WHAT A LONG STRANGE TRIP IT'S BEEN -- JERRY GARCIA

From Guest Blogger Terry Purser about her September 2016 Harpers Ferry hike 

Last year’s backpacking trip was very cold, so we were ready to have warm weather for this trip. We got our wish! The beginning of the trip started out hot and it continued to stay hot and get hotter as the week progressed. It ended up being the hottest trip I have backpacked, but the trip was good. All of our trips are good as far as I am concerned.                                                                               

We headed straight up the mountain south bound.  Our goal 1^st was to get to the top of the ridge, and then make it to Lesser’s Shelter, 9.5 miles away, by evening. Our overall plan was to finish the last 50 miles of Virginia, complete all of West Virginia and Maryland for a total of 95 miles in the next 2 weeks.  We didn’t quiet get that done, but plans are made to be changed as I have always heard. In the end we completed W. Virginia and Virginia and about 3 miles of Maryland.

On the way up we met Laurie Ryan, from Delaware, with her pit bull/boxer mix, Toast. Toast was so mannerly and calm that Fred ended up really liking him. That says a lot since large dogs are not one of Fred’s favorite things to see out on the trail. We didn’t know it the 1^st day, but they ended up being our friends, and we hope she can join us on the AT for future trips.  I think she will be a new compatible friend. 

Fred and I both have our heat stress story this trip. I got hot on the way up the mountain the 1^st day before we made it to the ridge top and had to stop and cool down.  Fred was ahead of me and I couldn’t tell him, but he figured it out and was waiting on me up the trail.    I called and talked to Rip while I was cooling down. I am pretty good at stopping when I need to before a heat illness starts.  Years ago I pushed past my limits while riding a mountain bike and became acutely ill. This experience and my profession as an occupational health nurse keeps me aware of the dangers of heat stress illnesses.

We made it to Lesser Shelter late afternoon and were pleasantly surprised about how nice the shelter was. This shelter had a large porch connected to it with Adirondack chairs and benches to sit on. The porch was so large that Tide Walker, the park’s ridge runner, just pitched her tent on the porch that evening.  All the shelters this trip had picnic tables with pavilions located away from the shelters where hikers were encouraged to do their cooking. There was also a nice swing located beside the picnic table at this 1^st shelter.  I love to swing, so I located myself there pretty quickly. We met Tide Walker, Handmade, Bionic and a new backpacker who had not been trail named yet.

(L-R) The New Backpacker & Bionic Dave

We found out that the national park ridge walker hiked the AT trail from Front Royal to Harpers Ferry.  After 10 days of hiking, she would take off for 4 days then start over again.  That was her job, and she loved it.  She was to monitor what was going on while on the trail, report any issues with any of the shelters, pick up garbage if necessary, help, answer questions and educate hikers, if needed, on the “Leave No Trace” philosophy. I am all for this concept of minimizing impact to the environment as a hiker, but on this trip I was informed that spitting toothpaste in the fire pit was a big NO,NO.  Oops! I have been guilty of that.  Our ridge walker was passionate about not doing this, and said we should carry our toothpaste laden spit out with our garbage or swallow it like she did! Bionic and Tide Walker actually had a prolonged and passionate conversation about this. You can tell we hikers lead a complicated life out here.  Though our ridge walker did provide helpful information that night, I was not impressed with the toothpaste tip!  Later when we visited the ATC, I learned that one should go at least 100 feet or 40 steps from the shelter to spit toothpaste, bathe, throw out dish water, etc.

Our hiker with no name said that this was his very 1^st night out to backpack and he intended to stay out for quite a while.  I thought that was amazing because I would never have been brave enough to do this by myself when I 1^st started hiking the AT.   He did not have much to say but he sure listened to all of our tall tales. He will have his own tales to tell if he stays out here on the trail long enough.

