AWOL on the Appalachian Trail (15 page)

Finally I reach the top of Humpback Mountain, capped off by a monolith of stone thirty yards wide and twenty feet high. At the base of the rock wall is a flat spot the size of my tarp and a ring of stones for a campfire, typical of commonly used tent sites. I set up my tarp in the fading light, lucky that this is nearly the longest day of the year. Minutes after crawling in to sleep, the tarp is pelted by rain. Comfortable in my bag, my mood shifts from harassed and bedraggled to feeling lucky for having found this priceless speck of flat ground.

Having a rough time on the trail is not the same as the irredeemable frustrations of urban life, such as being stuck in traffic or wading through a crowded store. Difficulty on the trail, likehis long and rainy day, is usually reflected upon fondly. There is the soothing, rhythmic beat of rainfall, the feeling that the woods are being washed and rejuvenated, the odors of the woods awakened by moisture. There is appreciation for the most simple of things, such as a flat and dry piece of ground and something warm to eat. There is satisfaction in having endured hardship, pride in being able to do for myself in the outdoors. There is strength in knowing I can do it again tomorrow.

Thirty minutes into my morning hike, I am caught in a downpour. I am immediately drenched and cold. My destination is Rockfish Gap and the town of Waynesboro, thirteen miles away. I walk faster to stay warm. On the way down Humpback Mountain, I have to pick my way through wet rocks, like walking down a streambed. As soon as I clear the rocks, I am off to the races, literally jogging on the most level tracts of the trail. I reach the gap in less than five hours, and then I gimp around on sore feet. No one would guess I just backpacked thirteen miles before lunch.

The Rockfish Gap Information Center has a visitor package for hikers, complete with a list of restaurants, places to stay, and a map of Waynesboro, which is four miles from the trailhead. I choose to treat myself with a stay at the Tree Streets Inn Bed and Breakfast. At sixty dollars it is expensive by hiker standards, but owners Bill and Nickie pick me up from the trail, let me use a bike to get around town, set out free snacks (butterscotch brownies) and sodas, and the room has the most comfortable down bed I've ever slept on.

After a fantastic breakfast, Bill from the Tree Streets Inn returns me to Rockfish Gap. At the gap, the Blue Ridge Parkway transitions to the Skyline Drive. A four-by-four-inch concrete milepost etched with a zero marks the start of the Skyline Drive. I pause to take a photo of myself next to the post, feeling that it is also a fresh start for me. The trail stays atop the ridge of mountains through the Shenandoah National Park (SNP) without too much elevation gain or loss. The Skyline Drive parallels the trail, and waysides on the road sell meals and dry food, so I can travel light. I look forward to visiting friends when I am halfway through the park and when I reach Harpers Ferry days after leaving the park. The forecast I saw before leaving Waynesboro predicted days of clear weather.

Progress in the 387 miles since leaving Damascus has been hard to quantify, devoid of milestones. Now I feel the motivational benefit of having intermediate goals. There is a discrete chunk of miles through the Shenandoahs. Soon after, the trail in Virginia will be behind me. Also within reach is Harpers Ferry, and the halfway point of my journey.

It rains, but not enough to soak through my shoes. When I stop to refill water bottles in a spring, I lie back and look up through the poplar trees. I see only slivers of blue sky through the canopy of leaves. The leaves are illuminated by the sun and cast down filtered lime-green light. I linger on a grassy hillock, where someone has planted steel tractor seats in a semicircle. Thru-hiker "Bearable" charges past, headphone music loud enough to be audible ten yards away.

After a smooth twenty-mile day, I reach Blacktop Hut. Shelters in the Shenandoahs are called huts, although they are still simply three walls and a roof. The huts are larger than most shelters. Every one that I will stay in has two levels of sleeping platforms. Tonight the space is needed because other thru-hikers Bigfoot, Ken and Marcia, Bearable, Steppenwolf, and Lumberjack are here, along with three section hikers. I set my pack down and try to decide where to claim space. A rat scurries under the shelter from a bush out front, so I take a spot at the other end.

