter.

I reached Big Cove Branch and took off my pack and grabbed my water pump and two 32 ounce Nalgene bottles. I pumped water from the stream into the bottles. The pump is actually a filter against microorganisms and other nastiness, a necessity when all of your water comes from unprotected sources. I took the bottles and sat in the shade and proceeded to ‘camel up.’

There is a school of thought that believes that the best defense against dehydration is to get more water than you need in you before you actually need it, not unlike a camel storing water in its hump. Then as your body needs the water it can absorb it from your stomach to the cells that need it. Also this means that you aren’t carrying the weight of the water on your pack, only to drink it after your body already needs it. They say that by the time you feel thirsty, you are already beginning to dehydrate.

I sat in the shade and drank the contents of both 32 ounce bottles. I clipped the bottles and the pump to my pack and started walking again. In addition to ‘cameling up,’ I also had a water bladder in my pack that I was able to sip water from a tube as I walked. I sipped sparingly knowing that the hottest part of the day was still ahead of me.

Again I climbed. Finally I reached the ridgeline at an elevation of over 2500 feet. As the trail leveled out, I picked up my pace to take advantage of the easier walking. After a mile or so of walking I saw Capt. Shutter for the first time since early that morning. It was now about noon, the sun was nearly directly overhead and shade was scarce. We stopped and reviewed the map. We weren’t quite halfway, but we did seem to be on pace to make it to the shelter at a reasonable time. We decided to walk another mile or so to Marble Spring and have lunch there.

It didn’t take long to get to Marble Spring. I sat on a fallen tree to make my lunch, while Shutter wandered down to the spring to get water. I mixed tuna from a foil pack with mayo and relish from single serving packs and put it on a tortilla. It was delicious, but messy. I made a mental note to just eat the tuna in the foil pack and have the tortilla on the side on the next day. I went down to the spring and filled 2 bottle and drank them.

Haven eaten and ‘cameled up,’ I felt ready to to tackle the rest of the hike. I left Shutter to preparing his lunch and headed out, guessing that I would be at the shelter in three or four hours.

A huge trip is what I planned. What I got was a long climb. And that’s okay.

We drove hundreds of miles and for hours. We left Shutter’s car in small parking lot by the side of the road outside of some small Virginia town. He threw his gear in my truck and we continued to head southwest.

We drove up a mountain on winding back roads. We reached the top, there waiting for us was our ’shuttle.’ We had arranged, via email, for him to meet us here and take to the beginning of our hike. We put our packs in the trunk of his car and headed out, leaving my truck on top of the mountain.

We drove for miles, over a hundred. We finally reached the James River Foot Bridge. We retrieved our packs and paid him for his trouble. He drove off, leaving us ready to hit the trail. Or you could say, he took all of our money and left us in the middle of nowhere.
I guess it all depends how you look at it. Watching that distance pass had made me start to doubt whether I could really go that far. I was really questioning if I could walk the last 5 days by myself, it seemed to be just too much.

We hit the trail and headed south. It was hotter than we expected, in 90’s, but we only had 2 miles to walk. Before very long we had reached the Matt’s Creek Shelter.

We set up our tents, but left the rain flies packed. We cooked dinner and relaxed, enjoying the beautiful weather and the quiet of the woods. After a while we retreated to our tents and slept, knowing that we had a very big climb the next day.

A big climb isn’t really accurate. We had to climb from an elevation of 700 feet above sea level to over 4000 feet over the course of 12.5 miles. It is not a simple ascent up a single mountain, but a series of climbs of several mountains resulting in a total of more than 6000 feet of climbing.

Shutter was up early and already eating his breakfast before I crawled out of my tent. I felt good. It was a beautiful morning and I was on the trail! I cooked myself a breakfast of scrambled eggs and grits with a large cup of coffee. By the time I was done eating Shutter was packed up and ready to go. He headed off up the side of the mountain.

My feelings of apprehension from the day before had evaporated. I felt great and it felt good being in the woods again, and I was looking forward to the trip.

I packed up my gear, finished my coffee and headed out on the Trail.

11 days. An ambitious plan. I knew that it was extremely possible that I would not complete the whole trip. And I was at peace with that.

I did, however, think that I would make it further than this.

Details to follow.

For now, I am home a week earlier than I expected to be. I still have next week off, but I am seriously considering going to work. I mean what’s the point of taking Vacation Days just to sit around the house?

Still, I feel refreshed. I got some time off work and spent some time in the woods. These things are important to me.

The backpacking is something I need to think hard about. Be able to walk the Appalachian Trail from beginning to end is a goal I have had for a long time now. And I’ve been working towards being able to complete that goal. Every time I turn down a donut or cookie; every step on the treadmill and stair-stepper is towards that goal. And I’ve done well, but it has left me in a situation that I hadn’t considered before.

While I have prepared myself for this, most of my hiking/camping buddies are not physically or mentally prepared for this. I think that, realistically, if I want to be able to do a long section hike, I will have to do it alone.

I don’t like alone. I don’t care for it one bit. I’ve had times in my life of terrible loneliness. I never feel teh need or desire for long stretches of solitude. I enjoy leaving the world behind when I go backpacking, but I like a companion or two to enjoy it with.

This is a contradiction that I will have to deal with.

I feel that, on some level, maybe it would be healthy for me to come to terms with the solitude. To find a way live quietly with myself, to help me to appreciate the company of others more. But being alone in the woods for several days is a hard thing for to do. Don’t misunderstand me, I’m not talking about being a hermit or anything. This time of year, there are several hikers on the AT. I would not be completely isolated, but I would be alone.

This is something I will have to think on for a while. I may sneak out and take a weekend trip by myself and see how it feels, see if this is something I can do.

To be able to do this alone will take a new level of mental toughness, and quite honestly, I don’t know if I am ready for that.

Backpacking.

Need I say more? We went backpacking. Me and three guys from work: Shutter, our Sr. Network Analyst, and a Jr. Technician. On the trail I call Shutter ‘Dead Weight.’ The firewall admin is the WAN-Man. Grayson, the tech didn’t have a trail name, but one usually presents itself.

He’d gone with us once before. He carried almost no supplies, just a very small tent, a lightweight sleeping bag, and an old school backcountry stove. We razzed the shit out of him for carrying so little, but it was August— You can get away with that in August. This trip was something different. The forecast called for a Nor’easter. Rain and wind would sweep in from the west, and if that wasn’t enough when the storm hit the ocean it would pick up energy and draw cold air from the north. High winds, rain and snow would come back across the mountains from the east.

We discussed canceling the trip. Grayson said no way… he was fearless! We decided to give it it a go, but with the understanding that we wouldn’t walk far on Saturday. If the weather was bad Saturday night in to Sunday, we would go back to the car, otherwise we would walk 14 miles or so to the next campsite.

Saturday morning we met at my house, it was overcast, but not too windy or cold. It actually was decent weather for hiking. We packed up and headed north. We left my truck at the ‘end’ and piled into the WAN-Man’s little Subaru. we drive 30 miles south to the ‘beginning.’

We started out on a blue-blazed trail that would take us up the mountain to join the Appalachian Trail. We climbed the mountain for a mile and found the AT. We set out looking for a good place to camp. Before we’d walked another mile, we found one.

We set up our tents and sat on the fallen trees that some hiker from years past had arranged around a small fire circle.

“Weather’s not too bad.”
“Just wait…”
“Yeah, look over there.”
“Shit, those clouds look ugly.”
“No worries, I’ve got my fleece pants and jacket to wear if it gets too cold, plus my waterproofs.”
“Me too.”
“I brought my snow pants, I won’t be cold.”
“I’ve got what I’m wearing.”

We all turned and looked at Grayson. He was wearing UnderArmour ColdGear pants and shirt, camp pants, a shirt and a fleece jacket.

“What are you going to do when it gets colder?”
“You do know it is going to cold…”
“and windy!”
“I’m fine. I don’t get cold.”
“Come on man, it’s not like you can go ‘inside’ and warm up.”
“I’ll just to my tent and get in my sleeping bag.”
“What is it rated?”
“45 degrees.”
“Shit. It’s 45 degrees now…”
“You are clueless.”

I looked at my friends and I looked at Grayson.

“Fucking Bear Bait,” I said. The other two burst out laughing. He just looked at me. I explained that we didn’t have to fear bears, with his lack of preparation the bears would undoubtedly go for him first.

We cooked dinner and talked trash about people at work. We had a good time.

The sky grew darker as the clouds moved in from the southwest and the temperature dropped. Each of us added layers, except Bear Bait, of course. We started cleaning up and getting our gear ready for the night, trying to be sure everything would stay dry. We hung our food from a tree. (First we had to get Bear Bait to take the midnight snacks out of his backpack and put them in his food bag.)

“See. Bear Bait.”
“Come on man. I’m not even cold either!”
“Polar Bear Bait!”

We waited for the rain. It started around sunset. We went to our respective tents. I changed out of my clothes and into my fleece pants and jacket. I climbed into my ‘15 degree’ bag. After a while I fell asleep, nice and warm, to the sound of rain gently falling on my tent.

I awoke in the middle of the night to hear the raining falling in sheets and the wind roaring in gusts out of the valley and up on the ridge we were on. I did a quick check and saw that my tent and gear were dry and went back to sleep.

I woke up sometime right before dawn. I’m not used to going to sleep that early. The wind was still gusting and the rain still falling. I got out of my bag and changed back into my layers for waking. I took my camp pants and put them in a ziplock bag to keep them dry for later. I started packing up my stuff. Once everything, but then tent I was sitting in, was packed, I put on my boots and ventured out.

It was cold and rainy. The wind was still gusting. But it wasn’t really worse than other weather I had hiked in. The real concern was what would happen through the day and that night.

As the others woke up, we discussed our options: go on or bail. Shutter’s tent had let some water in and he was concerned about not being able to get it dry enough. Bear Bait was ready to go on, but he was shivering. The WAN-Man did fine through the night, but he had concerns about walking in the cold and rain all day. He said let’s not be stupid. Let’s bail.

So it was decided. I packed up my tent and put my pack together. When everyone was packed we started on the trail, back the way we came. As I was walking, I found my stride and was walking very comfortably. As I walked, I realized that this was no worse than many other days that I had spent on the trail. I stopped and waited for the others to catch up.

I proposed that we go on. We’d all, except Bear Bait, walked in worse. Shutter considered it and decided that since we had a shelter dry out in, he’d be okay. Grayson, Bear Bait, was all for it. He felt warmer now that he was walking. All eyes were on the WAN-Man.

“There are a few things to consider. First of all, what he is wearing is all he has…” he said, nodding towards Grayson.

I looked at Grayson. He fleece wasn’t going to keep water out much longer, he camp pants were already soaked. If he couldn’t change into dry clothes at the shelter, he risked Hypothermia. And his sleeping bag wasn’t rated anywhere near warmer enough for him to be able to just sleep in that, with out his clothes.

“You’re right. He’ll fucking die. Sorry Bear Bait, we need to bail so you don’t die!”
“Fine use me as a scapegoat, if that helps.”
“Ask me about hypothermia some day.”

We headed back to the Subaru, and drove back to my truck. We stopped for a big breakfast, and headed home in the rain.

That’s what the tell me.

Snow, hurricane force winds, rain and other fearful stuff.

This, of course should have tipped you off that we had planned our fisrt backpacking trip of the season for this weekend.

No. We did not cancel it. Because… well… Capt. Shutter is insane. And our young hiking buddy, who I’ll call Bear Bait for now, is too young and dumb to know better. Actually, he pronounced himself as ‘fearless.’ And that leaves the WAN-Man and me. And I guess we weren’t going to be shone up by these younger guys.

So I’m packed. My new ‘light-weight’ pack has so much shit lashed to it, that it kind of defeats the purpose.

Wet, cold, windy.

This is dumb.

I’ll take pictures.

Stay tuned.

And if this does mange to turn into a blizzard. And you turn on the news and hear about 4 foolish backpackers stranded in Central Pennsylvania. That’s not us. It’s four other guys.

Have a great weekend, slackers.

I’m back.

I went camping. Not backpacking, but car camping.

Car camping is so different. We had so much stuff. A big old stove, a propane lantern, a cooler, camp chairs! The funny thing is, compared to the other car campers we were roughing it. We hardly had any stuff compared to most of them. But when you compare it to backpacking, we were living like kings.

Shutter and I took his kid and my younger child out for an overnight camping trip. We had fun, but I have to admit I prefer camping with out the kids. I’m a jerk like that I guess. Don’t get me wrong, I had a good time and I’ll do it again.

Chasing kids around saying, “keep your hat on, keep your gloves on, don’t touch that” isn’t exactly a vacation for me. But I didn’t take my kid camping so I could get a vacation. My parents took us camping every year. I must ahve been about six months old on my first camping trip. Looking back on it, I suppose that economics had a lot to do with it. It is a hell of lot cheaper to go camping than go to Disneyland.

The result was that I (and my brothers too, I think) grew up with an appreciation for the outdoors. Many of my fondest childhood memories revolve around being out in the woods in the Adirondacks or the Blue Ridge Mountains. We would explore the woods near the campsite. I imagined that I was an explorer walking through woods that no one had ever set foot in before. There is something primal and satisfying about sitting around campfire at night.

The point, I suppose, is that I learned these things while camping with my parents. I feel a deep responsibility to take my kids out so that they can have the same opportunity.

To put it more simply, while backpacking is more enjoyable for me, I need to take my kids out to the woods so that they have the chance to learn to love it like I do. And I think they will.

As for this trip, it was a pretty typical camping trip ( except maybe colder than you would have expected in April.) We went for a walk. The kids “discovered” an amphitheater in the woods, a creek an d a pond complete with frog eggs.

We had hot dogs for dinner and S’mores for dessert. Only after feeding them the gooey combination of marshmallow and chocolate did it occur to me that the tradition of giving kids S’mores and then expecting them to be able to lay down and go to sleep is a bit stupid. But we must have worn them out enough, cause they went to sleep with out incident. We buried them in sleeping bags and blankets to keep them warm.

Having put the kids down, Shutter and I finally got a chance to sit down and relax. The temperature continued to drop, be we we dressed warmly and we built the fire up to a nice warm blaze. We sat and talked and laughed till midnight or so.

We woke up and ate a hearty camping breakfast of eggs, pancakes and bacon. And then set ourselves to the task of breaking camp. It is so much easier to break camp when you are backpacking.

We rounded out the morning by taking a fairly long walk up the Appalachian Trail. We walked to the point that is the “official” half way point on the trail. And then we headed home.

I think that it was a successful trip by any measure.

And better yet, I get to go backpacking next weekend.

Backpacking. Again, it’s what I do. Like a junkie, I need my fix. I’ll be alright, just let me get a fix.

This weekend would be my last fix, till next spring.

But making it happen was proving difficult. The Uber-Bot, my most reliable hiking buddy, had said she would go this weekend. But had to back out due to a previous engagement, which she had forgotten about. Okay. No problem.

But I wasn’t going to let that stop me. Re-think. The trip to hike to the Delaware Water Gap, and in the process complete the AT in Pennsylvania, was out. But there are other options. The Tuscarora Trail for example. Not as well known as the AT, this 250-some-odd-mile trail running through Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania provides plenty of opportunities for hiking. There was a stretch that my Dad and I had been looking at for a potential trip.

I called him up and asked him if he was interested in an overnight trip. He was. I decided to make it a family affair. My boy is 13. Old enough to come along on a trip like this. Time to break him in. Why not.

Would you believe that they were calling for rain? Of course you would.

Saturday morning we drove over mountains, back roads and one streambed until we reached the place where we planned to end the hike. We left my truck there and headed for the beginning.

We started our hike at the Silar Country Store. I picked up two blaze orange vests for my son and I, we tied them on to our packs, on account of it was the first day of Black Powder Hunting Season. The Tuscarora Trail is not as established as the AT and this stretch of trail actually started out on a public road. VA 689, as a matter of fact. Rain was forecast for the afternoon, but at the moment the sky was clear and blue. We actually worked a good sweat walking along the road. After a mile or so, the trail made a left on to VA 671, which was a smaller gravel road. We made our way up a fair sized hill and then down again.

Finally we made it to the point where the trail left the roads completely. As we stood there, taking a small snack and water break, a service van driving by slowed to a stop. The lady in the passenger seat rolled down her window and said:

“Y’all be careful in the woods with all those hunters.”

We smiled at her and assured her that we’d be alert and it would be fine. And with that we headed up the trail, the path was well marked as we made our way up another fair sized hill. As we got close to the top, I could see the mountain we would be climbing in a mile or so. It looked pretty steep, and according to the map would be just over a thousand foot climb.

I looked back to see how far behind my companions were. I saw that they were about 100 feet behind and I turned to start walking again. It was at this point that I heard a sound that I imagine that I will remember for the rest of my life.

It was the sound of a small object whistling through the air, above my head and to the left. Although it was certainly moving very fast, time seemed to slow down for me. I heard the sound of it cutting through air, spinning as it went. I could not see it, but I knew where it was as I heard it cut through leaves and small twigs as it went by.

As time went back to its normal speed and I remembered to start breathing again, I looked down to my Dad and my son. They were looking back at me with expressions of shock on their faces. I turned and looked to see if I could see where the bullet had come from. I couldn’t tell.

“Oh SHIT!” I yelled. I yelled it extra loud so that hopefully whoever was shooting would stop.

After a moment or two passed and no more shots were fired, my hiking partners walked up to where I was.

“You heard that?
“Yeah.”
“Where did it come from?”
“Up there.”
“Over there?”
“No, had to be closer. Up there.” My dad pointed to clear area at the top of the hill, right where the trail was heading.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know.”