We also met through hiker, Bionic, who was a very young guy (probably in his early 20’s). He was quite a talker and had a lot of advice to share. That is not always a good thing, but I ended up liking him.  He got his name because he already had hardware in his leg where he had fractured his femur and when it was time to take the hardware out they couldn’t, because his bone had formed all around it. He had a lot of problems after that injury until he started doing a certain type exercise. He was so enthused about this exercise called Z-Health; he plopped right down on the porch and demonstrated his exercise routine.  I thought that was entertaining.  I knew I was going to like him, when he said he was dreaming of getting the trail done in time to get home to eat his grandmother’s Thanksgiving Dinner and see her.  He had sent her a book of Grandma Gatewood’s story and said he was going to try to help her learn how to use a computer when he got back and was considering developing an IT business to help people that were computer illiterate like his grandma. I am all for it! I would love to get help with some of my computer and phone woes if there was anyone out there who had time to work with me! I probably am the same age as his grandma or maybe older!  What a new concept!

This 1^st night was warm & I did not need to zip the sleeping bag.  Before our trip was over, some nights I slept on top of the sleeping bag and several nights I did not even put the tarp on the tent due to the heat.  That was not so bad though, because I could lay back and watch the stars.

 The 2nd hiking day we headed out about 7:30am in the short lived comfortable temperatures & breeze of the morning.  We wanted to go about 8 miles and stay at one of two springs up the trail. We were going to pass Sands spring and go another mile after Crescent Rocks Bluffs and camp at the 2^nd spring.  The ridge walker confirmed that the springs ahead were not dried up. I wanted to make sure for safety reasons because of the heat. She noticed I was worried about the water availability in relation to what our topographical maps were showing, and she said there would be streams that would not be showing on our maps, though a number of the springs at the shelters we would be passing were dried up.   That was a relief to know, because I knew we had to make sure water was available when we needed it. We also wanted to stop at the Blackburn Center this day, one mile off the AT and look around. We had heard it was nice and an easy place to get water that we would not have to filter.  We met the care takers of the place. Their names were Trail Boss and his wife Sarah, who had been managing the Blackburn center for the summer months in 2016. The Blackburn Center is a large house facility with a wrap around porch that puts up volunteers who work on and rebuild parts of the AT trail. They may work for 6 weeks at a time and stay at this facility.  They feed them well and put them up each night. Trail Boss actually over saw a section of the trail called the roller coaster which is famous to AT hikers and is a 13.5 mile section that goes up and down ½ mile up and ½ mile down those 13.5 miles. There are no views and it is very rocky.  This section gets your attention. It really is hard to do and AT hikers talked about it a lot on this trip.  We were soon to be starting this section of the trail. We ate using this facility’s screened in wrap around porch for lunch. Though it had tent sites and a cabin for backpackers to spend the night, it was too early for us to call it a day, and we headed on.

We knew when we were starting the ROLLER COASTER part of the trail because Trail Boss had a sign posted with this message. You are about to enter the roller coaster and will be entering it at your own risk!  I got a picture of the sign. It also recommended you be a certain height before entering. Ha!  We proceeded on and soon saw the side trail and sign that said “SPRING” to Sands Springs.  We continued on, intending to get to the 2^nd spring for camping before calling it a day.  Crescent Rocks Bluff was the next stop and a great place to take a good break.  The view gave us a South Western view of the beautiful mountains. This was one of the few views we had on this trip and it was an enjoyable break.  There was a prominent trail that followed the bluffs and I thought that was the continuation of the AT trail, so we headed that way. It was not long before it was obvious that this was not the trail. It was grown up and no AT marks was to be seen.  It had some of the largest briars I had seen in a while, so we headed back the way that we had come. I was ahead and when Fred caught up with me, he was bleeding everywhere and had been a victim of one of those large briars!   The injury looked much worse than it was but it tore his skin pretty good and the ole 1^st aid kit came in handy.

Fred is the 1^st person to say, he is not the best on direction, but I should have listened to him when he said to me as I was heading down the trail: “Shouldn’t we be heading toward the sun?” I thought I knew better, and I ignored the question and headed down the trail. I was sure I was right, but we really were going back in the same the direction that we had came, and when we got to the spring sign, we thought we were at the 2^nd spring side trail where we had planned to camp.  It was not until the next day after we had proceeded to walk in the wrong direction on that 3^rd day before we finally realized what we had done.  We had made it back to the Trail Boss’s sign about the roller coaster section!  Fred did not fuss at me one time, but he should have. I could not believe I had got turned around. Though I have talked to others who have done this, it was very humbling to find that I had done it. It hurt my ego terribly.

