Backpackin'
Brownkatz & Brownkatz on Backpacking, Hiking and Camping.
There Are Angels Part I
“My God man!” he says, “What are you carrying? Did someone get hurt?”
He and his buddy are standing at the beginning of the next switchback down Georgia’s Blue Mountain, and as I carry the two packs toward him I tell him my wife is having a hard time.
“Tell you what,” he says as he drops his pack. ”Let me carry one of those down to the road for you.”
I don’t know who this guy is. I thank him, and I’m truly relieved. But I’m not surprised. With the way this trip has gone, I’ve been expecting him.
The Optimist The Pessimist
This is our second section hike on the Appalachian Trail. We did a week on it in 2007 and it was brutal (see story here.) I was 57, Mudpie 49. We had too much gear, too much food, too much middle aged fat. Our mileage was pathetic, 2.5 a day, the water sources in the first 11.5 miles were dry, and we ran out of toilet paper at a very bad time.
So naturally we’ve come back for more. Someday we’re going to thru hike this thing and we’re practicing. We’ve spent the last year getting better prepared, cutting our pack weight almost in half, planning and dehydrating our food, doing a lot of backpacking, walking, leg presses. We’ve studied AT books and websites and forums.
We’re getting a shuttle in to Three Forks and out from Unicoi Gap. We’re planning more carefully for two weeks with shorter hikes, two mail drops and halfway through a two night stay camped at Mountain Crossings at Neels Gap where the AT passes under a roof. At the outfitter-hostel-gift-shop-food-store we can do laundry, get hot showers, eat junk food. Good plan.
But it turns out the most important thing has not changed. I got my trail name, Sailor, on our last AT trip. I didn’t get it because I sail or was in the Navy or like boats. My wife dubbed me Sailor because when I get tired and frustrated I curse like one. I grew up in a family in which no thing and no person could be trusted. I’ve been diagnosed with PTSD. So I take the Boy Scout motto very seriously - “Be Prepared.” I’m cynical and negative and expect things to go wrong. When equipment fails or maps are wrong or plans fall apart what I expect is confirmed.
I’d read about trail angels, about people showing up at the right time to help an AT hiker. And I’d read about the community of backpackers and how they’re all supposed to be so friendly and helpful and I didn’t trust any of it. I’ve been in a family, a Boy Scout troop, several companies and a monastery which each promised the same and didn’t deliver. I’m wary of everyone.
Mudpie is relentlessly positive, optimistic and damn near fearless. We have some interesting times.
We camp our first night on this trip downstream from Long Creek Falls. I was up for 32 hours packing and driving so we’re going to spend two nights here, then hike north just under nine miles to Justus Creek. The next day, day four, we would hike about four miles to Ramrock Mountain where we could camp close to Woody Gap, from which we will hike or hitch into the tiny town of Suches for our first mail drop.
At home I bring Mudpie coffee in bed. This first morning this trip, she tries to repay me, but she’s still new to alcohol stoves and has burned through three days’ worth of denatured trying to light our Trangia. No problem, I assure her. We have more than enough left before our first resupply in Suches and we’ll be able to buy fuel there. She’s also lost her reading glasses. We don’t make it to Justus Creek. We dry camp on Sassafras Mountain, a much tougher climb than we anticipated, almost 1,000 feet in just under a mile. The weather is fine and we leave the tent packed and sleep under the tarp. We’re treated to a beautiful sunset filtering through the trees and a bright full moon, but I’m worried. We’re going to be a day behind schedule and there is no way I can see to make it up. Mudpie’s got a plate in her right leg just below the knee and she’s getting bad pain after five miles, twice as far as last year, but less than we hoped. I’m nervous about getting to Woody Gap and then having to hike or hitch the two miles into Suches, getting to the store for fuel and Ibuprofen, then to the post office for our mail drop. After that we have to re-pack everything, toss our garbage, hike or hitch back to the gap and hike about a mile north to water and be a safe distance from the road. I have this nagging idea the post office closes at 2 pm. I don’t have it in my notes, but I’m worried anyway. If they do and we get there late, we’ll have to find someplace to camp, we’ll be short of food and further behind schedule. Mudpie is relentlessly positive. “Don’t worry,” she says. “It’ll work out. God’ll take care of us.” I’m still hoping we can make Ramrock on our fourth day. That would put us an easy walk down into Woody Gap. We finally make it to Justus Creek and stop for lunch and water. Mudpie uses a Fresnel lens from her emergency kit to study the map.
We keep getting further behind. We’re trying to make Ramrock next, but we’re running out of time. We finally get to Gooch Gap and top off our water at a tiny seep on the trail. Our Katadyn Hiker filter does a good job, after I make a little hole for its pre-filter to fit in. Somewhere on the net I learned to put a coffee filter over the pre-filter and now I’m grateful to whoever wrote that.
There’s lots of camping space on both sides of the creek. The area is park-like, but I’m not sure I’d want to camp here. There’s a dirt road running along the south edge of the park-like area, and in my cynical state of mind, I imagine truck-borne extras from Deliverance visiting at night. Last year we camped further south just below the crest of Frosty Mountain, where a dirt road intersects the trail. A group came by on motorcycles. And one night in a national forest in Florida, people were driving up and down the dirt roads at night, shining search lights into the woods. I’m almost glad we didn’t make it here in time to camp.
We’re tired. Mudpie wants to stop; her leg is starting to hurt. But there are no campsites along the trail. We trudge along, climbing, and I find myself imagining a flat spot on a wooded ridge and pray, “God, we need a place right around five o’clock.” At five after I find it, the only flat space clear enough for a tarp we’ve seen in an hour. Again, we leave the tent packed and enjoy sleeping under the tarp and we’re treated to another beautiful sunset.
Mudpie keeps telling me, “Don’t worry about it. It’ll be fine. You’ll see.”
I’m in the lead and around mid-morning I see two hikers coming toward us, a young couple. I’m hoping they can tell me if the Suches post office closes at 2. As they pass we say hi and I ask, “Are you familiar with the town of Suches?”
“No,” the young man says, and Mudpie asks him, “We’re you coming from?”
“Maine,” he says, and we’re thrilled. Our first thru-hikers in the flesh and they're southbound, the way we plan to do it. They are Duckie and Turbo and I can’t believe how small their packs look to me. They tell us they expect to make Springer today and they will be done.
SOBO Thru-hikers Duckieand Turbo
I’d love to ask them questions, but I’m nervous about moving on and I ‘m guessing they are, too.
We’re maybe a quarter mile from the gap when I come upon two older men. No packs. I say good morning to the first and then ask if he’s familiar with Suches.
“No,” he says. “Do you need to go there? We’re going there and we’ll give you a ride, if you don’t mind riding in my truck.”
I’d be happy to cling to the undercarriage.
Ross and Ann Robinson, and Paul and Jeanette Ratliff, have come here from Clanton, Alabama, to attend an apple festival. They just happened to stop at Woody Gap to take some pictures and the two men wandered down the AT a bit.
Alabama Angels Mudpie is generous. She doesn’t say, “I told you so.”
She’ll have many more opportunities.
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