We walked the 50 yards or so to the top of the hill. Carefully. As we got close to the top we heard the sound of a small engine receding from us. A four wheeler, most likely.

“Good, maybe he’s gone.”
“Probably. This area is posted. He probably heard us and drove off.”
“I didn’t see any deer.”
“I doubt he was shooting at one. You know. They come out here into the woods with a gun… they’re going to want to fire it.”
“Fucking idiot.” I shot a guilty look at my son as the words left my mouth.
“What should we do?”
“That’s the question. Was this a fluke, and now we have nothing to worry about? Or are we in danger?”
“One idiot doesn’t represent all hunters.”
“True. And we’ve hiked in hunting season before without any trouble.”
“Yeah… but that was the AT.”
“I say we go on.”
“Sure.”

We started walking again, but before we had taken a dozen steps we heard the report of a black powder rifle, and not far from us. The three of us hunched down, ready to hit the deck. We exchanged looks. Another shot fired.

That settled it. We dug out a cell phone and called for a ride. We backtracked down the trail and headed back up the gravel road, until we saw our ride coming up the road to meet us.

And the worst part of all, worse than some asshole shooting in my general direction, is that I didn’t get my fix. And in all likelihood, I won’t get it till some time in March.

This is not a good thing.

Sunday was the big day.

Sometimes, when planning a hike, you just look at the map and say, whoa! You see a climb or mountain or something that grabs your attention. You look forward to it (or dread it) as the hike gets closer. On this hike, we would cross the Lehigh Gap. A 1000 foot descent, followed by a 1200 foot climb. That in itself isn’t that extraordinary. But 700 feet of that ascent are climbed in less than a quarter of a mile. I was looking forward to this challenge. The Uber-Bot was dreading it. She hates steep climbs.

I made myself a quick breakfast, and packed up my gear. We headed back up to the shelter and filled our bottles at the spring. And then we hit the trail. We descended through the trees. The sunlight shining through the leaves was quite a contrast to the overcast skies of the day previous. The temperature was comfortable and the trail was easy enough to walk. It was a good start to the day.

We descended until we came to a break in the tree line. Ahead of us we could see the Blue Mountain slope down to Lehigh River. Mist still rose off of the river, where shade had prevent the morning sun from burning it away. On the far shore, a mountain jutted up from the river. The top third of the mountain was completely bare of trees. There was nothing but rocks and cliff. I challenge to be sure.

We descended to the river and crossed the bridge, along side the Sunday morning traffic. We started up the other side, which quickly became a series of steep switchbacks. I pushed ahead, although I had stop to catch my breath a number of times. Finally, I came out of the trees and stepped on to a rock field that led to the base of, for lack of a better word, a cliff. As I looked up I saw those familiar white blazes painted up the side of the rock wall.

A closer look did show a place to step here and a hand hold there, and soon a was standing on a narrow ledge 10 feet above where I began. We continued like this, climbing to the next ledge, soaking in the view, continuing. Eventually we gave up on our trekking poles and strapped them to our packs, to free up our hands.

We climbed till we reached the crest of the ridge. We stopped and surveyed the view. We could see clearly the mountain we descended early that morning, the Lehigh river snaking between the mountains from Palmerton down to the south and then around a bend and out of sight. I took out my camera and snapped a few shots, even though I knew that would not, could not, do justice to what was before my eyes. After a while, we moved on. Because that is what you do when you go backpacking. You move on.

We made our way up the ridge, until it leveled out. I sat down. My legs were screaming from the exertion of the climb. Once again the gnats were on us. The Uber-Bot pushed on to keep the gnats off of her. I mixed up some Gatorade in my water bottle, dug some Jerky out of my bag, and then headed down the trail myself.

The ridge was wide and flat across it’s crest. The trail followed what might have been an access road. On either side of the trail there was nothing but rocks and the occasional skeletal remains of a long dead tree. The landscape was completely desolate. As I walked I speculated on what could have caused this. As I walked more sign of life began to appear. Small shrubs and grass mostly. I caught up with the Uber-Bot after a mile or two. We compared notes and decided that it must have been a forest fire. But one that happened long ago.

We walked down the road until the trail went away from it to the left. We wandered down the mountainside into Little Gap. We sat our packs down and waited by the side of the road. We were early, but we knew Captain Shutter would be there soon to pick us up.

I woke up to the sound of the Uber-Bot packing up her tent. I’ve never been a morning person. I hurried to get myself packed up before she was pacing around ready to go. I fired up my campstove to have a quick breakfast and some coffee. The coffee was great and the clearing we were camped in was beautiful. I think I would have been content to just sit there all day. But we had 10 miles to cover, so i tossed the dregs of my coffee into the underbrush and packed up the rest of my gear as my partner filled her bottles from the spring.

Soon we walk along the AT again. The trail was a little rockier than the night before, I was grateful that I hadn’t had to walk on this trail the night before. The air was cool, but the walking kept us warm. The gray skies were uninspiring, but at least it didn’t look like rain.

Each State has it’s own ‘personality’ on the trail. The personality of Pennsylvania can summed in one word. Rocks. Thousands of them. Large boulders that must be climb over. Stretches of trail that run over boulder fields, where you have to step from boulder to boulder. And miles of trail with sharp pointy rocks coming out the dirt with such frequency that you cannot avoid them. I’ve kicked, tripped over, slipped on, fell on, scraped against and banged into more rocks than I can enumerate.

We hadn’t walked long when the trail turn up on to a pile of boulders that led to the crest of the ridge known as the ‘Knife’s Edge.’ The ridge literally narrows to a point only a few feet wide, and the trail ran right along it. We stopped at the highest point and looked out over the patchwork fields that spread out below us under the cold gray sky.

The day went by easily, we came to the view at Bake Oven Knob we took it in for a few moments, but the wind blowing on us forced the break short. We scrambled down a rock descent and before long arrived at a shelter. We stopped and had lunch. After cleaning up from lunch, we went to the spring and refilled our bottles. Then we were back on the trail.

The afternoon continued smoothly. The ridge broadened and the trail was level and easy to walk on. Eventually the trail began to descend marking the end of the day’s walk. We came to the shelter after a short descent. There was a lone hiker already camped out there. I scanned the area, but saw no where to pitch a tent. I approached the hiker.

“Good afternoon.”
“It is, isn’t it?”
“Is there a tenting area around here any where?”
“Well… there is one a little bit back the way you came…”
“We saw that one.”
“… or you could go down that trail, ” he pointed to an unblazed trail to the right, “and there is a nice little field down there. at least there was. I haven’t been down there in a while. I guess some one could have trashed it.”
“Cool, we’ll check it out. It’s not to far down, I hope…”
“No about Five Minutes form here.”

Five Minutes?

We walked down the trail, no more than a quarter of a mile, an came to a nice little clearing with a fire ring. We started pitching the tents and getting our equipment set up. We were hassled the entire time by nasty little biting gnats. I would have thought that there wouldn’t have been any insects to speak of this time of year. Once my tent was pitched, I headed back up the trail to the shelter to locate the spring. The Uber-Bot retreated to her tent to escape the gnats.

As I approached the shelter I was greeted by the hiker.

“Find what you needed?”
“Yeah…”
“Nobody’s trashed it?”
“No, it’s good. Perfect actually.”
“Good.”
“Is there a spring?”
“Yep. Just down the trail. About Three Minutes from here.”

Three Minutes?

I headed down the trail assuming that the spring couldn’t be far off, if this hiker’s standard of measurement was consistent. And it was. I filled my bottles, drank one of them and filled it again. And then headed back to our campsite again.

We built a campfire to drive of the gnats. It worked like a charm. We spent the evening lounging by the fire. Relaxing. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes we talked. We watched the moon make it’s way over the trees. So bright that the trees cast shadows under its glow.

Something rustled in the brush not to far off from the campfire. We peered into shadows trying to make it what it could be.

“What do you think?”
“Probably a deer.”
“Yeah.”
“They’re nocturnal…”
“Or a raccoon.”
“Yeah.”
“I’m glad our food is already hung.”
“Yeah…”
“Besides, there aren’t any bears around here.”
“Should we shine our lights over there?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Cause, I could be wrong about the bears.”

After a while, we hadn’t heard any more noises so we shone our lights at the brambles, but we couldn’t see anything.

The fire had died down, so we to our respective tents, and laid down for the night. And with no concern for what was crawling around out there, I went right sleep.

Are you sure you want to do this?
Of course.
But you’ve been sick. You should rest.
I’ve rested, and I’m still sick. I’m well enough to go work.
You have to go work.
I have to go backpacking.
Be careful.
I will.

Another trip. I’m not even sure as I plan this one that it is even for fun anymore. I’m on a mission. I’ve walked 170 some odd miles of the Appalachian Trail in Pennsylvania. I have just over 50 miles to go to reach New Jersey. Pennsylvania has been a mess of ankle twisting boulders and toe bashing rocks. I don’t know that I believe in a bad backpacking trip, but I’ve had it with Pennsylvania. I just want to make to New Jersey. New State. New Trail.

This trip will have us walking about 20 miles. My companion on this trip is the hiker we call the Uber-Bot. She’s unstoppable. She walks for hours with out need a rest or a drink or anything. She never seems to get tired or hungry or frustrated. She is just like a robot.

Friday night we hope to go four miles to the New Tripoli Camping Area. Construction on the interstate delayed our arrival at the trail head. By the time we walked away from the truck and in to the woods it was after seven. And quite dark.

Night hiking is, as you can imagine, quite different than hiking in the day. As we started out the moon was low in the sky and a mist hung in the air. The haziness gave you the impression that is you’d just squint maybe you’d be able see better. We used lightweight head lamps to light the way. The head lamps were good for lighting the trail and exposing rocks and roots that hid waiting to trip the unsuspecting hiker. At the same time, they mad the surrounding woods even darker. The effect was very much like walking in a tunnel.

I was tired. It had been a long day at work, hell a long week. The drive was long and it was late. We hadn’t walked far when we came to a tent site off the trail. I wanted to just stop there and make camp. The Uber-Bot pointed out that the trail was in good condition and we should take advantage of it. And she was right. Every step that we did not take that night, would have to be walked the next day.

So we walked, in the dark and the mist. The trail stayed well defined and easy to walk on, and I let her talk me out of a few more tent sites. To our surprise we passed a few campers who set up camp alongside the trail. As we walked I mentally tallied the distance. I knew we had to be close. But close is a relative term. A half mile is a long way to walk we you are exhausted.

I smelled the smoke of a campfire first. Then heard voices. Finally we could see them. A dozen or so bodies milling around half as many tents. Boy Scouts. As we neared them, one of the adults came over to see what we were about.

“Hi there.”
“How’s it going? Is this New Tripoli Camp Area?”
“We’re not sure. There is a Blue Blaze just beyond that may go down to the camping area. But we didn’t go down, this was nice and level so we just made camp here.”

We thanked then and went on our away. As promised we found the blue blazed trail just a few hundred yards down the trail. My friend may be untiring, but she doesn’t not care for climbs. She looked in the darkness at the descent to the campground and said, “It’s nice and level where those scouts are.”
“the last the ting those scouts need is a women around.”
“I’ll be good.”
“Let’s go see what is down there.”

We headed down after a quick check of the map (just to be sure that the trailed did not go all the way to the bottom of the mountain.) The blue blaze led to a level clearing next to a spring. Even in the darkness, it was very beautiful.

We went to work setting up our tents. Once our tents were struck. I set up my camp stove and heated some water for coffee. I was tired, but my throat was a bit sore and something hot to drink sounded good. We relaxed for a while and enjoyed the quite of the woods. I especially enjoyed it, because I knew that had we set up camp near those scouts we would not have had this kind of tranquility.

With our beverage consumed and the temperature dropping we retired to our respective tents. And reviewed the map for a few moments and then turned out my head lamp and fell asleep almost instantly.

Some weeks at work just aren’t worth the head ache.

This has been one of those weeks.
Nothing serious. Just a lot of stupid, useless shit.

I’ll go to work tomorrow. I’ll some how make it through the day, and then I’ll go home grab my backpack and head for the trail.
I just need to get away from all of it.

Usually when I go, it’s me and my dad or me and Shutter. This time there will be 6 of us. We’ll be like a field trip or a scout troop or something.

It doesn’t matter. I just need to be out there, exhausted from walking, relaxing in the woods.

I can’t out there soon enough.

I went to REI.

That’s the store that I buy my backpacking gear at. It’s a sort of “candy” store for the outdoor crowd.

I picked up some new boots. My old boots aren’t really worn out, but they have never been quite right. And unfortunately, I didn’t buy the old ones at REI. They a have a lifetime guarantee on everything they sell. If the boots don’t work out well, trade them in for new ones. If the tent didn’t seem as great out in the rain as it did in the store, bring it back. It is a great store. They understand that you have to use your equipment to know if it is right for you.

After the last two trips, the tendons in my ankles have been rubbed raw. I decided not to make matter worse with another trip upcoming. I picked up a pair of Merrrils. They seem pretty good. And they have some extra padding around the ankle. And if they are not the ones, I’ll take them back and try again with new ones.

I also picked up a camp shirt and some waterproof stuff bags. With me, it is best to be waterproof.

I don’t remember if I’ve explained about how I cook on backpacking trips. I like to eat. The idea of wandering off into the woods and walking all day just to eat some ramen noodles holds no appeal to me. I cook actual meals. Using dehydrated veggies, pasta or rice, and canned chicken or shrimp crab meat. It works out pretty well. I have it down to a pretty good science.

For fun, I’m going to try to dehydrate my own veggies, instead of getting them through mail order. Right now, I have peas, corn, potatoes, banana peppers, and some apple slices drying. I’ll also see about some Green peppers, jalapeños, onions and whatever else crosses my mind.

I’ve been hearing that the blogathon folks have been real inconsistent with sending out emails to let you know how to fulfill you pledge. You can go to Freedom from Hunger to donate online (whether or not you sponsored me.) Thanks again for all of your support.

I woke up, crawled out of my sleeping bag and climbed down from my bunk. It had stopped raining, but we opted to cook breakfast inside. It was too wet to eat outside. After breakfast and coffee, we packed up and got ready to hit the trail. Uber-Bot and WAN-Man were ready to go, but I still needed water. I told them to go ahead, I’d catch up. It only took me a minute or two to fill up my Nalgene bottles.

There are two trails leaving the 501 Shelter. The one we came in on, which is blazed blue. Or a red blazed one that comes out a little further to the north. I didn’t know which one they had taken, but I decided that if they took the Red Blaze I’d never catch up if I took the Blue Blaze, and if they took the Blue Blaze I might be able to cut them off at the pass using the Red Blaze.

I headed off following the Red Blazes, until that trail dead ended on another trail. I looked both ways, but I didn’t see any blazes. I was unsure of which way to go. I backtracked, but the red blazes had definitely led to this spot. It didn’t look like the AT, it was overgrown and unblazed. Of course, the trail the day before had been rather overgrown also. If it was the AT, I’d need to turn left. So I made a left and started walking. I still didn’t see any blazes. After a while, the trail dead ended at another intersection.

This must be the AT, I thought. I turned left and started walking. But there were no blazes, no signs, no hints of any sort. So I turned around and headed the other direction in search of a clue. But there was nothing, do I turned around again and started walking. I walked until I was about ready to start backtracking again, but in the distance I saw a white sign. I walked to it and looked at it. It had symbols indicating Horses and Bikes and at the very bottom in small print, it said ATC. If this wasn’t the trail it must surely lead to it. I walked on until once again the trail dead ended on to another trail. This time when I peered down the trail I saw a familiar white blaze on a tree.

After wandering around for a half hour or so, I had finally found the trail. I started walking and tried to set an aggressive pace. I was way behind the other two now. The pace did not last long however, as the trail was replaced with boulders. I had to step from one to the next as I attempted to follow the blazes. It didn’t take long before I was thoroughly defeated.

The Appalachian Trail runs from Maine to Georgia. It was formed, in part, to connect existing trails that ran through the great Mountain Ranges of Tennessee, Virginia and New England. There are interesting mountains in Pennsylvania, but there are located to the North and West of the AT. The goal of the Trail in Pennsylvania is to go East. While we think of the East Coast in terms of North and South, you have to remember that Boston is hundreds of miles east of Washington, DC. So the Trail goes East over the rocky ridges of Pennsylvania.

As a result, the Trail through Pennsylvania is somewhat uninspiring. It runs over low rocky ridges, across farmland, and through a number of towns. There are very few spectacular views. The most remarkable thing about the Trail in Pennsylvania is, as a matter of fact, all of the rocks. Large Boulders you have climb over. Fields of boulders that you have to traverse, hopping from one rock to the next. Trail that has smaller rocks sticking up all over the place, just enough to make you have to watch your step to avoid rolling your ankle. Opinions about Pennsylvania may vary, but is generally agreed that Pennsylvania has more than its share of rocks.

As I walked over the rocks, I found myself going slower and slower. I kept thinking, around this next bend, I will find real trail again. But I didn’t, I found more rocks. I just stood there and stared. I did my my best to will teh rocks away, but it wasn’t enough. So pushed on to the next bend, once again hoping for an end to the rocks. And so it went for nearly a mile. To say I was moving slowly, would have been an understatement. I hadn’t walked more than two miles and I had already had enough. And then it started raining.

I kept walking. Because that is what you do. You either sit down on the trail in exasperation or you keep walking. And if you choose the latter, sooner or later you will still have to get up and walk anyway. The rain wasn’t more than a drizzle, and it let up after a bit.

