ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, June 3, 1996 TAG: 9606040015
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: BILL COCHRAN OUTDOOR EDITOR
Mark Everson has a decision to make. A big one. Probably the biggest of the day. Maybe of the week.
He has one frame left on the last roll of film in his camera. Should he take a picture of the doe and her shy fawn he has spotted in the foothills of Cove Mountain or should he save it for the mountain top and a picture of Dragon's Tooth.
That's the kind of tough decisions Appalachian Trail thru-hikers face, Everson said, with a grin parting his bearded cheeks. That's why I am out here. I was burned out.''
He is 27 years old, from Cincinnati, Ohio, and his trail name is Zambian Towstep.
``You pronounce it `Twostep.''' he said.
In reality it was supposed to be Twostep, but early in his venture, after leaving Springer Mountain in Georgia, he was carving the name on his walking stick. It was evening and a blood-red moon popped over the crest of the ridge and he became so infatuated with his venture that he began to dance and sing as he carved, and he misspelled Two.
Everson is one of 1,200 thru-hikers who left Springer Mountain in late March or early April for a 2,159-mile trip to Mount Katahdin, a granite monolith in the central Maine wilderness (A few of them go the other direction.)
Somewhere between 200 and 300 are expected to complete the five-million step, five-to-six month journey, said Brian King, a spokesman for the Appalachian Trail Conference.
Many of the survivors, their muscles hardened, their bellies flat from weeks on the trail, are now moving through the Roanoke Valley.
Chip Hosfeld, a 24-year old from Indiana, is Everson's hiking partner. He calls himself Dancing Bear. He and Everson have paused on the lawn at the Catawba post office where everything from bandanas to bedding are spread on the soft grass to dry in the afternoon sun.
Some one stops to ask what they miss most in ``real life.''
``We believe this is real life,'' said Hosfeld. ``When you get to a town it is scary and it pushes you back out on the tail. You see how people are so caught up in the rigors of society, and how they can get upset, say if their air conditioner is broken. Our air conditioner is the nice cool breezes of the mountains.''
But sometimes it gets out of whack, too. There was 10 inches of snow in the Smokies. The temperature pushed above the 90s in Damascus, where the annual Trail Days attracted scores of thru-hikers who pitched their tents in the hostel lawn and along the creek, giving the small town the looks of a marriage between a Grateful Dead concert and Woodstock. And along the Catawba corridor it rained and rained, and when it didn't rain a thick, gun-metal colored fog shrouded the stalwart vistas. Dragon's Tooth, McAfee Knob, Tinker Cliffs, Hay Rock might as well have been railroad tunnels. And getting dry was nearly impossible.
Weather and wariness can surface a different kind of decision, and it is nothing idyllic like whether to snap a picture of a spotted fawn or a towering stone monolith. Should you quit?
``The very beginning I thought about it,'' said Stephanie Bell-Murch, a 24-year old from Asheville, N.C., whose trail name is Gypsy. ``For a week-and-a-half or two weeks there was solid rain. There was nothing else dry to put on.''
It was that way again last week in Catawba, when Bell-Murch came shivering off the trail, wet and cold.
``I think she is in the early stages of hypothermia,'' said Peter Capozza, her hiking partner. At that moment, his trail name, Dead Man Walking, took on special significance.
Bell-Murch and Capozza moved into a bed and breakfast where they showered, slept, spent time in a hot tub, slept, dried their gear, gorged at the Homeplace Restaurant, slept and hit the trail late the next morning. The spring returned to their step as they hiked up Beckner Gap toward Sawtooth Ridge. But 25 miles down the trail, near Daleville, Bell-Murch entered a single word in the register, ``TIRED.''
``The tough part is the routine,'' said Capozza, who is 39. ``A lot of people think the only thing you have is time. But it is like a job. There is the routine and there isn't a lot of time for anything else. You have to put in your work.''
Anyway you cut it, Georgia to Maine is a long walk, and the reality of that is like a sledge hammer blow when the pilgrims reach Virginia, the state with nearly 500 AT miles, more than any other.
``The adrenaline is gone,'' said Capozza. ``All of a sudden it is the Virginia blues.''
Hikers cling to little things to see them through, like the verse written on the tattered trail journal carried by Everson: ``No snow, no rain, no pain, no Maine.''
In addition to the pain and rain, there is something thru-hikers call ``trail magic.'' It is the good will of people along the way, the ones who give hikers a ride to the post office or store, or take them home for a meal or bed. The motels in Daleville that discount their prices and provide places to do laundry and sell fuel for camp stoves. The friendly waves, the handshakes, the encouragement. The people who cut the blow downs from the pathway and paint the blazes.
``Trail angels'' is what the thru-hikers call them, the beautiful, the marvelous, the unexpected. The trail doesn't just wind through the mountains and valleys, but also into hearts.
``I ran into a woman and her young daughter the other day who was carrying a quart of orange juice and other groceries and she just handed them over to me,'' said Hosfeld.
Thru-hikers have a special demeanor. There is distance in their eyes. They represent the ultimate in personal freedom. They draw envy and respect.
``It is like you are walking on water,'' said Capozza. ``People take your picture. We walked up on a group of youngsters on a hike and one of them started shouting `Thru-hiker! Thru-hiker!' They just parted like the Red Sea to let us through.''
The Appalachian Trail is as much a community as wilderness, said Everson.
``When you hike the AT, everybody has the idea you are going to have it to yourself,'' he said. ``It is crowded out there.''
``If you want the solitude of wilderness, you need the Pacific Crest Trail or the Continental Divide Trail,'' said Capozza. ``This is a social thing.''
LENGTH: Long : 117 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: BILL COCHRAN. 1. After resting and drying out inby CNBCatawba, Stephanie Bell-Murch, ``Gypsy,'' and Peter Capozza, ``Dead
Man Walking,'' head north up Beckner Gap. 2. Chip Hosfeld writes
about ``trail angel'' bearing orange juice.
color. Graphic: Map. color.