Our camp site for the second night, though we were not where we thought we were, was a very nice site with a great water source, just like Tide Walker said it would be.  We were joined by a Pennsylvania hiker who had hiked in one day what took us two days to do. He ate supper with us and showed us the latest rage in water purifier systems, called the Life Straw.  It is supposed to filter 1000s of gallons of water before replacement. It sounds too good to be true, but I will be checking it out when I get home. Our hiker friend got up way before dawn and was gone before we got out of our tents the next am.  We had a pileated woodpecker arrive in our camp that night and stayed awhile on a rock by the stream and scolded us for quite a while as we set up the tents.   We heard a barred owl in the distance and not too long after that we heard a murder of crows harassing some poor creature and I assumed it was the owl. I also heard a whip or will and saw a stick bug, and that was a treat.  It overall was a fun night except for my moment of excitement when I had a black widow show up in my tent as I was getting in.  I did not waste any time killing it. It had a red mark on a black body.  After that I had my flashlight out checking every inch of my tent before I could relax and go to sleep.

The next day after discovering we were going in the wrong direction, we had to start back tracking, and though we had started before it was oppressively hot, it was developing into a very hot day. Fred was also having problems with his pack and was finding it very uncomfortable on his hips.  I think we were so distracted over the morning events; it is likely that Fred might not have been drinking the fluids as needed for this type heat, because before the 3^rd day was over, he was starting to feel very bad and said he had never felt the way he was feeling. Though we had planned to go another 4 miles, the Bear Den Hostel was not far away and only 1/10^th of a mile off of the AT. When I mentioned that we could alter our plans and go there for the night, he did not argue, and I knew for sure this was a change in plans we really needed to make. We headed toward Bear Den.

Bear’s Den, run by the ATC, was a wonderful place and ended up having everything we needed. We did not know exactly what we needed to do when we 1^st got there. The caretaker, Glenn, was not around to ask.  There was a code to get inside the building, and we were to figure the code out by using our AT trail guide.  Before we figured it out, Laurie Ryan came around the building and showed us the ropes and gave us the code to get inside the lodge.    Apparently, the caretaker was not available to pay until after 5pm.  We were just expected to set ourselves up inside or outside the building and then we would settle up later with Glenn.  We set up our tents in a shaded field near Laurie and Toast.  For $12.00,we could tent out in the field, had access to the air conditioned building with showers, cold drinks that cost 50 cents, the use of the kitchen and pancake mix for the am.  For $30.00 dollars, they would add a bunk inside the building, the laundry, pizza and ice cream for supper.    Laurie had cut her backpacking short due to Toast and had Mark, who shuttles hikers and also did volunteer work at Bear’s Den, to take her to get her car. She was camping there and offered to get us subway sandwiches when she went to get her supper. We took her up on it, and she brought back French fries too.  She is new to backpacking  and preferred to hike with Toast  than hike alone but his paws and muscles were very sore. She was letting him recover at Bear’s Den.  He is a big beautiful dog.   We want to call Laurie in case she can go with us in the future.  I believe we can help each other out on our trips.  I asked her how he got his name, and she said he was in a shelter and next in line to be put down and incinerated, so she named him Toast and adopted him.  I love that story.

Bear's Den Tree Carving

At Bear’s Den, the weather forecast was posted. It was not expected to be below 92 degrees for many days with a high heat index to last for days at least.  It ended up being oppressively hot the rest of the week. 

It helped to rest and eat at Bear’s Den, but Fred was still not feeling great by the next am.  He was taking a new prescription pill that can increase chances of heat stress illnesses, so we suspected this was likely one of the factors of his symptoms.  After discussion, we both agreed he probably should not take it anymore on this trip and to discuss his symptoms with his doctor at his next visit.