Eventually I caught up with my friends. They were waiting for me at a campsite. I don’t know exactly how long they waited, but it was a long time. I cooked some ramen noodles for a lunch, and this seemed to give me a little energy. We set off again, and I did my best to keep up with them.

I did pretty good for several miles. But I ran out of steam. My friends walked out of site as I trudged along. I knew the shelter couldn’t be too far, but I was so beat, I couldn’t help but walk slow. I finally arrived at the shelter. The Uber-bot and I, opted to tent. The WAN-Man stayed in the shelter with two older section hikers.

I set up my tent. And cooked my dinner. I was exhausted. I went in to my tent, read for a few minutes, then went to sleep. I woke up to the sound of driving rain. I did a quick inspection of my tent and my gear, but everything seemed to be keeping dry. I closed my eyes and was out like a light.

Continued.

I go backpacking. Most of you know that. I am on a mission to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail, one section at time.

The section we had picked for this weekend ran 35 mile from Swatara State Park to the tiny town of Port Clinton, in Pennsylvania.

I walked with 2 friends from from work; our Network Analyst, who sports the trail name, WAN-Man; and a technician, we call her the Uber-bot.

We took off work on Friday, so we could make a three-day weekend of it. It was fun, even though we are allowed to take off work it had the feel of playing hooky.

We got on the trail around noon. The walk started very uninspired. The trail went along a small road, and then up and under Interstate 81. But then it went in to the woods. Once I within the thick summer canopy again, I immediately felt like I had some returned, even though I had never been on this section before. I didn’t have much time to start waxing poetic about it before the trail began to ascend steeply up Blue Mountain.

It was hot and humid. And we were drenched with sweat as we climbed. We reached the top and followed the trail along the rigdeline. The trail was overgrown and the underbrush rubbed against our legs as we walked. After a while I noticed that a lot of that underbrush had three leaves. Poison Ivy. The only saving grace was that I sweating so much that I could hope that the sweat running down my leg would wash off any of the poison that may have rubbed against my leg.

For the most part it was decent trail and we made good time. We covered the first 8 miles or so before the trail turned extremely rocky. It was slow going, trudging through the rocks, especially since I knew that I was close to the shelter and I was ready to be done.

Eventually, we crossed Pennsylvania Route 501 and not long after that we came to the 501 Shelter. I had been told that the 501 shelter was great. But I was immediately unimpressed by it. It wasn’t a shelter in the traditional sense. It was more like a bunkhouse. It had four walls and doors. A huge sunroof. 12 Bunks. and a large table in the middle. On the table was a pizza box. Apparently they delivery to the ’shelter.’ Outside there was running water and even a primitive shower set up.

It went against a lot of what I am looking for when I go backpacking, namely to get away from it all. I considered pitching tent, but rumor had that violent thunderstorms were called for. We unpacked and claimed bunks. We went outside to cook, the stench of the eight hikers staying there was a bit strong.

We ate and sat around and talked until the bugs drove us indoors. I wrote in my journal for a while and then went to bed. I fell asleep quickly. II woke in the middle of the night to hear driving rain on the roof and thunder. This wasn’t my ideal shelter, but on this night I was glad of it.

Continued.

I woke up, got up and started up my stove to heat some water for coffee.

I love coffee. For many trips, coffee was an issue for me. At first, I packed instant coffee. But instant coffee isn’t any better on the trail than it is at home. As a matter of fact it is worse. After all this walking, I can’t help but feel that I deserve a good cup of coffee. After that, I tried these little coffee packets that you dip in hot water like a tea bag. The flavor was better than instant, but it always tasted weak. Finally, I discovered a rugged coffee press designed for backpacking.

I put the coffee in the press and poured the hot water in. While that was brewing, I started to work on breakfast. I added some water to the dehydrated tomatoes, potatoes, and mushrooms. I mixed some water in with the powdered eggs. I push down the plunger on the coffee press and take a sip of hot freshly brewed coffee.

I throw the vegetables in a pan put them over the stove. Once the water is cooked out of them and the potatoes start smell good, I add the eggs. A few minutes later, I’m eating scrambled eggs.

After I was done eating, and I had cleaned up my pans, I started packing up my pack. I stopped for a moment to look at a map with Kurly. She was trying to figure out where her and Swanson would camp that night. As we were looking at the map, the young kid (whose name still escapes me) dropped his pack and jumped back, and flung a mouse to the floor of the shelter.

“Holy Shit. Fuck! It was in my pack! Fuck!”

We were all watching him now. He went to see what kind of damage the mouse had done to his pack. He jumped back again. He threw another small mouse from his pack. He started removing the contents from his pack. Once he removed the larger items, he turned the pack upside down and started shaking it. Another little mouse fell out. A few more shakes and a larger mouse with another small one clinging to it fell to the floor and scampered away.

My feelings about shelter mice are well documented. But this was taking it to another level. It looks like those mice had taken up residence in his backpack. He maintains that his pack was mouse free when he arrived. But I have a suspicion that he picked up those mice in another shelter and had carried them to this shelter. Those nasty little bastards moved into his pack and built a nest. While we standing there gaping at his pack, one of the the little ones tried to crawl back into his pack. It was at this point that I decided that from now on, I’d sleep in a tent.

People packed up and headed out. The thru-hiker Sourdough asked me if I could take a note and leave it at Matt’s Creek Shelter. He wanted to warn other north bound hikers that a bed and breakfast that was listed in the trails guides was no longer open. I told him I’d be happy to take the message and leave it in the shelter for other Hikers to see. Since Matt’s Creek Shelter was our destination for that night, it was no inconvenience at all.

The Kiteman put on his pack hit the trail. I told him that I would catch up with him soon. I sipped my coffee and looked at the map. For the day we had to climb 800feet. Then we would descend 2700 feet to the James River. From there would go two more miles to Matt’s Creek Shelter, 12 miles in all. The next day would bring a 3000 foot climb over another 12 Miles.

I put on my pack and started walking. The morning was foggy and humid. I found myself winded quickly. I couldn’t help thinking that it was going to be a long day. I caught up with the Kiteman at the top. We took a break and looked at the view. But there really wasn’t much to see. Most of the view was shrouded in fog.

We wandered at a leisurely pace, chatting and enjoying ourselves. After a bit, we passed a sign. It said that we had only walked 4 miles, and that we still had 8 miles to go. I picked up my pace and got serious about covering some trail. I had soon left the Kiteman behind me somewhere and was walking alone again. Just as I thought I had found a good walking pace, the trail started descending steeply.

At some point a day or two earlier I had stumbled while walk. In the process, I must have bruised my ankle. I didn’t really notice it much, until I started walking downhill. Now every step pushed my boot into the bruise. At first it hurt, this grew to a nice throb, until I was stopping every few steps to relieve the pain some. I tightened the laces on my boot to try to help. I walked a few yards, then decided to loosen the laces. Nothing was helping. As I walked I began to get very angry. A very irrational angry. I was not having fun. Soon I was thinking strange thoughts like, at least tomorrow is all uphill.

Down the mountain I walked. I seemed to go down forever. I was sure that I must be getting close to the bottom. I came around the bend and Saw a nice overlook. I walked out on to the rock and looked out and saw a beautiful panorama of the James River stretching below me. Way below me. I was only halfway down the mountain! I dug in my pack and came up with some Advil. I sat and stewed and snacked.

Before long, the Kiteman showed up. If I was angry, he was livid. He tossed down his pack, looked over the edge and said, “We have to go all the way down there?”
“Yep.” I replied.
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
He noticed that I had taken of my boot, “Ankle bothering you?”
“Only, a lot.”
“Dude, I don’t know if I can walk another 26 miles after today.”
“Not knowing isn’t good.” I pulled out the map and showed him the wilderness we would be walking in to.
“Holy shit!”
“If we keep going there is no good bail out point for 22 miles or so.”
“Shit.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t want to ruin your trip… but I’m not sure how much more I have left in the tank.”
I thought about the throbbing pain in my ankle and said,”I’d rather bail at the James River today, than have to carry your pack for your tomorrow cause you pushed too far.”
“Let’s bail.”
“Let me see if I can get a signal.”

I took out my cell phone and managed to get a weak signal. I called Mrs. Jeckles and she volunteered to drop everything and head down to meet us. I told her that we would be at the James River by no later that 5. She would have trouble getting there before 7, so we would wait for her there.

I think we both felt better, knowing that the end was in sight.

He said, “Dude, I’m sorry I’m such dead weight, I’m just not in good enough shape for this shit.”
“Dude you did fine, we’ve come over 40 miles. And you just earned yourself a new trail name.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. Dead Weight.”
“I can live with that.”

We packed back up and started walking. We hadn’t gone too far when the sun came out for the first time since Saturday. The descent became less steep and the Advil must have done some good, because I could walk with out stopping every few steps now.

We spent the rest of day walking down this mountain. We arrived at the James River around 4.

I now had a dilemma. I had promised to deliver that note for Sourdough. I left my pack with Dead Weight and slack packed the 2 miles up Matt’s Creek Shelter. I dropped off his note. and then headed back. With that extra excursion, I had walked 16 miles. And my ankle was throbbing again. I made it back to the James River at just a little past 5.

We sat by the James river for a few hours, snacking, chatting and joking. At just about 7 Mrs Jeckles pulled up and drove us back to the real world.

After the 15 mile day on Sunday, I slept deeply. When I woke up it was after 7. One of the other hikers in the shelter was already gone. The other was making himself breakfast.

The rain had stopped but the air was still heavy with humidity. The Kiteman and Short Term were still burrowed in their bags. I crawled out of my bag and was assaulted by the cool, wet air. I slipped some pants on over my shorts and put on my shell jacket, which was mostly dry now.

I cooked my breakfast, (easy, hot and yummy) of instant grits and I drank some coffee. I was in no rush. I all day to get to the next shelter. It was nine miles away over fairly level terrain. As usual, Short Term and the Kiteman hit the trail. I sat around and drank my coffee.

I like these longer trips. This was the third morning waking up in the woods. You probably wouldn’t believe how quickly a person can forget their normal routine. In just three days, it seemed as normal as can be that I was sitting at a picnic table, putting my boots on. Just another day at the office. Get up. Cook breakfast. Pack up gear. Put on Boots. Walk. Walk. Walk. Eat some lunch. Walk some more. Arrive. Unpack sleeping bag and change clothes. Make dinner and eat it. Relax a bit. Maybe read or write something. Go to sleep. It is a lifestyle, I could get used to. Or, more accurately, it is a lifestyle that I very quickly do get used to.

The walking on this day wasn’t bad. I followed the trail down a hollow with a picturesque stream running next to it. Across the stream from me, I could see ruins. Foundations of buildings long gone. It was long ago, in fact, a village formed by newly freed slaves. They lived there successfully for decades until the federal government reclaimed the land to create a National Forest on.

The trail led me around the Lynchburg Reservoir and to a bridge across the Pedlar River There sitting at the bridge were Short Term and the Kiteman. I announced that I was going to cook myself lunch. As I prepared my ramen noodles, Short Term gathered his stuff and headed off towards the climb that was ahead of us. I ate my lunch and the Kiteman stomped around looking grumpy. He was tired. The walk the day before had done him in. I assured him that toady we were only walking 9 miles and he would feel better tomorrow.

Walking all day is hard. It is even harder when you do it with a 40 pound pack on your back. Then add in a rocky trail that goes over mountains and down in to hollows. It is hard work and it can wear you out. The exhaustion is cumulative. One long day wears you down for the next. If you are used to weekend trips, these longer trips can come as a quite a shock. During a weekend you can push yourself and then crawl in to work on Monday and try not to move much. But it was Monday and we still had miles to go.

The Kiteman headed out as I finished cleaning up my cooking kit. I packed my gear up and hit the trail. The climb was pretty steep, but I pushed on at a pretty good pace. In time, I passed the Kiteman. And then Short Term. Finally I arrived at the Blue Ridge Parkway. There I found Short Terms car waiting for me. Short Term and the Kiteman caught up after a few minutes. For Short Term, this was the end of the trail. We grabbed supplies out of his car and said our good byes. Short Term got in his car and drove away. The Kiteman and I were left in the woods. So we did the only thing that we could. We started walking.

A short, but steep climb brought us to Punch Bowl Mountain Shelter. Each Shelter has a unique feel to it, and this one was no exception. There was a pond there, which seemed odd up here on top of mountain. We unpacked and got ready to cook. We needed water. Most shelters have some sort of source of water. At this shelter, it seemed to mostly just be this pond. We pumped the water through the filter, but it just didn’t seem like enough.

The pond was shallow and murky. The water was relatively warm. And if that wasn’t enough; there in the water, there were salamanders and polliwogs. Yes polliwogs, you know those critters who were once tadpoles but haven’t yet become frogs. And as I took a closer look, I realized that the polliwogs were attacking and killing the salamanders. Somehow no amount of filtering seemed like enough.

It was a beautiful setting. The pond has mist rising off it and the air was remarkably still. It was easy to relax there. There was a young guy, whose name escapes me, there when had arrived. Several hikers showed up while we were preparing dinner. Micheal the Austrian, Swanson and Kurly, Sourdough and his dog Action Jackson, Rocky and Bullwinkle. We talked about where we had hiked and what was ahead for us. We exchanged stories, we laughed, and we listened. As the sun went down, the peeper (they’re frogs,) joined in. It was a great night. I went to sleep feeling relaxed and looking forward to several more days of hiking.

I’ll see about getting some pictures up for this one on Monday or Tuesday.

There are a couple of factors that one has to be aware of on the Trail. One of the Biggest is hydration. Walking miles at a time with a 30-40 pound pack on your back is hard work. You lose a lot water as you walk. And since you are in the middle of a forest, you can’t just expect to be able to drop in to a Bistro and grab a Dasani. Water is available along the trail in springs and little mountain streams. Most shelters have a natural water source nearby. The problem is that water is heavy. You don’t want to wander off into the woods carrying gallons of water. The way to address this is simple. If you encounter a water source, drink as much water as you can. Then you can carry a reasonable amount on you, 32 ounces or so.

Before I started of that morning I went to the spring and filled up all three of my 32 ounces Nalgene bottles. I treated them and then proceeded to drink two of them. Amongst hikers this is known as Cameling Up. I headed down the trail, sloshing slightly as I walked.

In my personal Backpacking experiences there have been few constants. You never know what is going to happen. But you know that the sun will rise in the East, going downhill will lead to going uphill, and that Short Term is a slow and steady hiker. So, I knew that before long I would catch up with him. I wandered along; the trail was nice and relatively level. I was making relatively good time, although I did have to stop twice to take a whiz. Maybe I Cameled Up a bit too much.

I came to the first climb of the day, a series of switch backs that worked their up the broad side of a ridge. As I climbed I was confident that I would overtake Short Term and the Kite Man. I expected to come around the next bend and see those guys standing there catching their breath. But it never happened. I got to the top, and there was the Kite Man.

“Hey Man.”
“Hey.”
“Your dad just left.”

Now I was worried. I mean maybe I was going too slowly. I’ve always walked faster than Short Term. But here he was barreling ahead of me. Things were not as they should have been. After five miles or so, I came down to an old fire road, and there was Short Term sitting and waiting for me. And if that wasn’t strange enough what he said next completely blew my mind.

“I’m feeling pretty good.”
“I guess so, I’ve been chasing you all morning.”
“So I was thinking, how far is it to the next shelter?”
“Like five more miles.”
“No, no the one we were planning on stopping at, the next one.”
“I’m not sure, a few miles.”
“Since we’re making such good time, I was thinking that maybe we should push on.”

Push on? Who was this hiker, and what did he do with Short Term?

We climbed another ridge a 600 foot ascent in a mile or so. As we sat at the top, the temperature dropped, and then it started to rain. We walked in the rain. Down the mountain and up the next. And down again. We arrived at Cow Camp Gap Shelter, wet cold and tired. The Kiteman had no interest in pushing on to the next the shelter anymore.

The Kiteman and I got there first. The shelter was empty except for a ratty old sleeping bag that some one had left there. As we were taking off our packs we surprised when a voice spoke to us from under the ratty sleeping bag.

“Hey guys.”
“Hi.”
“Where’d you get on the trail?”
“Crabtree Meadows.”
Blank Stare.
“Just south of the Priest.”
Blank Stare.
“North of here…”
“Oh… Yea. Priest Mountain? Okay.”
“How about you.”
“Well I was kinking the trail, but now I’m kind of just camping here.”

I took a look at these guy. He was wearing a hoodie, not exactly hiker clothing, but you never know. I didn’t see a pack or any equipment. My ‘creepy-meter’ was pegged. The Priest is one of the steepest mountains in Central Virginia. Every hiker we had talked to had not only heard of it, but was anticipating it. I wanted to get out there bad. But we had to wait for Short Term and we needed to take advantage of the dry shelter to cook a hot lunch if we were going to push on.

When Short Term arrived our friend had retreated under his bag again. I jerked my thumb at the bag to let him know someone was there. Before long he popped back out.

“Hi there”
“Hi.”
“Are you hiking alone sir?”
“No, I’m with these guys.”
“Do you get separated often?”
“Not really”

We unpacked our stoves and boiled water for Ramen Noodles. Our Friend rambled on about how he was trying to survive in the wilderness by eating wild edibles, but he had been fasting for three days. To purify his body and soul. He tried cook by heating a rock and cooking on that, he said. He said a lot of things. Most of it didn’t really make sense.

It was clear to me that this guy was insane. People talk and joke about people being insane all the time, He’s so crazy, that guy went nuts, so on and so forth. We’re very casual about it. So it comes as a shock when we are confronted with the real thing. I cooked my food and ate quickly. I paced as Short Term and Kiteman finished up. I was impatient to put some distance between us and him. I was sure he would happily steal our gear, if given the chance. I was concerned that he might do worse.

