Another Adventures Looms

My love for countdowns started in 2006 after my first summer at High Rocks. It was such a fun summer, full of everything I adored that literally within hours of leaving Brevard I was figuring out the number of days till I’d be back to do it all again. Since then I’ve counted down to not only camp summers, but trips to foreign countries, days left in certain jobs and internships, holidays with friends and family, and, most recently, extended hikes. My exuberance over countdowns has admittedly fallen to the wayside lately, but deep down there’s always a little calendar ticking off the days (and sometimes hours) to one thing or another.

This most recent countdown has reached a pivotal point, the Less Than 10 Days mark. Finally, it can be said that there's just one of each day of the week left until I start the Appalachian Trail!

I don’t have the time (or desire, really) to hike the whole thing at once, though that is commendable and I’d like to try some day. But, there are jobs and fun to be found other places, so I’ll only be hiking for 2 months. Dad’s going to start out for a week with me, and I was worried about us at first. But, as with all endeavors the two of us undertake, no matter what happens, we’ve almost certainly done worse.

Our most recent extended hike comes to mind ("extended" being a very liberal term here). Late last Fall, Dad drove up to Brevard to walk the Art Loeb Trail with me. We each read up on the Art Loeb, and we were both a little concerned about what we read. However, people tend to exaggerate how difficult things are, so we decided to give this “butt-kicker of a trail” a shot. After driving out to Camp Daniel Boone on a Friday night, we set off early the next morning. Right off the bat, we had a bad omen. The trailhead read “Difficult”, but someone had spray painted above it “VERY” in large red letters. They weren’t joking. After almost 2 hours of straight uphill climbs in very cold and overcast weather, we came to a level spot and took a sharp left (after I misremembered the map and led us into the woods for about 20 minutes in the opposite direction). Just as we were blessing the level plane, the skies opened up in a torrential freezing downpour. Instantly soaked and miserable, we continued on only to find a giant yellow jacket nest on the trail. We took to trail running for a number of yards, but then the uphill started again. Another hour passed and we’d made it to the narrows along the ridge and found a group of Duke freshmen who were just having breakfast and finishing their hike down to Daniel Boone (where we’d just come from). We warned them of the bees and fought our way into the cold, wet and extremely dense rhododendrons crowding the trail. Shortly after, both of us collapsed in exhaustion in the middle of the trail and refused to move for a good hour. We set up a little shelter with our rain flies and decided to apologize profusely to any passersby (which, thankfully, there were none). After an hour of debate and complaints, we each decided 5 miles up a mountain in a downpour this close to winter was entirely enough for us. We turned around and started back.

The hike out was almost as bad as the hike in, as the entire trail had turned into a giant mudslide and twice we each found ourselves grasping at branches to pull ourselves back up the side of the mountain and onto the trail. Praising a god neither of us holds much sway in, Dad and I finally saw the truck at the bottom on the mountain and picked up the pace. Apparently, God isn’t cool with near-atheists praising him as a giant tree came crashing down not 5 feet from where Dad hiked just behind me. We stared in disbelief for a second, laughed nervously and hightailed it out of there.

So, basically our most recent "extended" walk in the woods was a complete disaster and it’s unlikely we’ll do worse on the AT next week. It’s always good to have a standard to live up to!

Pack weight is at just under 30 pounds and I'm a mere 7 days to the scheduled launch date! I'd love for any and all of you to join me on the Trail, and I'll try to keep this blog updated with dates and locations. The most important date and location is, of course, Damascus, VA on May 13 where I'll be for Trail Days. To learn more about Trail Days, visit http://www.traildays.us/ and I hope I'll see you there (just bring a sleeping bag and a tent)!!

"I will forget the happenings of the day that is gone, whether they were good or bad, and greet the new sun with confidence that this will be the best day of my life" -Og Mandino