The 4^th day, we decided we would play tourist at Harpers Ferry and stay in air conditioning, eat and drink and  give Fred some time to feel better. Mark, who shuttled for a dollar a mile, took us back to Harpers Ferry to get the truck.  Later he helped us out with some slack packing too by shuttling us down the road, so we could walk back to Bear’s Den without the full backpack. His trail name was Strings. He had completed the AT years ago and had his own story about getting turned around on the trail. That made me feel better about me doing this.  I am not alone! He said that there are enough incidents of hikers going in the wrong direction that many of the new trail signs also have North and South on them to help keep hikers oriented.

There was a lot to see in Harpers Ferry which was good because it was several days before Fred felt like he should hike in the heat again. It was also not that far away from Bear’s Den for camping.  We did not come up here to have a heat related illness that would put us in the ER, so we chose to be cautious, and it was great to have such an interesting place to explore.   I have made a scrap book that shows many of the things we saw, and I hope it explains the history at least enough to spark interest in this special place.

The day we started slack packing, we wanted to get a very early start to beat some of the heat of the day, so we hired Strings to meet us at 6am before day light to take us to the trail head. That morning when we were breaking camp, I checked with Fred about the time and he said it was 6:10 am. He was leisurely getting his things together because he thought we were to meet Strings at 6:30 am.  I told him he had heard wrong and we were late, so we threw the rest of the gear together as fast as we could and threw it in the truck and jumped in String’s car. He was patiently waiting for us. He dropped us off at dawn. I was amazed that I was sweating profusely at that hour of the day!  We headed out and about a mile up the trail, Fred hollered at me with an alarmed voice and said: “I have my shoes on the wrong feet!  No wonder they are so uncomfortable. I thought they had become defective over night.  I thought that was hilarious, and I am telling on him now! It was a fun day. There was a lot of rocks and up and downs. There were no views but the woods were nice.  We saw 4 deer, one with a good rack on it. We stopped at the shelter, ate lunch, read the shelter journal and took a picture of a snake that was not happy with me taking its picture. We arrived back at Bear’s Den in plenty of time to drive and meet Janet in Front Royal.   

She had made reservations for us to stay at Mountain Home Bed and Breakfast and Hostel. This place was a plantation that was built before the civil war and a family lived there during the war. One of the daughters kept a diary during the war. The current owners were refurbishing it with grants and were going to make a bed and breakfast out of it and also live there.  They expected the work to be complete in 2 years.  We were only staying in a tiny house beside this great house. It had a tiny kitchen and bathroom and two stories and it could sleep 8 people, 4 on each of its two stories. There was not much room in that tiny house to move around in but it met our needs and I was comfortable.  We did get to tour the big house.

I never mentioned  that we had met a very colorful backpacker at Bear’s Den when we 1^st arrived and he originally was  from Bristol, Tn. but was retired and living in Florida. He was a little lame caused by the trail walking and he had his foot wrapped.   He talked our ear off and though I did not feel bad vibes from him, I can sure say he was rather strange and was hard to have a conversation with because all the topics he talked about were way over my head or just plain weird!  Anyway, we were not unhappy when other backpackers came and they got his attention and conversation and we did not talk to him further while at Bear’s Den.  Well, you are not going to  believe it, when we got to the Mountain Home Hostel and met Janet, we were placed on the upper story of this very tiny house with four bed bunks.   Guess who was the 4^th person to spend the night with us? Our very strange guy from Bear’s Den!! His trail name was Solar Wolf.  He told us he had hitched a ride there because his foot was hurting. We had to go to town right after we got there, so it did not end up being so bad that he slept up there with us except that he was on his phone half the night probably playing a game. The next am as our breakfast of French toast was being prepared by Lisa, the owner, Solar Wolf struck up a conversation and was looking at me the whole time and then he stopped to see what I was going to say.  I had no idea how to respond to him because I did not know what he was talking about. All I could say was “I just do not know how to respond to that”. Janet and Fred were just sitting back enjoying  themselves and were happy he was not talking to them.

The next day we were going to slack pack but got too late of a start. It is a long story on why.  It was late am and hot, so we decide to go back to Harper’s Ferry with Janet so she could see the place and we thought we would also hike the AT around the town and by the river. We ate ice cream and I bought a pair of thin socks to wear with my boots. I had packed only wool socks for the trip and there was just no way for me to stand to wear my wool socks any longer.