I thought of another shelter 350 miles north of here (near the town of Dunncanon Pennsylvania,) the Thelma Marks Shelter, where a decade ago two thru hikers were murdered by a deranged homeless person. I knew this, and I knew that there had been a few other murders on the trail in last 20 years. I felt that the trail was mostly safe, but now I was standing not 10 feet away from someone who could easily be described as a deranged homeless person.

When Kiteman and Short Term had the gear stowed and were ready to leave, we set off to climb one more mountain in the rain. I have never been more happy to set off in to the cold rain as I was right then. After a mile or so, I stopped check over my shoulder.

We pushed on. Up another 600 some odd foot ascent and then down the other side. A 2700 foot descent. The rain started to pour on us. And we walked down the mountain. As I descended, I walked through areas where some white wild flower carpeted the forest floor. The rain and humidity held the aroma of the flowers in the air. Despite the weather and my weary legs, I could not help but be amazed at the simple beauty of the experience of walking down this mountain.

At long last we reached the shelter, it was almost eight. We had been walking for nearly 12 hours. We changed out of our wet clothes and crawled in to our sleeping bags to warm up. We were all to tired to cook, so we had a dinner of trail mix, jerky and whatever other snacks we had on hand.

We were all asleep by nine.

We headed South along the Appalachian Trail under sunny skies, our spirits high and our legs still fresh. We walked at a good pace through the woods.

Backpacking is strange business. Just ask anyone. Go up to your average person on the street and tell them that your are planning to walk off into the woods. Not only that, but that you are going to carry everything you need while you are out there on your back. And just to keep it interesting you are going to walks miles at a stretch over rocky trails over tall mountains. Go tell them that and you’ll look at you as though you had two heads.

It is an odd thing to do, the body and mind know it also. They react in odd way to this trips at times too. And that’s what happened that first day on the trail. As we walking through the woods, I caught a whiff of Hash Browns. Fast Food Hash Browns. I could smell it as clearly as if I walking in Burger Kings parking lot. I called back to Capt. Shutter, “Do you smell that?”

“Hash browns?” He answered. We checked with Short Term and sure enough, he smelled them too. We caught the fragrance of Hash Brown several times over the next mile or so. Why or how, I’m not sure. The mind reacts oddly to being thrust out into the woods and being told to walk.

We climbed to the summit of a mountain called Main Top at just over 4000 feet. After a quick rest, we walked to rocky outcropping, not far from the summit, called Spy Rock. We scrambled up the rock face of this large rock that was once used as out post to monitor troop movements during the Civil War. Once on top, the view was breathtaking. It was 360-degree view showing us nothing as far as the eye could but more mountains. Not a house or road was visible. It gave some perspective in to how deep in the woods we really were. We could see the distinctive summits of the Priest and the Three Ridges to the north. To the West was Main Top, close to us and dominating the Horizon. Also visible were the Mountains known as the Little Priest and the Cardinal, plus many more whose names weren’t known to us.

I pulled out some food, since this seemed like a good place for a snack. Capt. Shutter looked at me and said, “I brought this along, just in case we came to a place like this.”

He reached into his pocked and pulled out something colorful. “It’s a small kite,” he explained. He proceeded to the center of this large rock and proceeded to fly his kite. This was the moment I had been waiting for. He had just earned a new Trail Name. From this point on, I will refer to him as Kite Man.

We descended for a while until we came a small road. There we met another thru-hiker. He was going to go into the small town of Montebello to stay at a Bed and Breakfast. We chatted for a moment and then were on our way again, passing a few more North Bound hikers as we went.

I arrived at the Seely Woodworth shelter ahead of Kite Man and Short Term. I took off my pack and relaxed. The stretch of trail that we walking on runs through the George Washington National Forest. The shelters built by National Forest Service are all the same (at least those that I have encountered,) modest three sided buildings. Big enough to hold six sleeping hikers comfortably, eight if you squeezed. Shelters come in different shapes and sizes. Some very nice, others leave a lot to be desired. This shelter fell in the middle. It was functional and clean, but not much more.

My concern was simple; I wanted to know if there were mice living in the shelter. I didn’t use to care too much whether or not there were mice, but after my experience last summer, I was much more concerned about spending the night with mice. As I was inspecting the shelter for mouse shit evidence of mice, Kite Man arrived, not long after that a young thru-hiker came down the trail.

His name was Grizzly and it was his Birthday. He was planning to go to the Bed and Breakfast in Montebello. Apparently, they were offering free food to thru-hikers. As we talking to him, Short Term arrived and then another thru-hiker named Stogie. We chatted for a bit and they headed of for hot showers and free food at the bed and breakfast.

I didn’t see any sign of mouse activity, but we set up tents anyhow. A little while later some Boy Scouts rolled in, followed later by two more thru-hikers. Every one got busy with the business of preparing dinner and then as the temperature dropped, people moved into the their sleeping bags. It was one of the nicest days I have ever had on the trail.

I slept soundly and woke up early. I got up and was surprised to see that neither Short Term nor the Kite Man were up yet. I fired up the stove and made myself some coffee. As I started to prepare my breakfast, the others joined me. We ate our breakfast and then broke camp.

Short Term left first, he likes to get an early start. After a bit, Kite Man got started. I finished sipping my coffee, took some pictures and added an entry to the Shelter Log. And then I put on pack and headed out on the trail.

Every year, I like to take a week or so and take a longer backpacking trip. This is part of my overall goal of hiking the entire length of the Appalachian Trail one section at a time. Four years ago we started out at the North End of Shenandoah National Park. This year I find my starting point about 130 miles further south, at Crabtree Meadows. In past years, I’ve walked with my dad and sometimes my brother. This year, dad would be going again and we would be joined by my buddy, Captain Shutter.

On the Appalachian Trail, many hikers user trail names, made up handles that they use to identify themselves, not unlike CB handles or internet Nicknames. I go by the name The Rain King and I call my dad Short Term, since he seems to forget the most strenuous parts of a hike not long after walking them. Or in other words, if it weren’t for his short term memory loss, he would probably quit hiking. Going into the hike I didn’t really have a name for Captain Shutter. On some of our earlier hikes, I had christened him Trail Donkey, but he had been hiking at a much better pace, so that name no longer seemed right. I was sure that a new name would present itself before the hike was over.

Crabtree Meadows is over 200 miles from where I live. A friend from work kindly offered to drive us down to our starting point and to help us shuttle dad’s car to the point he would get of the trail. She had gone hiking with us in April and earned the trail name Uber-bot for her relentless and untiring stride. It took us about four hours to get to the tiny town of Montebello, Virginia. From there we just needed to drive four miles up a small road to Crabtree Meadows. We didn’t go far on this small road before our speed was reduced to a crawl. We climbed steeply up a mountain, only to go back down the other side. The mountain dropped away sharply from the road. And the road itself was rutted and filled with large potholes. As went farther down this road, I began to feel extremely guilty for making my friend drive her minivan over this over-glorified goat-trail to a destination that I’d never been to before. We pushed on, if for no other reason, because there was no where to turn around. After inching over large bumps, down sudden drops and around hairpin turns, we finally reached the gravel parking lot that marked our destination.

Short Term was there waiting for us. He showed us where he set up his tent, and then drove off, with the Uber-bot following in her minivan to deposit his car 30 some-odd miles down the trail. Capt. Shutter and I set up our tents and then looked at our surroundings. We were camped in a field at about 3000 feet of elevation. The horizon was ringed by the summits of mountains. You couldn’t help but have the feeling that you were on top of the world. You might think that after driving to such a remote location, that we would be very isolated from the rest of the world. But that wasn’t the case at all. Camped about 200 yards away from us was a group of giggling college girls, and not long after we finished setting up our tents a family of four showed up and sent up their tents. Some time later, a bunch of drunk rednecks drove by in their Jeep Wrangler, seemingly intent on finding a way to drive it stupidly enough to overcome the design of the vehicle and roll it any way.

With our tents pitched and food bags hanging from the limb of a nearby tree, we had nothing to really do but wait. We sat on a large rock and looked at the clearing sky and talked. The air was chilly, but not uncomfortable. We sat in the dark and talked, occasionally wondering around to see what we could see. At long last, we saw head lights headed up the road towards us. We walked down to the parking lot and retrieved Short Term and thanked our friend the Uber-bot again. She drove off and the three of us were left high in the mountains of central Virginia, with nothing but the contents of backpacks.

It was late so we climbed in to our tents for the night. I read a chapter from my book and then turned off my headlamp and went to sleep. Maybe it was the cool air and the warm sleeping bag, or maybe it was just that I had slept very little the night before, but I slept incredibly well. I woke up around 6:30 and got out of the tent set up my stove and started heating water for coffee. Capt Shutter and my Dad joined me before long. We cooked our respective breakfasts and enjoyed the meal under blue skies. Once breakfast was cleaned up and our tents were stowed, we put our packs together and set off for the trail. We followed the little gravel road for about a half mile to an elevation of about 3500 feet. There we came to the Appalachian Trail. And as if on cue, two hikes came towards us, heading North. We exchanged pleasantries and in the process realized that they were thru-hikers.

After chatting for a moment the hikers continued north up the trail. And we set off in the opposite direction, headed towards a shelter that located 7 or so miles to the south.

Read Part Two.

I had thought that my feet would warm up once I started walking. But as I made my way up the first climb, my feet showed no sign of regaining any sensitivity. It was very hard to walk with my feet completely numb. I kept going, figuring that was the only way I was going to regain any heat. After a mile or two I was hot but my feet were still mostly numb.

I began to picture, taking off my boots and finding black, frostbitten toes. The longer I walked the more my mind wandered in that direction. I pictured myself show my foot minus a few toes to some young backpackers and telling them that’s what happens if you don’t keep your feet warm. I tried to think about other things, but my mind kept coming back to my frozen feet. I decided that having a little frostbite wouldn’t be so bad. It would be a like a badge of honor. Look at me. I’m a goddamned mountain man. It was so cold that my toes froze right off and I still walked 10 fucking miles!

Luckily, I caught up with Shutter before my thoughts could get any more bizarre. The temperature rose to about freezing by mid-morning. And that combined with a little sunlight really helped. I began to feel my toes again, and it wasn’t a pleasant process. It was the most painful case of pins and needles I ever experienced. But by the time we caught up with my dad, I had regained most of the feeling in my foot.

We trudged on. The temperature was dropping again and a breeze was blowing. We reached another shelter and stopped to rest and have a snack. We didn’t stop long. We began to get cold almost as soon as we stopped moving. We hit the trail again. My pack was bugging the hell out of me. My Zero Degree sleeping bag is pretty good but it is heavy and big. Because of it’s size, I had my tent lashed to the back of my backpack. This really screwed up the way the pack was supposed to distribute the weight because the tent was basically pulling straight back on my pack. To make things worse, the tent had shifted slightly to the right and was pulling the pack to the right. Every few steps I had to kind of throw the pack to the left with shoulders to give my back and shoulders some relief. I tried a few times to adjust my pack better, but my fingers would begin to go numb pretty quick and wouldn’t be able to really fix anything due to the numbness. After a while I gave up and decided to tough it out.

As we got to the end I walked double time just to hurry up and get my pack off. We got to the car and dad drove us back to my car and he headed on his way. Shutter and I cranked up the heat and the radio and began our drive back to the real world. Since we hadn’t really eaten a meal, although we had snacked plenty, we stopped at a Pizza Hut and pigged out. The staff looked at us funny, and I’m sure we deserved it. Dressed in fleece jackets, with layers and layers of clothes underneath. The unmistakable smell of campfire smoke that was all over us probably didn’t help either, but we didn’t care. Hot Pizza was making everything better.

Read Part One

As we walked towards the shelter the temperature dropped steadily. My nose and ears start to burn from the cold. The water in our bottles begins to freeze.

We reach the shelter while there is still some sunlight left. We are surprised to see that there are five other people there. And a Dog. Three of them and the dog set off a bit to set up tents. The other two had already set up their gear in the shelter and had a fire going.

I unpack my gear and set up my pad and sleeping bag. I next turn my attention to dinner. I wander down to the stream and scoop some water into my nalgene bottles. I should have purified it but it seems that my UV Steripen doesn’t function so well under these conditions. It doesn’t really matter, I’ll mostly be cooking with it anyway. I set up and light my camp stove. I put on a pot boil some water. It takes a while, but it does boil. I pour some water into my my coffee press and brew some coffee.

The camp fire is warm but you have to be close to it to feel the effect. The wind is blowing and no matter where you sit you go smoke in your face. I reheated the remaining water and make myself an easy dinner of Mountain House Chili Mac. It is good and hot. I eat while getting as close to the fire as I can.

By now the sun has set completely and the temperature is plummeting. My little thermometer on my backpack reads 20 degrees. The two other guys climb inside their sleeping bags. You can’t hardly tell there are people in the bags, because the mummy bags cover everything but their noses and mouths. We try to coax some warmth from the fire, but is a losing battle.

We know that if we leave what water we have left in the bottles, it will freeze solid before morning and render the bottle useless. My dad suggests dumping all of that water into the pot. It will freeze, but we will be able to throw it on the stove and heat it up in the morning.

Left with no other real alternatives we crawl into our sleeping bags. I glance at my watch, it a little after seven o’clock. My bag is rated for zero degrees but given the circumstances, i am still concerned about keeping warming. I climb in wearing all of my layers except for my shell jacket. I zip up the bag, which is not as easy as it sounds when your fingers are numb. I cinch down the baffle that goes around my chest to keep the heat trapped inside the bag. I cinch down the hood of the mummy bag so that only a small hole remains. Just enough to allow a little bit of fresh air in. I roll over on my side and fall asleep pretty quickly.

I wake up later. I hear an odd noise. It goes ping ping ping… ping ping. It sounds kind of metallic. I can’t put my finger on it. I roll over and dose off again. I wake up some time later. Ping Ping…. Ping What is that noise? I listen carefully but all i hear is the wind whistling in to the shelter. I sneak a peak at my watch, it isn’t quite midnight. This goes on all night, I sleep for a few hours and then woke up to the mysterious Ping Ping noise.

When morning comes around, it is cold. 10 or so degrees according to the little thermometer I keep clipped on my backback. Even though I am wearing 3 pairs of socks plus sock liners… my feet are getting very cold. I tell myself that what I need is a hot breakfast and some coffee. I go over to my stove and find that the pot was the source of the mysterious pinging was. the pot we had filled with water the night before was, of course, frozen solid. Not only that but as the ice expanding it bowed the bottom of the pot out so no that rocked on the table. I tried to get my stove running, but it would not stay lit. I think that valve that regulated the fuel was frozen.

So I chewed on a very frozen breakfast bar and lit the fire back up so we could at least melt the water back out of the pot. I was also hoping to warm up my feet. DAd and Shutter hit the trail while I packed up teh rest of my gear. Once that was done I could put it off no longer. I put on my frozen boots. My feet quicky went from cold to numb. I felt like I was walking on cinderblocks. I pulled my pack on and hit the trail.

Part Three

Friday Night.

Where is that fucking sock?

I am packing to go a backpacking trip. My dad had called me up and asked me if I wanted to go at the last minute. So here I am packing. And I can’t find this sock. I had worn them for a few hours earlier in the week and had set them aside. One of them was where I had left them. But the other…

Where is that fucking sock?

I have stuff sprawled over the living room floor and am trying to get packed. But it is after midnight and I can’t focus. Maybe I should go to bed and finish in the morning.

Where is that fucking sock?

Saturday.

I finish packing and throw my gear into the car. (I found the sock, in case you were wondering.) I pick up Shutter and we head to my dad’s house. He’s packing his car as we get there. He follows us in his car to the trailhead. Shutter and I have a good time driving there. We joke about work, the Radio Show and the walk we are about to undertake.

We drive to the place we intend to finish the hike. We park my dad’s car and put his pack in mine. We drive back to the starting point and start putting on our gear. It’s flurrying.

“It’s snowing,” I say. For some reason this makes us all happy.

We start walking. Before long the trail begins a long ascent. It doesn’t take long before I realize the two things. First, I should have ate breakfast before we started. Second, maybe I should have made it into the gym a bit more often. A lot more often. This climb is killing me. I’m out of shape and my pack is heavier than usual. All that cold weather gear is heavy. We finally make it to the top.

“It’s snowing,” I say for maybe the fifth time. We all laugh. This joke just doesn’t get old.

The snow picks up it’s intensity and dumps about half an inch in twenty minutes. But then not much else. We stop at the Quarry Gap Shelter and have lunch. I pull out my camp stove to make some soup. Today is definitely a day for hot lunch. I boil ramen noodles and add dehydrated corn, peas, tomatoes, mushrooms, and peppers. I decide to throw in some cheese too. Note to aspiring backpackers: Cheese is very hard to clean out of a pan in sub-freezing conditions. We eat our lunch and then it’s back on trail.

The cold is intense and it’s getting colder. It doesn’t bother us much if we keep moving. The snow has tapered of and a cold wind is blowing groups of clouds from the north over top of us. When there is sun on us it isn’t too bad. But when the sun is obscured by clouds, the cold starts to creep in us.

We will walk past the cabin we stayed in two years ago. As we we get closer to it, I begin to fantasize that there will people staying there and that they will offer us some nice hot dinner. I can picture it quite clearly. We would get to the bottom of the slope, where the cabin resides, the renters would look out and see us. They would comment on the extreme cold. And invite us in for hot coffee and hot food. Hopefully something including mashed potatoes. The idea of a steaming pile of mashed potatoes with butter and gravy running down the sides like a miniature volcano sounded very good to me as I walked in sub-freezing temperatures with wind cutting at my face.

