Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 18, 1993 TAG: 9304110230
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: F-8 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: WESSER, N.C. LENGTH: Long
A STORMY BEGINNING
In Dan "Wingfoot" Bruce's 1993 handbook, he gives this advice to those planning to hike the 2,146 miles of the Appalachian Trail:"Above all, accept the fact that everything won't go the way you've planned (real adventures never do!)."
This is an understatement.
After being delayed for four days in March by the blizzard of the century, I was itching to get onto the trail. I watched the weather reports from my snowbound home in Floyd County with particular interest, hoping the roads to Amicalola Falls State Park, Ga., would soon be clear.
Reaching Springer Mountain, the southern terminus of the Appalachian Trail several days later was anti-climatic. The eight-mile approach trail from the park to the mountain's summit was rigorous and slow going in the snow, which ranged from 6 inches to 3 feet deep.
When I finally climbed Springer, there was about 10 minutes of light left in the day - just enough time to take a few pictures and rejoice at finally reaching the beginning of my journey.
I had planned to stay at the Springer Mountain Shelter, one of several hundred lean-tos along the trail between Georgia and Maine. But a new relocation of the trail route prevented me from finding the shelter. With the temperature dropping and the light fading, I decided to pitch my tent.
I awoke the first morning on the Appalachian Trail, March 19, to chilly winds and a temperature of just over 20 degrees Fahrenheit. Already my hands were cold.
I began to pack my gear, dreading the time when I would have to take off my dry clothes and put on the wet and frozen ones from the previous day's hike.
I reached for my boots - frozen. I couldn't get my foot inside until I hammered them with a rock.
This is not the kind of hiking I expected.
The going was slow for the first three days, with temperatures below freezing most of the time and snow drifts as high as 3 feet. For each step uphill I took, I'd slip back another inch.
Not only had the snow slowed me down, but trees had blown down on the trail because of extremely high winds.
One forest ranger I encountered on the trail said he believed there had been tornadoes mixed in with the blizzards, causing the extensive tree damage.
Members of the Georgia Appalachian Trail Club were on the trail that day, trudging through the snow, carrying chain saws and axes, and cutting down the trees blocking the trail. I was impressed that people were willing to volunteer their time and energy to clear the trail under those conditions.
I looked forward to Day Four on the trail, when I would reach the first mail drop on my itinerary. Neels Gap, just outside of Blairsville, Ga., has an outfitter and a hostel for thru-hikers, complete with showers, a laundry and dry beds.
I hiked through some pretty country that day, stopping for lunch and water at Slaughter Gap. Then it was on to Blood Mountain (4,461 ft.), which gets its name from a bloody battle between the Creek and Cherokee Indians.
Blood Mountain is the highest point on the trail in Georgia, but the view was fogged in, as it was just beginning to rain. So I went on to Neels Gap, where I planned to dry out all my wet equipment.
Physically, I had felt good up until the descent to Neels Gap. The blisters and sore knees that plagued many of the other hikers had not struck me yet.
But as I climbed down the mountain, a tugging began at my left Achilles heel. It made the 2.4-mile hike off Blood Mountain seem much harder than it actually was.
The hostel, called the Walasi-Yi Center, at Neels Gap is the only building located directly on the Appalachian Trail. The owners, Jeff and Dorothy Hansen, are helpful to all the hikers who pass through. However, when I asked for a bunk in the hostel, Dorothy said, "Sorry, we have no power and no water. The storm did us in."
Once more, my plans were changed. That drizzly night was spent on a sloping campsite behind the Walasi-Yi Center in my tent.
Another unexpected problem was my sleeping bag. It was a new bag, comfort rated at 18 degrees but even at 25 degree temperatures, I shivered all night.
The next morning, I mentioned the situation to Jeff, who said, "No problem. We'll call the company and get you another one."
They loaned me a warmer bag for the night, and traded my old bag for a new one from their store. So as I left the center on a cold, drizzly Monday, things were looking up.
I hiked a short 6.4 miles to Hogpen Gap that day, surrounded by mist and fog. I left other hikers behind at Neels Gap and hiked on alone, peacefully. The rain was cold but as long as I kept walking I stayed warm and dry.
I met another thru-hiker that day, 23-year-old Kevin "Food Dude" Hickey from Hampton, N.H. He was traveling with his dog, Dune, and we discussed sharing the cost of a kennel upon reaching the trail section that passes through the Great Smoky Mountains National Park, where pets are not allowed.
He hiked on and I stopped to camp, feeling good about our plan to share expenses and the possibility of saving big bucks on kennel costs.