Our 2^nd day with Janet was a slack packing day. Though hot, we had a great time for the day. I was envious because Janet saw a copperhead that day and I did not.  We were slack packing the roller coaster section, and it was great not having a full back pack on my back. We saw some strange walnut trees and ate at one of the shelters. It was fun spending time together. I consider us the 3 musketeers when we are together.

We drove into Front Royal and car camped that night and went into town to eat.  Though Janet originally thought she would hike with us 2 to 3 days, she had decided due to her foot, which was giving her problems, she would help us with spotting the truck and drop us off on the trail at Ashby Gap, so we could backpack the final part of the 550 mile state of Virginia. It has taken us years to complete Virginia, and we were not going home until we got this done!! 

The next am, we loaded up our packs in her truck and were following her through some heavy traffic when we got separated from each other.  I told Fred to give her a call on his cell and guess what? Both of our phones were in our packs in her truck!  Leave it to us to do something like this!!  I ended up having to find a nice retired guy in the court house yard of Front Royal and borrow his cell phone to call Janet.  I am so use to pushing one button to call her, I almost did not remember her actual number but in the end I did. It would have been embarrassing to have had to call Rip in Tennessee to get her number. We were reunited and she finally helped us spot our truck and dropped us off at Ashby Gap.

This was the 1^st day that it was not oppressively hot, and it was wonderful hiking and a pleasant surprise. I ended up feeling great that day and felt I could walk for ever.  There were a number of hikers we passed, but this day the Jeweler we met and his black dog was who I remembered the most.  He was nice enough to share his own dried apples which tasted like the sweetest of candy.   He also shared his chili recipe that could be dried for a backpacking meal.  The secret is to not ever to use oil when drying the meat. We had planned to hike 5 miles that day and stop at the tiny Dick’s Dome shelter (it was big enough for 4 hikers), but we felt so good because it was cooler we ended up hiking 10 miles and staying at  the Manassas Gap Shelter.  Dick’s Dome was not an appealing site anyway because of the how rocky, damp and snaky it looked.  I kept thinking that if I had to get up in the middle of the night it would be hard to know for sure where snakes might be. I did not like the water source either in relation to the privy. I am glad we continued on.

The next shelter suited us and we had a lot of fun company. At least 10 hikers spent the night in or around the shelter and we had a slew of hikers who came in to take a break and visit.  Our most colorful hiker there was the wild looking white haired Irish man who sang and danced a jig for us, as he promoted his book called “Hiking to Hell and Back”. He actually had a good voice.   I regret not getting a better picture of him. He looked well worn and had not had a hair or beard cut in a long time, characteristic of a through hiker. He was very jealous of Bill Bryson’s success of his book “A Walk in the Woods”, and complained that Bryson had only hiked about 700 miles of the trail.  There also were the 3 women, all grandmothers, who were out hiking together from the Ozarks and who had finished one tenth of the AT and were out to complete another 10^th of it this trip.  They called themselves the “The Three Grandmas”. One was an herbalist.   Then there were the “Three Wise Men” hiking together who were also doing section hiking.    The Three Grandmas and The Three Wisemen all ended up being Catholic and one of the men made the comment that Mirth was over rated as a gift for Jesus. He got in a lot of trouble because our grandmother herbalist begged to differ with him. I did not get the best picture of the grandmas either which amazes me since I take so many pictures.

A man and his dog stayed in the shelter that night with us and a very young man called T-Max.  The dog was very well mannered and never made a noise when we all went to bed.  He and the dog were going for completion of the trail this year.   T-Max was hiking alone but said his girl friend had to go home with her mother after she developed heat exhaustion and ended up in the ER getting IV fluids. He decided he would continue to hike and planned to get Virginia done before he got off the trail.  He had great backpack equipment and he rubbed it in too.  I was a great target for him to brag about his air mattress, because that night I had to roll off of my air mattress 3 times and blow it back up. His mattress could be pumped up and deflated effortlessly and did not leak.  I told him I hated to spend money on gear unnecessarily and I was going to patch my mattress when I got home. I will have to admit if the patching does not work, I probably need to invest in a new mattress.