We finally arrived on the hollow where the cabin is located, nestled beautifully between two ridges, and found that it was indeed occupied. Smoke rolled out of the chimney. As I stood there waiting for my companions to catch up with me, I realized that no one is going to invite a bunch of men who don’t have the good sense not to go out in to this weather in to the cabin they were staying in for the weekend. About the same time that my dad finally arrived at the bottom of the slope, a woman came out of the cabin, she looked over and saw us. She jumped a little bit, I waved to her, and she waved back. She went around the corner of the cabin and out of site. A little kid peered out the door and saw us. She was obviously scared to see three guys standing around in the woods outside of the cabin.

“Mommy.
“Mommy! Mommy where are you?
“Mommy!”

Our chances for mashed potatoes seemed slim, so we hit the trail and proceeded to climb out of the valley.

Part Two

Phone Rings.

“Hello?”
“Hey Jeckles.”
“Hey Dad.”
“Want to go backpacking this weekend?”
“I thought you were going to the lake.”
“No, you grandmother isn’t going to meet me there after all, she will be with your Aunt.”
“This Weekend?”
“Yea.”
“It’ll be cold.”
“Yea.”
“I have this silly radio thing to do right now, but if Mrs Geek doesn’t mind… Count me in.”

Mrs Geek didn’t mind.

We could not have picked a better weekend to go hiking.  The weather was cool and crisp.  The leaves in the trees and on the ground displayed a wonderful array of colors.  It was damn near perfect.

We drove to the trail head Saturday morning.  As we headed north, the clouds overhead were cold and gray.  The kind of clouds that remind you of snow even thought it was too warm for that.  We were about halfway there, when the rain started.  My companions for the weekend, Shutter and my dad, both look at me and start ribbing me about my reputation as the Rain King.

“We’ll drive through it,” I announced, “There are blue skies ahead.”  

I was confident for some reason.  The rain stopped not long after it started, and by the time we had reached the trailhead there was blue sky visible through clouds.  It was cooler than we expected, temperatures in the low 40’s.  We threw on fleece jackets and our packs.  We were on the trail again.

The Trail was broad and well trod.  It traveled up the ridge at a gentle grade. This is not what I expected.  I had anticipated a trail the wound up the ridge from one switchback to the next.  This is the way the Appalachian Trail tends to be.  In this case, we had received a break. The climb, as a result, wasn’t hard at all.  As we sat at the top and had some lunch, I checked the maps.   found out that the ridge we were walking on used to be a mined for coal, and that the trail that we were walking on used to be a stagecoach road between the Villages of Yellow Spring and Rausch Gap.  

As we continued our walk, I looked at my surroundings with new eyes.  I pictured a coal mining community and the business of removing coal from the earth.  I could see hints and traces of this other world around me.  We walked through the remains of the village of Yellow Springs.  There was nothing to see but a Mail Box that had been put there so to hold a log for AT hikers to comment in.  The village itself was gone.  Piles of rocks were all that remained.  I do not know if these piles were all that was left of the buildings, or simply piles of rocks that had been cleared.  It was beautiful and left me thinking back to simpler time.  A time when a man could go off and live in the mountains.

Part of me would gladly give up all of our modern creature comforts and go off to the mountains.  I think I would be content on a little sustenance farm.  Maybe I was just caught up in the beauty of the day.  The last of clouds had drifted away.  The sun was shining but not warm.  The sky was a light blue color that contrasted brilliantly against the yellow and orange leaves.  The leaves were wonderful.  The oaks and the soft wood trees had leaves of every shade of yellow and orange.  Every now and again the yellows and oranges would be broke up by the shocking red of the maple leafs, or the green of the pines, mountain laurel and rhododendrons.  These evergreens seemed oblivious to the approaching winter, even the air carried the chill of winter on it.

I walked on.  As the shadows grew longer, I started to notice odd little hills.  They seemed completely out of synch with the contour of the ridge.  By the time I had passed three or four of them, my curiosity was piqued.  The mystery was solved when I noticed the crumbled black stones, which were exposed by erosion on one of the hillocks.  They were slag mounds.  It amazes me that such a foul by-product of the coal mines given a hundred years, becomes something so beautiful.

We didn’t have to walk much further to find our destination.  The trail to the shelter led us on to a massive slag mound.  It was broad and level.  We walked a third of a mile or so on this artificial plateau.  It was lined with trees on either side of the trail so that it resembled a boulevard leading up to a country estate.  I was very excited; this was an excellent location for a shelter.  

My excitement, did not last.  We got to the shelter; it was set down in the mound, like Uncle Owen’s moisture farm residence.  It was also occupied.  Of course, that is not a problem in itself.  We have shared shelters many times and met some great folks in the process.  But what we saw this time, was something that none of us could have anticipated.  The Yuppie couple that was at the shelter had a pitched a four man dome tent inside the shelter.  Not only that, but they had it set so that the door of the tent opened into the third of the shelter that wasn’t occupied by the tent.  They had used the remaining space to spread out there gear as though the shelter was the front porch of their tent.

Their dog ran loose and came up to greet us as we stood there, unsure of what to do or say.  After a hushed conference, we decided to pitch our tents at the end of the slag mound, about a hundred yards beyond the shelter.  It was a good spot for camping and we know that shelters are never guaranteed to be available or empty.  It did not bother us so much to tent, what bothered us was the lack of etiquette.  There is an etiquette that goes with backpacking, some unwritten rules that are respected by most backpackers.  

You carry your own gear.  If you need it you carry it.  If you don’t carry it, you live with out it.  You don’t eat where you sleep.  You leave no trace when you camp.  If you want privacy when you camp, you pitch a tent.  Shelters are communal in nature.  You make room for other when you are in the shelter. Or as the saying goes, “The shelter isn’t full, until the last person is in.”  And when you bring a dog, you make sure he isn’t a nuisance to others.  Not everyone likes dogs.  When my brother comes with us, he brings his dog.  But he makes sure that if other people are around the dog is on a leash.  And if other people are at that shelter, the dog and he sleep in a tent.

It was upsetting for us to see these Yuppies ignore all of these unwritten rules.  Maybe they didn’t know.  But they didn’t seem to care, even as it became apparent that we had planned to stay at the shelter.  The only redeeming thing was that the woman looked like she was terrified of us.

We made a roaring campfire to keep the chill off.  We made our dinners and drank coffee.  And after a while, we went back to our tents.  It got cold in the middle of the night, but I was comfortable.  By morning, it was nice out, sunny and temperatures approaching 50 degrees.  I made myself a big breakfast.  My dad and Shutter were already packed and ready to go before I had even started to eat.  I hate to rush in the morning, so I told them to head out with out me.  Dad left first, and Shutter headed out about 20 minutes later.  I took my time and packed up.  It was a slow start for me.  My boots weren’t quite right and I knew that I would have a monster blister if I didn’t fix them.  So I stopped after walking less than a quarter mile and fixed my boots.  I was back on the trail and trying to make good time but then I realized I was on the wrong trail, when I noticed orange blazes instead of the familiar white.  I back tracked a couple hundred yards to where the Orange Blazed trail had intersected the AT.  

Back on track, I kept walking.  I shed a few layers as I started to ascend the Second Mountain.  The trail was poorly marked and I had to stop several times to find the path.  I passed the Yuppies from the shelter, on the way up the mountain.  I pushed harder to make sure I got ahead of them.  The trail meandered around the top of the mountain before descending.  

I still hadn’t seen a sign of Shutter or dad.  I descended very quickly, hoping that my knees and ankles would hold up to the abuse.  At the bottom of the mountain I caught them.  Before long, we reached the end of our hike.  We sat down on the side of the road and waited for our ride.  It was damn near perfect.

My pack is packed.  Food is put ready.  Water bottles filled.  Boots and wool socks laid out.  I must be ready to go backpacking.

The weather looks like it is set to be awesome.  60’s and sunny.  And nice and chilly in the nighttime.  Perfect camping weather.  As usual, I’ll take the camera and try to get some decent pictures.

And as I probably say every time I get ready to go hiking.  I look forward to the release.  Somewhere along the way, the mind let’s go in a way that just doesn’t happen in my day to day life.  

I need this fix like a junkie.  And as I sit here, knowing that a good night’s sleep is in order, can’t relax because the anticipation has me too wired for sleep.

Have a nice weekend.

Full Circle. I sit at the top of the Priest. Part of me amazed at the beauty of nature around me. Part of me exhausted and wishing that I had slept better. Wednesday started seven miles north of here. And 2000 feet lower.

I will add pictures soon.

Wednesday was the big day. The day I had looked forward to all week, the day I looked forward to even when planning this trip. Wednesday was the day that we climbed the Priest. But first we had to descend 1000 feet to the Tye River. The trail was in great condition and I covered the three miles to the Tye River quickly. At the Tye River, I found a suspension bridge that had been built solely for the Appalachian Trail. We took a small break there, but there was no point in delaying.

We had 3000 feet to climb over four miles of trail. It was long walk. I’m not sure how else to explain it. Have you ever been to the Statue of Liberty? Did you take the stairs to the top? Well that’s about 100 vertical feet. We did 3000 vertical feet. With packs on. You may be asking yourself, why anyone would want to do that. Well, when you to the top of the Statue of Liberty, you get a few minutes to look out of a small scratched up window while, be jostled by tourists. On the other hand, on top of the mountain, we could see forever. Just sitting on a rock on higher than anything else the eye can see. It’s a much better view trust me. It’s worth the climb.

As we climbed, I knew that we would pass the Cripple Creek at about 800 feet up. I planned to camel up and fill up my water at that point. After we hiked a bit I saw a little stream trickling down the mountain. I was a little disappointed, I was hoping for something bigger. It was too small to get water out of, so we just took a break. About a half mile down the trail I heard water again. This time it wasn’t a trickle either. I was pleased to find the Cripple Creek was just was I was hoping for.

I stood on a rock in the middle of the stream and put head in. The cold water refreshed me. We took another break. Drank the water, and filled up our water bottles, this would be the last chance till the top.

I started walking. And then I kept walking. Most of the time, I didn’t even think about the climb. I just kept going. My mind wandered as I continued. When I started backpacking, I would have believed that there was some trick to climbing big mountains. The truth is the only trick is not stopping. Even though I was hot and tired, I kept on, only stopping occasionally to take a drink. After a while, there was a break in the trees, and what I saw was blue sky. I could tell that I was higher than most of the mountains around me.

I came to a nice big rock with a view and I spied a shady spot. I sat down in the shade. I took off my shirt and laid it on the rock to dry. I sipped water and ate beef jerky, while taking in the view in front of me. The Tye River Valley rolled out in to the distance. Through the hazy summer air I could see farms and ponds and trees in the valley below me, 2000 feet below me.

Another hiker, coming down the mountain, disturbed the serenity of my break. He came off of the trail and stood in front of my view. He did not look like the typical hiker. The potbelly that hung over the belt strap hinted that walking was not an everyday activity for this fellow.

Excerpt from my Trail Journal

Saw a nice view at approx. 3000 ft. A fat man, coming from the summit, stopped and talk about everything, including that there were mice in the shelter.
“The got in my sugar, I usually put everything away, but I forgot the sugar. I could tell they were in it, but it didn’t look like they had fouled it. So, I guess that it’s still good to use.”

From that point on, I stopped listening to the fat man. Finally he got back on the trail and walked north, down the mountain. I got up and put my shirt and my pack back on. I started walking south, toward the top.

I climbed the last 1000 feet in sort of a stupor. I was tired and hot. The feet kept going, but the mind was finished. When the trail started to level, my adrenaline started pumping. I had made it to the top. I was standing at 4096 feet above sea level. I found a nice rock out cropping and waited for dad. It was beautiful. I was higher than everything around me. It is quite possible that I was standing higher than I ever had, excluding airplanes. The only disappointing thing was the haze. I could barely make out the features of the Three Ridges as I looked to the north. To the south, there was less haze. I could see Main Top and Spy Glass. But those are mountains for another year. My walk was about over.

Dad arrived and after he was rested we walked a half-mile or so to the shelter. The shelter was set in beautiful meadow situated at about 4000 feet. The shelter itself lest much to desired. The shelter was old and full of graffiti carved in to the wood over the last three decades. There was trash inside the shelter. Apparently, the fat man lest out more than sugar. I swept out the shelter, in effort to remove all mouse attracting materials. For a while we just sat. After a climb like that, sitting at picnic table is the perfect recreation.

As the day grew long, the mosquitoes spurred me into action. I put on long pants and got out my cooking gear. We had dinner and made coffee. There was plenty of wood around, so I decided to make a campfire. It would be a celebration of the climb and of a good hike. Once the fire was roaring, we sat back and enjoyed it. As the sunset, we sat in the shelter and watched the fire and reflected on the days we had spent on the trail. We both agreed this was the best trip we had taken.

Even though it was still pretty early, we decided to turn in. Before we even turned off our headlamps, we heard them. Scratching along the walls. Squeaking at each other. Mice! Of course there were mice, I didn’t really think they had left just because the fat and his sugar had gone away, but I guess my tired brain had kind of hoped just that. No problem, I thought to my self, I’ve slept with mice in the shelter before, and I’ll do it again. But this shelter was small and my head was near the wall. I could hear them running up there above me above my face. I turned my sleeping bag around, so that my head was near the opening of the shelter. My dad laughed at me, but before long he had turned his bag around, too.

I closed my eyes and attempted to put the mice out of my head. That worked for a minute or two, until one of them ran across my sleeping bag right across my back. That was too much. I wanted to pitch a tent, but it was already dark and I was tired. I lit my candle, thinking that this would scare them back to their hiding places. These mice were unimpressed and unconcerned with my candle. I laid very still and tried to put them out of my mind again. After an eternity, I felt myself drifting towards sleep. I blew out my candle.

Some how I slept through the night. I woke up around 5. I heard the mice, but I was rested and unconcerned. I laid there, with my face an inch or two away from the edge of the shelter, looking at the meadow in the predawn light. It was very peaceful and tranquil.

Then the little mouse walked, literally, right in front of my nose. Having that filthy rodent less than inch away from my nose was too much for me. I jumped up and screamed, “Jesus!”

My dad woke up and asked what was happening. I explained and he just laughed at me. I looked at my watch, it read half past five. Time to get up, I decided. I climbed out of my bag and started boiling water for coffee.

Excerpt from my Trail Journal

It is before dawn as I write this. Why? Not because I want to see the sun rise (but that will be nice) I’m up, drinking coffee now, because I’ve been chased out my shelter by mice. I normally take a you don’t bother me — I won’t bother you attitude towards the mice.

These mice didn’t play by the rules. When one ran an inch from nose, I decided to get up…

Note to self. When a fat man, especially a fat guy who seems like he would eat his heart out in the shelter, warns you about mice in the shelter, pitch a tent.

We packed up and hit the trail. We walked about mile to Crabtree Farm Road. We got of the trail there. We walked down the road until we came to the trailhead for the Crabtree Falls trail. We walked down the trail, stopping often to look at the spectacular falls. It was a wonderful way to end the hike. And it truly was a great trip. Mice and all.

We are getting closer now. Closer that picnic table, on top of a mountain. I want to tell you why I am drinking my coffee before the sun come up. But first I have to tell you how I got here.

We had eaten our breakfast at the Maupin Fields shelter and were taking a nice break in the shade of the shelter. I went to the back of the shelter, to the spring. It was a slow moving spring and we were at a low elevation. In other words, this was not a water source that I want to take any chances with. Water purification has not been a problem for me. My wife had got me a nifty gadget for Christmas, called the SteriPen. This little device irradiates the water with UV light for 40 to 60 seconds. Once it is done, the water is as safe as bottled water. I filled up my three bottles and two for dad. I took them back to the shelter and got out the SteriPen. I put it in the first bottle. It ran for 15 seconds or so then stopped with its little red light blinking.

I hadn’t brought my instruction book with me, but I knew that the device was not functioning properly. Given the conditions, we did not want to take any chances. Dad had in his pack some iodine capsules. We treated the water with the Iodine. Iodine is very effective for water treatment, but you need to let it sit for 30 minutes and it leaves your water tasting like the municipal pool. Having dealt with this set back, we hit the trail.

We entered the Three Ridges Wilderness Area and began our ascent of the Three Ridges. The climb was steep but the trail was in pretty good condition so we made good time. We reached a rocky outcropping on the spur of the North Ridge. We decided to take lunch there. It was already very hot and humid. I had taken my shirt off to try to cool down and to let the shirt dry while we rested, but it felt like there would be no relief. After drinking some water, I decide to look at the rocks on the other side of the rhododendron plants that where at the edge of the rocks. I am so glad I did. On the other side of the plants, a breeze blew across the rock and there was a view that words will not do justice to. I could see clearly, to the southwest of us the Pinnacle ridge where our hike would end. Directly in front me (due south) was the Priest. I knew the Priest was a pretty big mountain by Shenadoah standards. A 4,096 foot summit. It would be a 3000 foot ascent for us. But to see the that Mountain dominate the horizon was breath taking. To my left (East) I could see the Three Ridges, the North Ridge looming above us at 3,970 feet. The Center Ridge and The South Ridge very visible to us.

We sat and took in the view. We watched the Red-tailed Hawks fly above us and below us. The sun dried my shirt and the breeze cooled me down. After a while, it was time to walk again. It did not take too long to reach the Summit of the North Ridge. There was no view to see here at the top of the mountain. I was beginning to feel a little sick. My bowels were watery. I was very hot. What I wanted to do more than anything was to get to the bottom of this mountain and to the shelter where I could cool down. I knew my dad would be moving slower than I would descending the 2000 feet to the shelter, so I told him that I would see him at the shelter and made my way down the trail.