I was reminded of Wingfoot's advice to expect the unexpected when, just as I was drifting off to sleep, a howling wind came roaring up Hogpen Gap, blasting my tent on the right side. I shot bolt upright in my sleeping bag, realizing I was going to be caught in this storm.
I regretted pitching my tent on a flat, open spot rather than hiking on another quarter-mile to a site protected by a stand of hardwoods.
The sky opened up and the downpour continued all night. With each gust of wind I would hold onto the tent poles, wondering if this time the tent would blow over.
The stakes holding the tent pulled free from the pudding-soft, muddy ground and the rain fly whipped in the wind. Then the rain began to leak into the tent and all I could do was wait until morning to pack up all my wet gear and hit the trail.
Caught in the blizzard of the century, now the monsoon of the century, I thought.
I hiked the entire next day in the pouring rain. It was a dark, wet 14 miles to Unicoi Gap where I got off the trail to see some nearby friends who had thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail in 1990.
It was a nice break from the rain, to enter Hugh and Anne Mitchell's warm, dry cabin in the woods.
"Get those wet clothes off and take a hot bath," Anne Mitchell said, knowing from experience that a shower is the next best thing to Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream to a thru-hiker.
I was surprised how much five days in the woods had changed my appetite. Out there I ate oatmeal, granola and noodles, mostly. At the Mitchell's, I craved Cola-Cola, cheese pizza and salad.
My next stop into civilization was Rainbow Springs Campground. That day, Wingfoot's advice to expect the unexpected would be put to the true test.
I planned a 13-mile hike through a relatively easy section of the trail. The only tough climb of this section was Albert Mountain, a 0.2-mile scramble up rocks and between shrubs. At the top there is a fire tower, manned during dry periods, and supposedly a panoramic view of the North Carolina Mountains from three sides of the summit.
Like Blood Mountain, however, the skies were gray and foggy, robbing me of the view.
Before reaching Wallace Gap, Ruby - who had hiked ahead obediently all day, ran off the trail. She was gone only about three minutes and came back when I called her. But she came back without her pack.
This I did not plan.
I searched off the trail for more than an hour for the pack. Ruby followed along, wagging her tail, happy to be free of the weight.
Finally I gave up. I stood on the trail in the drizzle, my legs scratched from searching through the woods for the lost pack. I couldn't decide whether I should stand there and cry or head on down the trail.
"Everything won't go the way you planned," Wingfoot said. That advice rings in my head. He is right.
I didn't plan on any of the mishaps that occurred those first two weeks. But I also didn't plan on other events.
I didn't expect to meet 71-year-old "Carry Coffee" from Houston, Texas. "Carry Coffee," who has hiked the whole trail during section-by-section trips, is helping her grandson "Goodguy" hike the trail by driving her car to every road crossing, providing Goodguy with water and other supplies.
I didn't think anyone could be as generous as the Hansens at the Walasi-Yi Center.
Or the Mitchells, who let me shower, eat dinner and wash laundry at their house, and would accept nothing but thanks in return.
I never thought I'd become so close to so many hikers just by reading their entries in the shelter registers along the trail.
"So, you're `Low Rider,' " I said to one hiker, whom I felt I already knew.
" `Continental Drift' and `Sleeping Beauty,' " I said to another couple. "I wondered if I'd catch up with you."
Then there are hikers like "Bear," a thru-hiker from Knoxville, Tenn., who not knowing any of us hikers at Rainbow Springs Campground, still threw a big party for everyone with the help of some visiting friends.
Complete with beer, sodas, London Broil, barbecue ribs, candy and other goodies, Bear's main concern was that everyone had a good time.
And I never quite expected to be so totally enthralled by the first clear, sunny day on the trail. It was a Monday, when most people are at work or in school. I sat atop Rocky Bald for over an hour, wondering if there could possibly be a more beautiful place on this Earth.
The silent onset of spring is happening right before my eyes - an unexpected treat, indeed. I saw my first yellow trillium while climbing a Western North Carolina mountain, too tired to take a picture of it. But a day later I saw another.
A week from now there will be even more. Eventually, the mountains will be in full bloom, and it is happening right in front of me.
A garter snake, sluggish and groggy on the trail, was an unexpected treat. So, too, was the spotted newt and the snail that called the white-blazed A.T. home.
The woods are beginning to awaken and it's not an instant process like a Polaroid photo. The tad poles, clustered in a mass of gel-like eggs at Deep Gap, N.C., are probably now moving freely in the puddles where I saw them last.
The small buds on the serviceberries are changing each day, waiting for that one perfect moment to emerge in all their glory.
And the grouse, whose thumping vibrates the ground early in the morning, are entering into the spring season with all the zest of life they can muster.
Yes, the woods are alive, and I am part of it. That, I did not expect.