The spring water source at Manassas Gap Shelter was close by and wonderful. It was cold, clear and sparkled and tasted fabulous. It was surrounded by orange Jewel weed and green nettle. It probably did not need to be filtered, but we filtered anyway.  We laughed when we saw that the privy had a commode plunger in it. That was a fun conversation around the picnic table. The next am, Fred had to help one of the Wise men with his stove. When one section hikes, sometimes it is easy to forget how to use some of the equipment. He was glad for the help and the other Wise men never knew.

The next day we were hiking getting close to the next shelter, and we heard gun fire from a distance.   I did not think much about it until I heard a bullet sing through the woods knocking off leaves and such nearby. I started running and ducking. People can be so stupid sometimes. They would have never known if one of their bullets hit someone.  There are some things that are out of a person’s control, but we do try to hike in a safe way. Life is too short to live in fear. It is not likely something bad could happen but there never is a 100% guarantee.

Soon after that we got to the famous Jim and Molly Denton shelter known for  having just about everything a backpacker could want for an over night stay.  The shelter was clean, large, and had a large porch with benches. It also had Adirondack chairs on it, and there was a picnic table under a canopy and a fine fire pit. What made it extra special is it featured a solar shower and a horseshoe pit. It was perfect EXCEPT for the privy. I used the privy one time and that was enough.  When I raised the toilet seat, bees flew out of it!  I did not go back there. 

This shelter was a great place to spend our last night out. Columbus and Beast, 2 young through hikers, joined us for the night.  Beast could not wait to get to the solar shower and took all his clothes with him and washed them out. He hung his clothes all over the rails on the porch, and I noticed all these tiny holes that were everywhere on one of his shirts and pants.  It looked like someone had thrown acid and holes had eaten through that cloth.  He told me that one night he was in his tent. He had left his clothes out to dry and he could tell something was outside his tent. When he looked, it was a doe chewing and sucking on his salt riddened clothes. He took out after it as it ran off with his shirt. The deer dropped his shirt and he retrieved it holes and all.  He continues to wear them anyway. I must say the clothes are a conversation piece, for sure. They were very interested in wild and edible foods and said they were able to eat wild mushrooms too, because Columbus had an uncle who was an expert with mushroom identification, and they would take pictures of mushrooms they thought were edible and send the picture to his uncle who would confirm if they were right.  Columbus got this name because he had already biked across the U.S and back and had canoed the entire Mississippi River. He said when they reached Waynesboro (about 100 miles away); he then would have completed the entire AT trail.

Fall is a good time of the year for wild edibles.  We saw a lot of plants we could have eaten.  It probably would be hard to starve around here this time of the year.  We could have gathered acorns, walnuts, cinquefoil berries, saw briar tips, crabapples, opossum grapes, stinging nettle, chicken of the woods and persimmons. There are a lot of raspberry vines too but no berries this time of the year.  Though we did not see them this year it is common to see old apple trees in Virginia.

The last hiking day we took our time and enjoyed these wonderful woods.  I finally saw a copperhead and got my picture.  It was a big one.  We picked up Fred’s truck at the Mountain Home B&B which was just a short distance from the AT.  It was too late to start home, so we car camped the last night in a Front Royal campground.  We got up and ate in this quaint town, then headed home going through Shenandoah National Park on the way.  I had hoped for a bear sighting but we settled for deer grazing near the road and that was ok too.  It took all day to get home, and by the time we got there we were both ready to be home.  We might not have completed all that we had planned but we got home in good health with another successful trip under our belts.  

IF YOU CAN DREAM IT, YOU CAN DO IT -- WALT DISNEY

I’m full of cockamamie plans, including convincing my 17 year old daughter that hiking a 41 mile segment of the Appalachian Trail would be the vacation of a lifetime.  I was right of course.  I’ll never forget those precious months of excitement, planning, collaboration, and discussion.  If you’ve survived a teenager of your own, you know how lucky I am to have experienced this.  I have never been more proud of my daughter, casting aside the make-up, cell phone, and various trappings of teenaged life to conquer mountain after mountain on foot.  We talked and laughed over every single mile; when I felt like giving up she convinced me that we could and must press on.  They told me it will happen, and I believed them, but somehow I was shocked and unprepared when my daughter suddenly had a full life of friendships, college, work, and activities that included me less and less.  But I will always have those 41 miles and our achievement together – us against the wilderness, integrated with the earth, finding our way, solving problems, putting one foot in front of the other.