The day got hotter as I walked down the trail which was steep and rocky. When I reached The Center Ridge there was no view, but the trees were thin and the sun beat down on me. I finished the last of my water and kept on moving. The walking was slow due to the grade of the trail and the heat of the day. South of the South Ridge, there was a break in the trees and there in front of me was the Priest again, but this time I was three miles closer and it seemed even bigger. I appreciated the view just long enough to grab a few pictures. There was no shade and no breeze.

Hot and tired, I made my way off the mountain. The trail wound its way back around the mountain I had just climbed. I could water below me, but never near the trail. Finally, the trail wound back into a beautiful hollow, and there in front me of was the Harper’s Creek Shelter and the Harper’s Creek.

Excerpt from my trail journal:

The descent was tough and hot. Very hot. But the Harpers Creek Shelter was great. The Harpers Creek ran in front of it and right there was a pool about 4 feet deep. I was quite a bit ahead of dad, so after some deliberating, I stripped down and got in. Talk about cold!

I had splashed myself down in the creek, but that hadn’t cooled me down. But after standing in that cold mountain stream up to my chest, I cooled right down. After I was done, I just sat on the picnic table and dried. After a while, my dad showed up, hot and grumpy. He was in a bad mood, mostly because he was a little dehydrated and was sick of water that tasted of iodine. We spent a quite night boiling water from the creek so we would have potable water for the next day. When we climb the Priest.

In my mind’s eye I am still sitting at that picnic table, in the not so dark of pre-dawn. On top of a mountain sipping my coffee waiting for the sun to come up on the last day of my trip. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Three Days Earlier…

Excerpt from my trail journal:

Long day yesterday, longer day today. Should be on the trail by now but I am sipping my coffee and giving dad a head start.

It was a long and hot day. We had to climb Humpback Ridge and then walk 5 more miles to the next shelter, a total of 16 miles. We had gain 1200 feet of elevation over 7 miles. My dad started out earlier than I did. He knew that this walk was a bit long for him. He wanted to get some miles under his belt before the day got too hot. I took my time, finished my coffee, wrote in my journal, took some pictures. I got on the trail about 45 minutes after dad left. Overall, the climb wasn’t that steep (although there were some steep sections,) but mostly it just kept going. I caught up with dad near the top of mountain. By the time we had made it to the top it was noon. We relaxed and had some lunch, but we only halfway there. Going down took some time, the trail wasn’t great. Loose rocks and some very steep sections. It was just about three o’clock by the time we had descended down to the spring at Dripping Rocks. We sat there at Dripping Rocks, on the side of the Blue Ridge Parkway for a very long break.

We still had 5 miles to the next shelter, and it was getting late. We had known that this stretch of trail might prove to be too far us. I wanted to go at least a few more miles so that the next day did not get too long. (As it was, there was only 9 miles between the next too shelters, stretching that to 11 or 12 miles would be no problem.) We camel-ed up at the spring and were on our way again.

Oh… you don’t know what I mean by ‘camel up.’ I carry with me three 32 ounce water bottles. I usually will only fill two of them at any time. In order to keep myself hydrated, and make sure that the water in bottles can go as far as I need it too, I will ‘camel up’ at a water source. In other words, I will drink as much water as I can (like a camel filling its hump) usually about 32 ounces, but in this case I drank about 64 ounces. Yes, drinking 64 ounces of water makes me feel a little sloshy and just a touch nauseous, but it passes pretty quickly. I wanted to make sure that I had enough water to cook dinner if we decided to pitch tents some where along the trail. I also knew that my dad was getting tired, and was already a little dehydrated, so I was counting on him having any water if we stopped.

The next stretch of trail was horrible, narrow trail and loose rocks. The trail ran along the side of a steep ridge, water seeps on the side of the trail ran over the rocks making the footing treacherous. After two miles of this or so, I came to a small water fall that ran across the trail. I filled up my third water bottle here. I waited there for a while for my dad to catch up. I knew he was too tired to go to the next shelter and the poor condition of the trail was slowing him down. Unfortunately, there didn’t look like there was going to be any where to pitch a tent. My dad put on a brave face and said he could make it to the shelter, if there wasn’t a decent tenting site to be found.

We headed out again, this time I moved slower, not letting dad get too far behind me. Luckily, before we had walk a mile, I found a level spot, with a fire ring. Someone had camped here before. Part of me wanted to push on a little bit more, but I was afraid I wouldn’t find another tenting site. We stopped and pitched our tents. It was about six o’clock, we had been walking for over 10 hours!

Excerpt from my trail journal:

… as the day wore on and the trail conditions grew worse, it became clear to me that dad wasn’t going to be able to make the whole 15 miles, especially with the 500 foot [climb] at the end. It didn’t look promising for finding a place to camp, but we found one about 1.5 [miles] short of the Three Ridges Overlook.

We settled in and made dinner. The food and the rest began to help us recover. I was glad to be done walking for the day. We sat and drank coffee and relaxed. It had bee a long day, we got into our tents early and got a good night sleep.

That morning, I proposed that we break camp quickly and hit the trail. I wanted to walk the 3 or so miles that remained to the next shelter. When we got there we could make breakfast. Dad agreed so we packed up and headed out. The trail remained lousy for the next mile or so and there were no other viable tenting spots along that stretch, it made me very glad that we stopped when and where we did. After the Three Ridges overlook, the trail improved. We ascended a steep but quick 500 feet and then descended again before arriving at the Maupin Fields shelter. We took a nice long break and had breakfast and coffee there. We took our time and rested. Up next we had a 1200 foot ascent up the north side of the Three Ridges, followed by a steep 2000 foot descent.

Volume Three? Yes, Volume Three. I spend a week or so back packing every year, and this is the third year I’ve done it. I will, probably, at some point document Volumes One and Two. But until I do think of it as a Travelling Wilburys Thing.

Picture, if you can, a field. With tall grass and ferns. It is framed by trees. It is still night, but you can see clearly in the pre-dawn light. At the edge of the field is a small structure, an Adirondack shelter. And a picnic table. That’s where I am. At the picnic table, cooking my coffee and waiting for the sun to come up. I don’t usually get up this early, but we’ll get to that later. I’m at the end of my hike, the beginning of my last day on the trail. As a sip my coffee I reflect on the five days that have passed on the trail with my dad.

Excerpt from my trail journal:

Got on the trail at Saw Mill Run. Only had to walk about 3 miles but that could have killed us. It is hot. Probably in the 80’s… The climb up to the Calf Mtn Shelter is brutal. Rocky and steep. Even though we’ve only gone a few miles we [are] beat.
It was only a three mile (or so) hike, but it did wipe us out. The humidity was unreal, and after sleeping in an air conditioned house and driving in an air conditioned car, the humidity was overwhelming to us.

We hadn’t been at the shelter long before two other hikers rolled in. Two guys, John and Alan. They were very nice guys. Alan was as quiet as John was talkative. And John was very talkative. He was from the Atlanta area and had a very pleasing accent, it made everything he said sound like it belonged in a story. He told us about how had recently gone to the Everest Base Camp, and at age 63. He told us about the his trips to Grand Tetons. Before long some other hikers rolled in, but it made no difference, John kept us his friendly chatter with them as though they were old friends who had dropped in for coffee.

He teased me a bit, in a very good natured way. Calling me a ‘flat bellied, young dude.’ And giving me a hard time for being such a know it all at such a young age. And I gave him a hard time about how his stories got better with each telling. It was enjoyable evening and an excellent way to start the hike. In the morning we all parted ways, everyone headed northbound, but us. So we hit the trail and headed south, for Rockfish Gap and Paul Wolf Shelter beyond.

Excerpt from my trail journal:

Beatiful [sic] trail yesterday. Fields on top a mountain hill, McCormick’s Fields, I think, wildflowers, but lots of prickles too. Had lunch at Rockfish Gap. While we were eating I could feel the humidity increasing… Lovely trail from Rockfish Gap to shelter. Saw a bright red salamander. Got rained on but why not. I am the Rain King!

It had seemed to me that it took forever to get to Rockfish Gap. And to be honest I was becoming anxious that we would not be able to keep up with our itinerary. When I got to the Gap I pulled out my map and saw that I had under estimated how far it was to Rockfish Gap. I had already walked seven miles and it was only one o’clock. With that revelation I was able to relax a bit. Dad and I stopped for lunch under a shade tree by the side of the road. We walked down to the convenience store that was there to get drinks. We came back with our Powerades, plus dad had gotten himself an ice cream. We ate and relaxed.

My dad seems to be prone to leg cramps when we hike. Luckily, he’s found that about 8 ounces of Gatorade will prevent them completely. You would have though that after downing a 32 ounce bottle of Powerade, he would be fine. You would be wrong. After we’d been sitting there for a while he cramped up. It was painful to watch and sure it worse than that for him. I was powerless to do much but wait for it to pass. Once the worst of it was out of the way, he asked me mix up some powdered Gatorade for him. I did, and within moments of drinking in it, the cramp went away completely. There is a lesson there folks, only Gatorade is Gatorade. Maybe it was just a coincidence or maybe just enough time had passed, but we’ll stick with Gatorade just to be safe, thanks just the same.

The walk that afternoon went by quickly, only four miles. I did get rained on a bit, but it stopped raining before I reached the shelter. I was able to walk a lot of the moisture out. When I arrived at the shelter, I was pleasantly surprised t find that it was one of the nicest shelters I’d been to. Big and spacious, with a a roof that covered the ‘porch’ area and the picnic table. A small stream ran just beyond it. It was nice and tranquil. Some hikers did stop in for dinner, but then they were gone again. We enjoyed a quiet night and settled in for good night’s sleep, since the next day would be one of our longest.

Ok. Maybe conquer is a bit much, but it was a successful trip. I’ll get around to documenting it shortly. Thanks for your kind comments. I’m sure you missed me while I was gone, but now I’m back and better than ever. Or at least no worse for wear.

I walked 48 miles starting Saturday and finishing yesterday. I saw many beautiful things, I experienced extreme heat and humidity, and I thought. I spent hours walking, and my mind wandered. I thought about many things: my job and my family, nature and human nature, my misspent youth, the state of the nation and the state of man. If I get these thoughts in order, I’ll try to put them out there for you to chew on.

I’ll also try to get the story of my week together before too long. Until I do, here are some of the highlights. I met some interesting folks my fist night, I had a huge (2000 Ft) descent followed by a bigger (3000 Ft) ascent. I saw some interesting creatures: a salamander, a toad, a deer, some songbirds, some hawks and vultures, and some mice.

It been almost a month since a posted the first two parts of this story, if you are interested you can review them here and here.

We sat in the shelter and watched the rain come down. The rain was very pretty and we were
delighted that we had avoided getting drenched again. As I sat, I began to cool down. The rain had brought some cooler air with it.

Comfort is not consideration in backpacking. Weight is the issue. You carry everything you will need on your back. The trick is carry everything that you need without carrying anything else. You avoid taking something just in case. Extra batteries for your headlamp, for example. If you don’t use them, you just carried that weight for twenty some miles no reason. You might be thinking, how much could a couple of batteries weigh? Not much. But get enough of these little extras and you have an extra 5 or more pounds on your back. There is a skill to packing your pack. You change your way of thinking. I try to keep my pack under 30 pounds.

For this trip, I knew it might get cold at night. I packed my fleece pants and my fleece jacket, but only my 40 degree bag. A compromise. I could wear all of my clothes into the bag if I needed to.

I put those fleeces on and as I unpacked my gear, the rain slowed to a fine mist. I went to the spring and got some more water. We went out to the picnic table, which was thoughtfully covered by by a pavilion. We cooked our dinner and made some coffee.

As we relaxed and drank our coffee, it got colder and colder. Even with my fleeces on, I was beginning to get a chill. Before too long we got ourselves in our sleeping bags. I fell asleep with out too much trouble, but I woke up around midnight. All that coffee i had drank was ready to come back out. I crawled out of my bag and walked around to the back of the shelter. As I took care of my business, I was aware of the very cold wind that was blowing. A cold front had moved in and blew the rainy weather away. I crawled back into my bag, but I was cold. Even with all my fleeces on. Especially my feet. My feet never warmed up. I spent a long and uncomfortable night. Tossing and turning. Trying to get warm. I could feel, through my wool socks, the line of extra coldness that was were the zipper was on the bag.

After an eternity, morning came. I wanted to cook my dehydrated scrambled eggs and warm up. It was about 35 degrees. A bit cold than I had planned for. We had some trouble getting the ISO-Propane stoves to work in the cold, but eventually got some water boiled. The eggs made me feel somewhat better, but I was still cold. We were running a little late, so I didn’t want to mess with coffee. I used what was left of the hot water to mix up some hot Gatorade.

We packed up and hit the trail. It was still cold, but the sun was shining. It was a good day for a walk. It always is.

I woke up with that special stiff feeling that comes from sleeping on a plywood plank. I got up and peered out of the shelter. It wasn’t exactly raining, but it was close. I thick mist hung in the air. I fired up the campstove for some coffee and eggs. I hate to walk on an empty stomach. Maybe that’s why I like backpacking so much. I can eat as much as I want, knowing that I will burn up more calories than I am eating as I walk.

We walked and the mist hung in the air, muting the colors of spring that were all around us. The trail was lined with these little flowers. By summer they would be nothing more than undergrowth, but this spring day they were flowers. Flowers laid down to mark our way through the woods. As morning moved into afternoon, the mist finally began to burn off. Occasionally, enough sun would break through the clouds to cast shadows briefly. This would bring about a series of shouts to each other. Each of us noticing the sun and predicting more or announcing that it wouldn’t last. Around the halfway point of our walk was a nice shelter.

We stopped in had lunch. Beef jerky and cheese, with a snack bar for a dessert. The sun was nice enough to come out and warm the air while we ate. After eating we refilled our water and headed out.

The walk was uneventful. We walked a mile or two till we came to a significant climb. It was a steep, switch backing climb up the side of a ridge. It might appeal to a mountain goat, but the rest of us just grumble and keep walking. A climb like that can wear you out pretty quick. I decided that I wanted to get to the top as quickly as I could. I was beginning to get tired and I was concerned that if I took my time on the climb, I would wear myself completely. No breaks, I told myself and started walking. And I didn’t take a break until I reached the top. There were times when I might have moved faster had a took a break. But I kept plugging. One foot in front of the other.

Finally, I got to the top. I was hoping for a breath taking panoramic view. There wasn’t one. But there was a meadow sprawling across the top of the ridge. With a lonely tree sitting on the far side of the field from me. Not the kind of view you’d find on a postcard, but perhaps the kind you would find on an artist’s canvas. That is another part of these walks I enjoy. The great vistas everyone can get to. There are parking lots nearby and the tourist take a short hike up to see them. But in the course of walking I find spots of great beauty, places that most people never see. Place that may be ordinary one day. But at the moment I pass them, the light is just right and I know that I am seeing unique beauty.

I sat in the meadow and caught my breath and had a snack. After a while, my companions came over the horizon and into my meadow. After a time we continued to walk. We had another small climb to go and then we were there. I could here the rumble of distant thunder. I found new energy in my legs and picked up my pace. I hadn’t managed to dry all day just to get rained on now. As we got to the shelter, thunder rumbled and the rain came down. We sat inside and watched the rain. This shelter was a contrast to the last one. It was big and well kept. We set up our geared and waited for the rain to subside.

Concluded in Part Three

A good walk. Some backpacking. That was just what I needed. I was excited about the trip, like a kid before christmas. I packed my pack. I prepared my food. I checked the maps. I was barely able to get through the half day of work on Friday.

My father picked me up around four o’clock and we: dad, my brother, the dog and me, were off towards the trailhead. When we arrived I had my pack on and was bouncing from one foot to the other with pure energy (besides it was a little chilly.) I opted to wear shorts even though the temperature was in the 50’s and dropping. My legs would warm up as we walked.

We hit the trail and started walking. Before we had walked a quarter mile, the skies opened up and it started to rain. We threw down our packs and scrambled to get our pack covers on before the packs got too wet. The rain did not dampen my enthusiasm. I was out-walking my companions, but I didn’t worry about it. We had a climb a head of us, so I pushed forward. After a while, I burned off the extra energy. It looked like I was at the top, so I took a break and drank some water and ate some jerky while I waited for my brother and dad to catch up.

The rain had slowed to a cool mist. We walked and found that there was some more ‘up’ left in this mountain. If you haven’t hiked much, you may believe that climbing a mountain is simply a matter of setting your sites on the top and going. In reality, you can rarely see the top of the hill, ridge or mountain that you are climbing. Since the trail follows the natural contour of the mountain, you may think that you see the top only to have the trail turn, where you discover more ‘up.’ We often joke with each other as we walk. Saying, “I think it is leveling out” or “Look, I found some more ‘up.’”

This particular mountain is known as Dick’s Dome. I assume that it is called a dome because it levels out and has a broad top, as opposed to a peak. We walk across the top of this dome through open fields that might have been beautiful on another day. But on that night, a thick fog had rolled in, limiting our view and robbing the world of it’s color. As we walked through field atop of Dick’s Dome the sky grew darker and a biting breeze blew across blew with no trees to shelter us from it.

As it started to get very dark we found the blue blazed trail that led to Dick’s Dome Shelter. We walked down the trail to the shelter and the it was a black as midnight even though it was only eight o’clock. We reached the shelter. No one was there. I couldn’t get a good look at in the dark but I could see from the inside that it was pentagon shaped. We stood there for a minute trying to figure out how to arrange ourselves inside, but just then it started to pour. We hopped in and decided we would arrange ourselves from within.