This is the first I've seen of Ken and Marcia since giving them a ride when I was laid up in Bland. Bearable, Steppenwolf, and Lumberjack are all new to me. Lumberjack stands out as looking more urbane than the typical thru-hiker. The name doesn't fit. Even after two months on the trail, he looks as if he's been just a few days away from the office. The other hikers shuffle their sleeping spaces to be further away from him in the shelter, teasing him about his snoring. Lumberjack is so named for his nightly routine of "sawing logs."

Marcia mentions a bear paw print she saw embedded in the trail. I saw it too. It was as large as my hand with outstretched fingers. The size and perfection of the imprint made me suspect that it was a hoax, but we have heard that bears are plentiful in the park. This hut, like the others in the park, has a steel flagpole-looking device near the shelter for placing food beyond the reach of bears. Bars are welded to the top of the pole, extending like tree branches, with hooks for hanging food bags.

Eagerly, I am on the trail in the morning, hoping for a late breakfast at Loft Mountain Campground. A concrete post, similar to the mileposts on the Skyline Drive, marks a side trail to the campground. The side trail ends on a road through the camping area, with no store in sight and no directions to it. I take a roundabout detour through the campsites before making my way down to the store. The grill is yet another mile away. I leave my pack outside the store and grudgingly make the hot asphalt walk downhill to satisfy my hunger for blueberry pancakes. "Is it worth it?" I ask myself, thinking of the return walk and my hot feet. The pancakes are disappointing, carelessly and cheaply made, but not cheap. They are filling, though, and I luck into a hitch back to the store. Bearable, Lumberjack, and Steppenwolf are sitting outside gorging on store-bought junk food, their simple plan for a second breakfast much more efficient than my own.

The AT passes within sight of the camp store. If I had ignored the posted side trail and stayed on the AT, I would have come within thirty yards of the store. Rather than meandering back through the campsites, I take a side trail out from the camp store, causing me to miss about a half mile of the AT. It's the first time I've wavered from purist white-blazing, and I feel no guilt about it.

"You can't throw a rock without hitting a deer," Bearable comments. Deer are noticeably more plentiful and less readily spooked since we have entered the Shenandoahs. A deer with a fawn stands only fifteen yards from the trail, frozen as I pass. The fawn stands under the safety of its mother, their bodies perpendicular.

A bear, startling, shiny black, steps out onto the trail ahead of me from the right. I freeze, and the bear bolts across the trail. A cub follows and dawdles long enough for me to get a picture. Then a second cub comes out and the two take curious steps towards me. I hear mama bear rustling in the woods to the left, probably trying to figure out what to do. I try "shoo" hand gestures on the cubs, imagining that mama bear would not want them too close to me. The sound is now running; mama bear is rushing back. She gets on the trail fifteen yards beyond the cubs, running towards them and me. I take a few steps back, feeling in my belt pouch for the pathetic lipstick cylinder of mace. I will not be able to get it out in time anyway, so I lift my trekking poles into a defensive position. When mama bear reaches the cubs, she cuts back into the woods and the cubs follow her.

Most of the crowrom last night are together again at Hightop Hut. Bearable arrives early in the morning while the rest of us are fixing breakfast. He had chosen to walk through the night to mix things up, and to walk in cooler weather.

Cubs in Shenandoah National Park. Mother bear is unseen in the woods to the left. She would soon return.

I make great time in the morning, covering twelve miles before arriving at Lewis Mountain Campground for lunch. I spend two hours at the camp store, making phone calls and plans. For lunch, I buy a prepackaged sandwich, chips, packaged snack cakes, two sodas, and ice cream. Carrying so little food and eating like this is bliss.

Many thru-hikers who are hiking with another person will walk separately so that they can walk at their own paces. They will wait for one another at designated points along the trail. Married couples sometimes hike in this fashion as well, but more commonly, they will walk in tandem, staying within earshot of each other the entire day. This is the style of Ken and Marcia. I catch up to them late in the afternoon, and I walk with them for the final six miles into Big Meadows Campground. I've been looking forward to getting to know them better, and we engage in conversation that lasts the rest of the day.