8/30/14 (Day 1 of 5) Mason Dixon line to Raven Rock shelter 4.7 miles

Planning is over, doing begins.  Excited.  Also nervous about bear maulings, snake bites, dying of thirst, getting my period unexpectedly all over the back of my shorts unbeknownst to me.  Picked the easiest section, where boy scouts get their 50 miler badges.  Path well-traveled by boy scouts must be safe.  Parked at Harper’s Ferry NP ($10), checked in at Visitor’s center – nice safety precaution perk.  River and Trail Outfitter shuttle to Mason Dixon right on time.  Note – next time don’t drive and hike on the same day—5 hours in the car and already exhausted before I take the first step.   Three minutes into the hike and already hopelessly lost.  Wandered around for 10 minutes and thought about calling the shuttle to retrieve us.  Spotted a blaze, got back on track, and within minutes, bragging about how awesome and brave we are for taking on the AT.  Suddenly came upon what the AT guide called “laborious uphill terrain.”  Should be called “stroke inducing uphill rocks balanced precariously on a narrow precipice.”  This went on way longer than most natural childbirths and equally painful.  Planned on making the second shelter (Cowell, mile 1044.6) but began searching desperately for the first, Raven Rock.  Found it, then down a rocky incline to refill water, another three tenths of a mile my ass! To shallow, back up the hill empty handed.  Washcloth bath, fresh clothes, ate a granola bar, pushed the dog up the ladder of the swanky loft style shelter and would have fallen immediately asleep if not for the simultaneous snoring and rustling of five other hikers.  What have I gotten us into? 

8/31/14 (Day 2 of 5) 9.9 miles, Raven Rock Shelter to Pogo Memorial Campsite

Pretty sketchy.  Full day ahead, 90 degrees and only 16 ounces of water.  Gave mine to the dog, so I’m out.  Asked a hippie hiker coming from the direction we’re headed about the next water source.  “No Worries, Brah!  At the next cross road go right, ½ mile down is a way cool hostel.”  Lie.  Big fat lie.  Walked forever down that road, hot and thirsty, no hostel. Had we stayed on the trail, crossing the road instead of turning down it (Brah!) we would have found the most amazing, deep, clear, rushing stream just past the guardrail. Collected & treated 2 liters each, and took a bit of a swim in the icy water.  Heaven!  Phone started blowing up, landlord screeching about my dog biscuit, left her home because she’s too old for such a trek, neighbor taking care of her helpless against her lonesome howling.  Called a friend who lives in the country to go pick her up and then the battery went dead.  Who knows if I’ll have a dog or a place to live when I get home?  Walked a million miles and another and another.  We must have passed Cowall (mile 1044.6) somewhere way back, and pushing on toward Pogo Memorial Campsite (mile 1039.6).  Hours later we see the shelter in the distance, yeah Pogo!  But wait, it’s not Pogo, It’s Cowall.  We’re 5 miles behind where we thought we were.  I’m ready to give up, but that means giving up on finishing---no way we can make up the miles. Phone’s dead, so no way to call for a pick up.   Deciding between my daughter, who is sure we can do it, and Toast, with his are-you-fucking-kidding eyes.  We do something terrible, unthinkable really, and dump everything remotely ancillary at Cowall--two thermal shirts, a paperback, my yoga mat, some of the food.  I convince myself that another hiker will need these items, but the weight of “leave no trace” guilt is heavier than the items I left behind.  The sky dumps at the exact moment the terrain climbs 500 feet in a vertical rock formation.  Can’t breathe -- combination of extreme exertion and instant karma trying to drown me with torrential rain.    At least it didn’t last long, actually felt good to rinse off the sweaty stench.  Believe it or not, we make it to Pogo -beautiful stream, terrible campsite.  Collect and treat, rinse out our socks and underwear downstream, set up the tent, promptly rename it Pogo Memorial Gravel Incline.  Inside the tent we tried all four positional directions --heads inclined to a near standing position, feet inclined in a near headstand, rolling downhill on top of one another, couldn’t sleep.  Dog paws up my butt and nose at the same time didn’t help. 