Of course there are no rules for backpacking, there is no one to enforce them. But there are a couple of items we could call backpacking etiquette. One bit of etiquette is this:

Do not eat where you sleep.

We peered out into the rain and the darkness at the picnic table out there and decided that sometimes etiquette is overrated. We fired up the campstoves and soon we had hot coffee and dinner in front of us. For some reason I had packed a small candle. I lit it and provided nice lighting inside the little shelter. We joked abouts the virtues ‘not too damp’ versus the quality of ‘mostly dry.’ Trust me, it’s a more interesting conversation when you are sitting inside an odd pentagon shaped structure during a thunderstorm.

My brother gave the dog the dog a rawhide bone and he settled down to chew on it. We climbed into our sleeping bags. I took some notes and soon I was often to sleep. This trip was off to a good start.

I’m going backpacking this weekend. Hurray! It, of course, is going to rain. I don’t care. I’m extra happy about this trip because it is the first time in a good while that my dad, my brother and I have all gone on a trip at the same time. Oh, and the dog too. It is going to be a pretty simple hike. Twenty miles spread over three days. But I am so psyched.

Backpacking is such an outlet for me. I think of it as kind of a zen release. My apologies to anyone who has a better grasp of zen than I do. It goes like this. You take yourself away from all the normal trappings. Put yourself in the woods. (We can’t call it wilderness, but close enough.) Then you start walking. Two miles, no problem. Five miles. Your focus begins to change. Or mine does anyway. Back up. Let me explain to you how my mind works.

My mind is in constant motion. Thinking about … well if you’ve read much of this blog you have a hint of what it is like in there. I go over the week at work in my head. I plan for the next one. I think about baseball, the NFL draft, my blog, your blog, how my Linux box is doing, about that time with what’s his face, about my kids, about my wife, about plans for future, about mistakes of the past. All the time. It just keeps going. And mostly that is good. But as you may be able to imagine, it can also be exhausting.

Now, as I was saying, walk five miles. With a pack on you back. You start to get tired. You have to push on. The mind begins to focus. On the walking. Walk a few more miles. Exhaustion sets in. The mind narrows its focus even more. It cares about one thing. Getting done walking. Just one step. And then another. Another. Over and over until I arrive at my destination. A shelter in the woods. I arrive with a mental silence that is rare for me. I sit down and my brains says, sitting, and nothing else. And then I can tend to the most simple yet crucial things in life. Getting food and establishing shelter. Back to basics.

It’s very refreshing. I will tell you all about it. And I am bringing a camera so there will even be pictures. Probably.

Have a good weekend. I will.

Read Part II

My sleep didn’t last long. My sleeping bag wasn’t heavy enough and I woke up shivering. I could see by the luminescent hands on my watch that it was only around 10 o’clock. The river was still roaring. I felt like I was laying on a plank. This is most likely because I was. I couldn’t get comfortable. Every time I fell asleep, something woke me up. I rolled to my side, my back, my stomach. Every time that I woke and looked at my watch, I hoped to see that I had been asleep for hours and it was almost morning. Each time, I was disappointed when I found that only a few minutes had passed. It was a long night. I wasn’t the only one having trouble sleeping either. Dirka was restless. He had walked pretty well, but now that we were done walking he did not know what to do with himself. He paced and whined. Yes whined… he makes this high pitched little noise when he is anxious. I don’t think Dirka slept much, which means my brother didn’t get much sleep either. I woke up, sore and exhausted. My back ached from sleeping in the shelter, my knees and feet ached from the 11 miles the day before. We started to pack up our stuff after our morning snack. I put new dry socks on and put my feet in my boots which were still pretty wet. What a great feeling.

Dirka was very ready to go. He kept straining against his leash. Eventually the rest of us were packed and ready to go. We said goodbye to Notes and wished him luck on his thru-hike. And then we were on the trail again. I was too tired, I was slogging before we had walked a mile. But I was happy. And it wasn’t raining. We started up a pretty steep climb. Dad and I slowed right down, but Dirka was still straining to get ahead. Finally my brother couldn’t take it anymore, he decided to let the dog wear himself out. He was going to walk at Dirka’s pace for a while. I tried to keep up with them, but I couldn’t do it. I was just too beat. Dad and I continued on at our pace. We finally got to the top. We expected to find my brother and the dog there, but instead we found a troop of Boy Scouts there. We chatted with them, one of the boys showed us where there was a Copperhead. We climbed up the Pinnacle Rocks and enjoyed the view. It was starting to get warm and humid, but the breeze up there was nice and the view was fantastic.

After a short rest we moved on. The trail ran along a ridgeline for most of our for this trip. We figured it would be pretty easy walking. We were wrong. There were rocky outcrops all along the ridge and the trail instead of going around them went right over and through them. As we walked and my legs got more tired I kept kicking the tips of rocks accidentally. Each time I did it, pain shot through my toes straight to my brain. After a while we came to a road crossing. There we found my Dirka the Dog along with my brother. My brother looked whipped, but Dirka was still straining at his leash. We stopped and had lunch there. We met a lady who waiting for here husband. He was running the entire trail. He ran like thirty or forty miles every day. She said he was going to take a break soon, so he could go run in a one hundred mile/24 hour race. We smiled and nodded. 100 miles in 24 hours! Some break.

We got back on the trail. Before long Dirka the Dog had dragged my brother ahead of us. Dad and I trudged along, climbing over rocks, and me doing my best not to kick them. I kicked a lot of rocks that day. The day wore on and my feet were killing me. I was no longer enjoying myself, I only wanted to get to the end. Eventually we did. Dirka was there waiting for us, so was my brother. I was dead tired, but by the time I got home, peeled my boots off and took a shower I knew I would be doing it again soon.

And I have… many times. And most of those times its rained — at least a little bit. It doesn’t bother me. I know I will never get rained on like that first time. I expect it to rain when I backpack. It is my destiny. I am the Rain King!

Read Part I

We finished the climb and started walking along the ridge. It had stopped raining, but everything was wet. Each step was a splash of water being forced out of my wool socks. I could see the water seeping up through the laces of my new boots. They didn’t look so new anymore. The trail was a mess, more mud than anything else. I had given up trying to avoid stepping in mud or water. I slogged on not caring where my feet landed. We reached the Deer Lick Shelters and took a break.

There were already two hikers there for the night. One of them was a thru-hiker we had met at PenMar. The other was a heavy guy who was happy to chat with us. He lit up a cigarette as he explained that he was on a 4 week section hike. I couldn’t help but think that it was hard to believe that a man his size who smoked (3 cigarettes in the time we were there) was going to walk everyday for 4 weeks. My dad was tired and actually so was I, although I did not realize it at the time. My brother and the dog, as usual, showed no signs of tiring. Dad kind of wanted to spend the night there, but we talked him out of it, mostly because that would have meant walking 14 miles or so on Sunday. I was relieved. That section hiker creeped me out.

We headed back on the trail, having agreed that we would spend the night at Antietam Shelter, right next to the Antietam creek. The guide book had said that as you descend from the ridge you will hear the babbling of the Antietam Creek. As we descended from the ridge we heard not babbling but the roar of water rushing out of the mountains. We found that the babbling Antietam Creek was more of a roaring river. It had flooded its banks and the little bridge that the trail crossed was unreachable. We could have waded across the stream but the water was moving very fast and there was a trail labeled “High Water Blue Blaze.” We could see the shelter across the stream from us, so we knew we wouldn’t have to go far. We took the detour. We were wrong. The detour took us over a mile around to the shelter. Having already laid eyes on the shelter, that was the longest mile I had ever walked.

After walking in rain and mud for six hours or so I had arrived at my destination: the Antietam Shelter. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. It was not a very nice looking structure. I looked inside and it was worse. I don’t know if can express to you how dingy this thing was. Even a great shelter isn’t much more than three walls a floor and a roof. This one had all of those things, but the floor was worn and there was a one foot gap between the front of the shelter and where the floor began. It had some trash and debris at the bottom of it. We could not reason out what purpose this gap existed for other than some sort of flood protection, but that didn’t really make sense either. My dad and brother assured me that there were many shelters that were better than this. The Deer Lick Shelter we had stopped at earlier certainly was nicer. I didn’t really care though. At least I was done walking. I took off my boots and changed into dry clothes. We cooked dinner and ate it. I was feeling much better. Its amazing what a hot dinner can do for you. My brother pitched a tent and called it night (although it was before 6 PM.) He went in the tent and pulled the dog into the vestibule. My dad and I sat and talked. After a while we saw a hiker coming up the trail. The water had receded enough that he was able to walk across the creek. He walked up, took off his pack and asked if there was room in the shelter for one more. We assured him that there was. He introduced himself. His trail name was Notes.

Notes was a thru-hiker. He was a young man, just out of college. He had decided to walk the whole trail before he was saddled with a job and that sort of thing. He was going to be a teacher. I envied him. I was already saddled with a job and a family. I knew that if I was ever able to thru-hike it would be under totally different conditions. We talked to him as he made his dinner. He told us of many of the people he had met and things he had seen. He told us how bad the mice were in the shelters in the Smokies and in Shenandoah. He said that this shelter wasn’t the worst he’s seen but it was the worst he’d ever actually stayed at. I was fascinated. A real live thru-hiker. I listened raptly to every detail he had to offer. And I watched how he managed his food and his equipment. He was so more efficient than we were. This wasn’t something different for him, this was just dinner. He had walked over 900 miles on the trail before we met him and that had an effect on the way he dealt with this stuff. I made mental notes on how I would do this or that better next time.

Finally I crawled into my sleeping and tried to get some sleep. Notes laid in his sleeping bag scribbling in a notebook as I closed my to sleep. He was still writing when I dozed off. I think I know why they called him Notes.

Continued in Part III

I was planning to go hiking this weekend, but some snow and a lack of snowshoes has changed my plans. If I can’t go backpacking, at least I can write about it. I will tell you about the first backpacking trip I went on, well the first one of my trips on the AT. Remind me to tell you about my first real backpacking excursion another time.

This story will take some telling, so I will break it up into 2 or 3 parts.

My brother and my dad starting hiking stretches of the Appalachian trail about three years ago. They had invited me to go with them,, but I wasn’t able to go. I was working two jobs at the time and I just couldn’t make it work. As my schedule freed up I started planning to go on trip with them. 20 miles from Northern Maryland to Caledonia State Park in Pennsylvania. I was extremely excited about the trip. I went and bout myself a pack, some cheap trekking poles, new boots, and some other smaller necessities. My brother had decided to bring his dog with him. He’d never taken Dirka hiking before, but he decided to see if he would be a good trail dog. As the day we were to go hiking approached, the weather forecast became bleaker and bleaker (or wetter and wetter.) It looked like rain and lots of it. We were determined to go anyway.

We were dropped off at the trailhead at High Rock, MD. We put our packs and set out under hard cold rain. The trail from High Rock descended over slick wet boulders. Those trekking sticks came in real handy… but I still found myself flat on my back before we got to the bottom. As we walked a the rain kept coming dowin and the trail was beginning to get sloppy. As we got close to the Pennsylvania Line, the trail transformed it self into a fasting moving stream. Already thoroughly soaked, I plunged forwarded stepping in this stream that used to be a trail (and probably is again.) The water was over 6 inches deep, it flowed right into my boots giving me a new definition of cold feet. Onward we went until the trail opened up and we had arrived at PenMar State Park at the Mason Dixon line.

We stopped for a break under a pavilion. As we stood there dripping, a ranger came up to inform us that dogs were not allowed in the park. My brother explained that we just passing through and we would only be here for a few minutes. This ranger guy decided that he would let it slide, this time. Even the dog rolled his eyes as the ranger walked away. I took off my boots, wrung out my socks, and feasted on jerky and trail mix. I looked around. It was a pretty park even in all of that rain or maybe because of it. In another pavilion they seemed to be setting up for a wedding. Someone was probably regretting the decision to have an outdoor wedding at that point. There were some other hikers in the pavilion we were dripping in, but there really wasn’t much to say. The amount of rain that was falling was overwhelming. There was no point in talking about it, it spoke with its own voice as it beat on the roof of the pavilion and splashed in the water pooling up in the grass.

I do not think I have ever been as wet as I was at that moment. But I was happy, and I didn’t yet understand the different stages of hiking. I was still in that in euphoric first stage. I didn’t know about the others yet, but my dad and my brother did. When we started out of Penn Mar, they walked at an even pace, knowing we still had several miles to go. I figured that they were just out of shape, so I pushed ahead and left them behind. I was having a blast. I steamed ahead, and didn’t even think about slowing as the trail starting climbing up a mountain. As I climbed the energy drained out of me, but I pushed on. Finally I was beat, I found a nice wet rock to lean against and snacked on jerky and some cheese. After a while my companions arrived and joined me in my lunch break. I felt better after eating but I never got all of my energy back. We started climbing again and after a while I realized that it wasn’t raining, or at least it wasn’t raining very hard. It was hard to tell with every thing as wet as it was.

Continued in Part II

All this cold weather we’ve been having (at least by Mid-Atlantic standards) has got me thinking about cold weather camping. There is nothing like it. Last year we went on the coldest camping trip I’ve ever been on. Yes that’s right. I’m about to bore you with another backpacking story. If you don’t like it, go read a mommy blog.

My father, my brother, his dog and I decided it would be fun to go backpacking in February. OK, the dog didn’t get much say in the matter, but that’s what you get for being a dog. We decided we would hike to a cabin. That way when we got there, we could build a fire and warm up nice and toasty. That was the plan at least. Of course, it snowed a couple of days before we were supposed to go. It only amounted to an inch or two, so we decided to go anyway. Good thing we brought the snowshoes. Oh wait … we didn’t bring snowshoes. And an inch or two where I live translates to a foot or so up in the hills.

So there was more snow than we had counted on. We decided it wouldn’t be that big of a hindrance, we were well equipped (except for those snowshoes.) We were wrong. The walking was extremely slow going. We walked for three hours. We couldn’t figure out where we were on the map. It showed a shelter after two miles. Surely we’d gone over two miles. It had been uphill to that point, but in three hours even going very slow, we should have been able to do 4 or 5 miles. We walked a little further and found that shelter. Over three hours to walk 2 miles! We still had five to go! For the first time on one of these trips, I was worried about be able to make it to our destination. If we couldn’t get there by sunset it would get cold, very cold. We pressed on, understanding that we had to walk faster.

I’ve talked before about trudging. We had walked less than halfway and I was already trudging. As a matter of fact it worse than that. The snow had compressed some, so that there was a “crust” on it. If you stepped lightly, you could stay on top of it. Most of the time. Every few steps my boot would sink through the crust and my shin would slam into the icy crust that was there. Then to add insult to injury my other foot, still in stride and expecting me to be walking not sinking, would kick me in the calf. Step. Step. Step. Crunch. Sink. Ouch. Kick. Ouch. Over and over it went like this. I began to count how many steps I could take with out sinking. My record was thirty. Crunch. Sink. Ouch. Kick. Ouch.

Eventually, we made it to the cabin. It was starting to get dark out and was very dark inside. We found a candle and lit it, but it did not provide much light. My brother and I set about building a fire in the large fireplace, while my dad tried to figure out the woodstove. The fire in the fireplace only provided a little warmth and we couldn’t figure out the woodstove. As soon we’d get it lit the whole place would smoke up and it would go out. After having to open the doors and windows a number of times to let the smoke (and what little warmth there was) out, we figured out that the pipe leading out from the stove to the chimney was closed. We had a good evening, we ate and talked and worked on keeping the fires going. After a while there was nothing to do but go bed. The upstairs was very cold, but that was no problem … my sleeping bag is rated to zero degrees, it wasn’t quite that cold.

We woke up to incredible cold. Even though some embers still smoldered in the fireplace, no trace of warmth remained. I mixed up some gatorade to get me jumpstarted. I stirred it up to a sip and looked out the window. It was bright and beautiful out there. A stream meandered through the snow in front of the cabin. The air had a crispness to it that announced the cold. I went to take another sip of my gatorade only to find that it has ice floating in it. It had begun to turn into a gatorade Slurpee. I now have a small thermometer on my backpack, because I’d like to know how cold or hot it might be on any given trip. I do not know how cold it was that day, but my guess is that it was below 10 degrees when we started.

The walk out wasn’t bad. Someone had cross-country skied on this part of the trail so it was much more packed down. And that made for better walking. I wasn’t cold while we walking, like I said I have pretty good gear. But when we’d stop for a break I could feel the cold creeping in. We walked for a while until we came to another shelter. Someone had spent the night there the previous night. I don’t think that they had a very good night either. They left behind 5 bottles of water. The bottles were useless to them, they were frozen solid. They had built a fire, a big one by the looks of it, but it hadn’t even melted the snow a few inches away. We felt pretty proud of ourselves for thinking of renting the cabin that night.

It was a fun trip, and I’d do it again, but next time … I’ll have snowshoes.

Read Part 1

After the incident with the horses we were pretty energized. But it did not last long. The sky turned to an ugly kind of grey. And the mist that had been falling turned to a steady rain. That combined with the distance we had walked and the distance we had yet to go, put a damper on my mood. I slogged onwards.

Every hike I’ve ever walked seems to breakdown the same way. It doesn’t seem to matter whether its 2 miles or 20. First you walk, excited to be on the trail again, full of energy. After a while you settle in, find your pace, resigned to be walking for a while. Eventually, the walking becomes monotonous and you begin “slog.” Slogging is just like walking, but you’re no longer looking around at scenery, you simply put one foot in front of the other, determined to make it to you destination. After you body starts to get tired the slogging is reduced to “trudging.” It’s at this point that your stride shortens and you slow down. I usually don’t lift my feet very well during the trudging. I end up kicking a lot of rocks and roots that way. There is one more stage that can happen in longer hikes, but I will get to that later.