Ken and Marcia Powers are from California. Ken was able to retire from his job as a database administrator in his early fifties, and since that time they have backpacked an impressive number of miles. When they complete the AT, they will have accomplished the "triple crown" of backpacking, which also includes the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT: 2,658 miles) and the Continental Divide Trail (CDT: 2,764 miles). Both trails are less traveled than the Appalachian Trail.

With all their experience, they are in great hiking shape and are very efficient hikers. They plan well and stick to their plan. They don't carry any more than is necessary. On one break, I observe them counting out their ration of cookies. Hiking as a couple also helps to keep their pack weight down since they share a tent, stove, and food. Most of the time, they both have backpacks weighing twenty-five pounds or less. They do not walk fast. Marcia confides that "everyone passes us." But they are regimented and are further along the trail than most thru-hikers who started earlier. They pack quickly in the morning, and they walk late into the day. They walk few short days and rarely take days off.

Big Meadows Campground is set upon a plateau skirted by rocky cliffs. The trail passes over the cliffs as it heads into the campground. The hard surface, the heat, and the long day are wearing on my feet. We've been walking nonstop since I joined Ken and Marcia. They seem unaffected, but I am eager to get this pack off my back and to get my hot feet out of these shoes. We share a campsite and walk over to the lodge for a meal at the restaurant--the same restaurant that we will return to for breakfast.

The next morning, I don't make it far from Big Meadows before my feet are aching again. My feet are sending me messages, all of them bad: they are hot, sore from bruising, itchy from blisters, and squeezed as if cramped into shoes that are too tight. I stop on a rock outcropping, take my shoes off, and ponder my future. It concerns me that the pain is starting so early in the day. Taking a larger view only makes my outlook bleaker. Even if I tough it out today, I still have many more days ahead. I'm not even halfway to Katahdin. From this precipice wher have stopped, I have a view over green hills extending to the horizon. The setting, like so many others, is beautiful and serene. It is unfortunate that the pleasure is inseparable from the pain.

My feet are ugly. Even my wife and mother think so. Not because they've been ravaged by the hike; they've always been this way. They don't have enough meat on them. When I walk barefooted on smooth ground, my feet hurt for lack of adequate padding. I have a thick callus on the middle of my foot pad from a history of blistering there. My left bunion juts out, and blisters form where the bunion pushes on the shoe. My right foot bears a scar from bunion surgery. The skin on my feet is pale and thin, so a network of veins shows through. A friend once said, "If you drop anything sharp on your foot, you'll bleed to death." My feet are too long for my size. A few years ago, I wore size 101/2. After bunion surgery, I'd occasionally buy size 11. Now, swollen by walking, anything less than 111/2 is unthinkable.

Only my pinky toe is fleshy. It gets crowded where shoes taper in at the toe, and this toe was the first to blister on the hike. The next smallest toe is hammer-toed, curving in toward, and a bit under, my middle toe. Both toes blister as a result. My middle toe blisters on the underside, between the padded tip of the toe and the pad of my foot. This blister is most painful since it is on the sensitive area of the toe. The toe next to my big toe is longest and bears the brunt of impact with the front of my shoe, especially when I stub into rocks and roots. The toenail turned blue and fell off within the first weeks of my hike. My big toe is raw from contact with the adjacent toe. The toenail of my right big toe is cracked but holding firm. The left big toenail is one of only two that are still intact.

I tire of hiking in pain. Over the course of my hike, I've dealt with knee pain, a strained Achilles tendon, shoulder and hip bruises from pack straps, and an infected blister on my heel. But my feet are far and away my greatest physical liability. Foot pain is constant and exasperating. I expected to endure aches and pains during the first few weeks, but then toughen up and hike with relative ease. It hasn't happened. I am getting more worn down by the miles.