We slogged through fields and pastures in the rain for the next hour or two. We were very conscious of how late it was getting. It would be completely dark by six, maybe earlier with the clouds. We had read a notice in Boiling Springs, that said the shelter at Darlington had been torn down in June, and a new one would not be built until late in the season 2005. At the time, we didn’t worry about it too much, but as the day wore on and the rain showed no signs of letting up, the reality of having to set up a tent in the dark and the rain was weighing down on us too. Although it felt like we making good time, it seemed very unlikely we would reach the sight of the former Darlington shelter before dark.

We made it to the Scott Work Farm around 4. I’m not sure what all goes on there, but they are somehow associated with the ATC. There was a rickety picnic table set up under an overhang next to the barn. We took off our packs and sat down there for a break. I snacked a bit and read through the Trail Log that was there. Many hikers had signed in since June, but there no information in there about the what we might find at the Darlington “shelter.” I saw that someone was sitting on the porch of the farmhouse, so I wandered over to see if I could gather some information about this shelter. As I walked over, a very old German Sheppard hobbled towards me and barked a bit, the lady, sitting on a rocker on the porch, with an overflowing ashtray on the table next to her, yelled to me, “Don’t worry about him, he’s my aardvark alarm. Must be working too. I don’t have any aadvarks in my yard. As a matter of fact, I hear that there aren’t any aardvarks in all of Pennsylvania.”

I asked about the Darlington shelter, and she told me, as she chain smoked, that she hadn’t been up there since they tore it down, but she knew that they had taken a bunch of lumber up there for the new shelter. I thanked her for the information, and we headed out with a glimmer of hope that we would find a shelter or at least maybe a pavilion at our destination.

Even though I was rested and had snacked plenty, I quickly went from slogging to trudging. It was almost 5 o’clock, so we’d been walking for over 8 hours. As the sky got darker, the terrain became more hilly. As we walked up and down small hills, we knew we coming to the end of the Cumberland Valley. All that stood in between us and our destination was a 1500 foot climb. By the time we got to the rigdeline we needed to ascend, it was as dark as midnight. The rain had slowed, but a fog was building in its absence. We walked for a while in the darkness, until it became almost impossible to make out the trail or the white blazes that mark it. We turned on our headlamps, sacrificing our ability to see around in the darkness, for the ability to see what was in front of us. With the fog growing thicker as we walked, and steam rising of our faces, we climbed up the mountain.

I mentioned earlier that there can be one more stage in the progression of a hike. I reached that final stage somewhere while walking on the trail up the mountain. We call that phase the “deathmarch.” It like trudging, but you no longer even think about your destination, you set short goals and you achieve them. “I’ll just make to that rock. I’ll make to the next turn. I’ll get to that tree over there.” On and on it goes. Needless to say, it took a long time to make it to the top of the ridge. Not long after that, we found the trail to the Darlington shelter. As we feared, there was nothing there but some new lumber stacked underneath a tarp and a stack of boards from what apparently used to be the Shelter. Mercifully it stopped raining long enough for us to pitch our tents and cook some dinner. Even though it was only around 7 o’clock I climbed into my tent and went to sleep.

It rained through the night, and while my sleeping bag kept me dry, most every thing else was damp at best. We got up and didn’t really feel like cooking breakfast, so we set about packing our wet gear back into our packs. While we working, two different groups of dayhikers stopped by, to check on the progress of the shelter. We chatted with them and then we were off. It was a decent morning, but we were impatient to get back to our cars and work on drying off. The two and a half mile walk went by quickly and without incident, and I was relieved when we crested the last hill and saw my brother’s SUV.

I know that this trip didn’t sound like much fun. And honestly, it wasn’t one of the best trips we’ve had, but now that I’ve written this, I’m already itching to go hiking again. There is just something about backpacking that calls me back. I think maybe it’s the way everything gets boiled down to what really matters. Food and Shelter. No deadlines, no keeping appearances, no right way or wrong way. As long as you’ve got food and shelter, it will all work out.

The Plan. The big plan, of course, is to walk the entire length of the Appalachian Trail from Springer Mountain in Georgia to Mt. Katahdin in Maine. Since, I do not have six months free to thru-hike it, I hike sections on weekends and use a week of my vacation in the summer to take a big backpacking trip. So far I have hiked about 250 miles from Calf Mountain in the Shenadoah National Park to just North of Pine Grove Furnace (the halfway point on the trail.) At my current pace, it will take me about 17 more years to finish. The plan for this weekend was to walk from Whisky Spring Rd across the Cumberland Valley and finish on Rt 850. 23 miles walked from Friday night to Sunday morning. The real challenge is that there is no camping in the 18.2 mile stretch that goes across the Cumberland Valley.

Friday. I met my partners in crime, my brother and his dog, for this long walk around 5 o’clock. We were on the road by 6. We had to take two cars so we could drive to the end point to leave a car, then drive to the starting point. It was just after 8, when we started hiking. We had about 3 miles to hike to get to the Alec Kennedy Shelter where we would spend the night. It was dark, but there was a quarter moon and not too much cloud cover, so we were able to see without too much trouble. We climbed the mountain and got to the Alec Kennedy shelter around 10, and to our surprise, it was not empty. Inside, wrapped in his sleeping bag was Turtle Dan.

Turtle Dan had started walking, in March, at Springer Mountain. He made it to Harpers Ferry, WV, before he realized that he wasn’t going to be able finish, before Katahdin was closed for winter. So he got a ride north to New Hampshire and walked the Trail over the White Mountains. He then went to Katahdin and walked south back to the White Mountains. Now he was heading north again. He said he wouldn’t be able to finish the whole trail, but he would make sure he hiked in each state along the trail. His plan was to go to New Jersey and slack pack a bit, then move on to New York and Connecticut to finish out his trip. Not bad for a 71 year old back packer.

Saturday. After a good night sleep (well as good as you could hope for sleeping on a plank of wood) and breakfast and coffee we were ready to walk the 18.2 miles to the next shelter. It was very overcast and threatening to rain when we set out. We walked out of the mountains and into the Cumberland Valley with a misting kind of rain falling on us. The trail led between two cornfields. We got the whole authentic farm experience from it too. They had recently spread manure. We walked through fields for a mile or two before we came to the little town of Boiling Springs. The spring there is not really a hot spring, but I managed to miss why it was that the called it Boiling Springs. The Appalachian Trail Council has a Regional Headquarters in Boiling Springs and the trail goes right through the town and right by the ATC building. We stopped there but they seemed to be closed. We took advantage of their Porch. I taped up my feet a bit, try to slow down the formation of a couple of nasty blisters. Ahhh the joy of new boots. We had a big snack (or a small lunch) and headed out again.

When I planned this hike, I had looked at the map, and I’d been to Boiling Springs before, I assumed that we would be walking through cornfields and pastures. That’s mostly what they have in the Cumberland Valley. I was pleasantly surprised as we walked out of Boiling Springs. We did not go right back into fields, we walked through small wooded corridors between the fields and pastures. I know that a lot of people do not like the stretch of trail that runs through the Mid-Atlantic. They feel it runs to close to civilization, that there isn’t enough wilderness. I understand why they feel that way, but that’s not how it seems to me. Maybe because I’ve lived most of my life in the Mid-Atlantic sprawl, I see it differently. I find it remarkable and reassuring, that in the middle of farms, towns, highways and suburbia there are enough little pockets of wild to string the Appalachian Trail through them. We walked past houses, farms, a shooting range, but most of those people never knew we where there. We walked in the invisible world that is the Appalachian Trail.

4 or 5 miles out of Boiling Springs, the trail went over a fence (someone had built stairs over the fence) and into a pasture. In that field there were two horses and the trail went right between the two of them. As we walked though this pasture, the horse to our left looked up and started walking towards us. My brother gave it a polite nod, and the horse nodded back. The horse got a little closer and must have got a whiff of the dog. The horse started and snorted and started swinging his head back and forth. It came around and got between my brother and me. For a second it look like the horse was going to knock him down. He told the dog to sit, remarkably the dog did. That seemed to placate the horse, he went back to grazing, but now he was standing in the middle of the trail. My brother and the dog walked to the other side of the field and went over the fence. I cautiously walked around him, giving him a wide berth. Just when I thought I was in the clear the other horse looked up. He walked over to me until his big horse face was right in front of me. Unsure of what else to do I reached up and petted his nose. He jumped a bit (I’m pretty sure I did too.) I started walking again. The horse fell in behind me, with its head practically over my left shoulder. I stopped and looked at him and he gave a horse look that I took to roughly mean “whatcha looking at!?” I think, maybe, he smelled the trail mix in my left pocket. I started walking and he followed me almost to the fence before he went back to grazing. I know, it’s not like I came face to face with a grizzly or something, but it was an up close and personal encounter with two very large animals.

That brings us to about the halfway point in the walk. I’ve bored you enough for one day with this, I’ll publish Part 2 soon.

If you been reading, you know that this election has bothered me. I’m not one to sit in a funk, if I can avoid it. I distracted myself from by reading On the Beaten Path. It is the story of the author’s hike from Georgia to Maine on the Appalachian Trail. I loved this book. I’ve never “thru-hiked” But I have put in almost 300 miles on the AT. I’ve also met a lot of thru-hikers out there. The book was wonderful. It not only described the trials of walking over 2000 miles, it delved into the psyche of these people who decide to abandon everything for 6 months and hike the trail. If you have ever been curious about the AT and thru-hiking, give it a read.

Reading the book, of course, got me to thinking of many times out on the trail. Especially the thru-hikers I have met. Back in June, I met so many northbounders and I can’t help but wonder how many of them finished. They would have to be done by now if they were going to be able to finish.

If you know of the status of any the following thru-hikers let me know. They answered to the trail names:

Chuggs
Skywalker
TBott
Goose
Saffron
Puck Finn
Nine Monkeys
Buck Wilde
Mountain Squid

They knew me by the trail name of Hawkeye (and my companion Short-Term).

There were many more than that, but my mind is too cluttered to recall all of the names. I hope that they were successful in reaching Katahdin, in Maine. I hope that someday I get a chance to make the same trip. Until then I’ll just keep hiking the AT a weekend at a time.

I’ve been a bad blogger. It’s been a week since I’ve had a meaningful
post. I apologize for that. I’ve been hard at work on a project for
my ASP.Net class. It is finished now so I get some of my time back,
for now anyway. There will be two more projects in this class, but i
will do my best to manage my time better.

I’ve been looking forward to doing some backpacking this month. Then,
as I may have mentioned, my hiking buddy (and dad) had a little
health issue. Good news: He’ fine. Bad News: He’s not hiking. But
it all seem to be working out anyhow. My brother-in-law was still
willing to go. We switched weekends to accommodate my sister. I
bought food, packed my bag and was prepared to get everything ready
for my brother-in-law; he doesn’t have any backpacking gear, but I’m
happy to gather up what’s available from my buddies that are not using
their gear right now for him.

He called me today. He’d been watching the weather. He said he was
concerned that it would be muddy. I assured him it would be very
muddy. He said he’d be happy to walk, but he couldn’t bring himself
to slog 25 miles in the mud. I told him that I understand, and I do.
He’s a city person and backpacking is a stretch for him on a good day.
On a muddy day, it is simply too much.

Now I am left with a decision. Do I go it alone or do I postpone the
trip till I can find a companion or two? I’ll have stew on it for a
bit before I decide.

As planned, I hiked about 23 miles on the Appalachian Trail this weekend. My father, my brother, his dog and I got on the trail at Shippensberg Rd (about 20 miles North of the Pennsylvania Line) around 9:00 AM. We hadn’t walked a mile before the rain started pouring down on us. No problems though, we’ve walked in the rain before and certainly will again. Once you get soaked it sort of doesn’t matter any more. We walked 8 miles to Pine Grove Furnace just in time for lunch. We had tasty hot sausages from the General Store. I read through the register at the store and was pleased to see that many of Thru-Hikers I had met in June, down in Shenadoah National Park, were still on the trail and had made this far: Puck Finn, Saffron, Chuggs, T-Bot, Goose, Rider and Buckeye, to name a few.

If you are not familiar with the Trail, you may find the list of names I just rattled off a bit odd. Obviously, those are not their given names, they are their “trail names.” And, of course, we have trail names, too. I christened my father, “Short Term,” on account of his tendency to block the negative parts of walk out after a couple of days. As a matter of fact, if he remembered how much its wears him out, he’d probably stop walking with us. My brother goes by “Death March.” It’s not as ominous as it sounds. It’s just that when he gets worn out he starts stomping in this determined way, and he doesn’t want stop for anything. He refers to this behavior as the Death March, so it makes a fitting trail name. My trail name has been Hawkeye, for no good reason actually. Since I was off on yet another trip in the rain, they decided to rename me the Rain King. Like its actually my fault it rains when I hike.

After Pine Grove Furnace, we passed the Official Halfway Point on the trail. 1069 miles to Springer Mountain in Georgia, 1069 miles to Mount Katahdin in Maine. (Not really, due to trail relocation and maintenance the exact distances change, but close enough.) Pretty cool, even though I haven’t walked anywhere near that far (only about 240 miles total on the trail including this weekend.)

We usually don’t walk more 13 miles in any one day, but on Saturday we went 16 miles. By the end i was ready to crawl. I was exhausted and hungry. My soaked socks had rubbed a couple of blisters in me feet and those annoying rocks in the trail had jumped up and collided with toes several times.

We finally did arrive at the Tagg Run shelter, which was very nice. No one showed up so we had the place to ourselves. After getting some food and some coffee in me, I did start to feel better, but the feet were still in rough shape, had walk gingerly around the camp.

The next day started great! After, a nice hot breakfast and some coffee we got on our way. The sun was shining, the trail wasn’t bad and everything seemed to going smoothly. As we walked further the pain in my feet got worse. After 5 miles or so we ascending a pretty good climb … about 700 feet. It was pretty steep but I pushed to top pretty quickly. Only a mile to go till our pick up point. Only one mile… It was terrible. The trail looped through and over boulder after boulder on top this ridge. At one point I slipped and fell hard catching myself with hand. It hurt bad. I do not really like complaining about it but I mean for a minute or two I was truly concern it was broken. At any rate, I got off the trail in a pretty foul mood. Which is a shame cause usually I feel better, emotionally anyhow.

If you are reading this and you have never done anything like it, you may be saying to yourself, “that doesn’t sound like much fun.” And you would be correct, it doesn’t sound like it, but there is some satisfaction to it that is more difficult to explain. Some of it has to do with the beauty of the outdoors, some of has to do with a feeling of accomplishment. That alone, however, would not be enough. I think the most compelling reason for is this. In my day to day life, I have a fair amount stress, work, kids and home, the usual. It’s not overwhelming or terrible, but it’s there. Day after day: what about the bills, is the lawn mowed, do the kids need new clothes, will the project at work be on schedule.

I can tell you this with certainty, after walking 15 miles on Saturday, I had only one thing on my mind: get me to the shelter and get these boots off. That’s it, that’s all. And there is a certain Zen simplicity to it that makes all of the negatives worth while. It’s a reminder, that most of our concerns are artificial, a product of society. And for two days my concerns were much more primitive, just food and shelter. I need that every once in while, even if it does beat me up a bit. So it won’t be long before I’m outfitting myself for my next stretch of trail.

I called Eureka! yesterday and the lady there was more than happy to give me a new set of poles as a warranty item. She didn’t even want any proof of purchase from me, which confirms my suspicion that these poles tend towards this nature of defect. The only problem is that the poles are on back order till November at the earliest. I asked if it was possible to upgrade to aluminum poles. And it is. So for the small sum of 21 denarios, including shipping I will have a new set of stronger and lighter poles for my tent. Unfortunately, they won’t get here until Monday. So this weekend I’ll be taking my chances with the old poles, if tenting is necessary.

The Ravens have given Deion Sanders a deadline to decide about this comeback. So the suspense will be over soon, one way or another we will find out if Prime Time is going to be a Baltimore Raven.

After almost a week of testing, troubleshooting, phone calls, and emails we finally have the handheld units for our new software package syncing data with the database. Now we get the users testing and this project moving forward again. Yea!

Next weekend, it’s look like I’m going Backpacking. My Dad, my brother and I will walk about 20 miles on the Appalachian Trail. I’ ve been going with them and occasionally by myself for about a year and a half. You often hear about people who walk the whole length of the trail, from Maine to Georgia, or the other way around. Since, I can’t just pack up and hike for 4 or 5 months Thru-Hiking isn’t an option for me. What we are doing instead is to section hike. We walk over a weekend or once a year a whole week. We pick up the trail where we got off of it and over time we aim to hike the whole trail. It will take 10 to 15 years to get it done. I have covered almost all of the trail from the Calf Mountain at the south end of Shenadoah National Park to just a bit north of Caledonia State Park in Pennsylvania. This weekend will be working our further north past Pine Grove Furnace which is the unofficial halfway point on the trail between Georgia and Maine.
Last time I was out, I used my tent for the first time (usually I stay in a Shelter.) The tent was fine except on of the sections of the fiberglass pole was cracked. It still worked, but left the tent lopsided. So, waiting till the last minute (of course,) I started looking today for a replacement pole. I could not find an exact match, but I did find a few reviews of the tent online that indicated that this often happened with poles. I am disappointed. I am going to call Eureka! tomorrow and see about ordering a new pole. Hopefully, I can get one by Friday.