9/1/14 (Day 3 of 5) 8.9 miles, Pogo Memorial Campsite to Dahlgren Campground

Labor Day.  What a difference two days make.  Day one -- terrified of being mauled by a bear.  Day 3 -- my only hope is to be mauled by a bear so I don’t have to take another step.  Everything hurts.  Our skin is gouged out in places where the packs rub.  Rather starve to death in the wilderness than eat another fucking granola bar.  Underdrawers and socks still wet, pin them to the outside of our packs and get walking.  Looks ridiculous but who cares?  Tonight we’ll make it to Dahlgren’s!  O heavenly shower!  Gloriously thick and velvety carpet of grass to sleep upon! We press on with tunnel vision, thinking of nothing else but Dahlgren’s.  Would have been the most picturesque day, several scenic views down side trails and Washington Monument State Park with museums, monuments, and scenery to explore.  But sidetrails, no matter how scenic, or any steps adding to the miles we already had to put in are a no go, conserving every bit of energy for getting there.  Dahlgren’s!  More magical than we’d ever imagined!   Dirty, run down, daddy long legs everywhere, a shower that you had to hold the knob to get the one temp (icy) water to come out, a sink dirtier than the filthy clothes we washed in it. Felt like the Taj Mahal.  We slept like Kings. 

9/2/14 (Day 4 of 5) 10.9 miles, Dahlgren Campground to Ed Garvey Shelter

Woke up clean, how wonderful!  Clothes still soaking wet, used the camp fire grate, put our clothes on it, turning our underwear and socks like steaks, with the grill marks to prove it.  Today we pass through Gathland State Park where they have a snack bar and FRENCH FRIES.  Placed bets on my daughter for six hamburgers and ten for my dog.  Fantasized about those golden beauties-- crinkle cut, steak, curly, extra crispy.  The trip’s longest hiking day, but arrived at Gathland fairly early.  Entered the park office for snack bar directions, and because life likes to kick you when you’re already dragging ass, Ranger told us Gathland had no snack bar.  Just to rub salt in the wound she told us Washington Monument State Park has a snack bar ---same park we walked through yesterday, too tired to explore.    No French Fries, hamburgers, or cold root beer.  I started bawling uncontrollably.  My daughter led me outside to a bench.  Couldn’t imagine going on without just one single french fry-- because all we had left was gorp, so sick of it that even the dog wouldn’t eat it.  Time to “suck it up buttercup” and keep it moving, punctuating each step with every incarnation of the word fuck you can imagine.  By the time we found Ed Garvey shelter we fell right to sleep, dreaming of french fries.  Tomorrow is our last day, thank God. 

9/3/14 (Day 5 of 5) 6.4 miles Ed Garvey Shelter to Harpers Ferry

We’re going home.  Today’s our last day so we were packed and on the trail while everyone else at the shelter was still snoring.  Short hiking day today but seemed a lot longer because 1) most of it was flat along the C&O canal, 2) we couldn’t wait to get there, and   3)we started thinking about food, real food that we were about to drive to, order over a squawk box, and devour.  Can’t believe we made it but we did.  Looking back and upward we can see ridge after ridge of the mountains we just walked over.  At the end we came to a foot bridge that spans the Potomac River, we could see tourists on the other side on a Harpers Ferry tour and we pumped both fists in the air and went wild.  We start jumping around and screaming like Rocky on top of the Art Museum steps.  Even the dog starts scampering.   The tourists think we’re nuts, but we don’t care – we just walked 50 miles in the woods, carrying the world on our backs.  When we get closer to them, they can smell us and start to walk away.  We throw our shoes in the nearest garbage can, hop in the car and head to the nearest Sheetz where we order three large breakfast burritos and inhale them.  Toast even ate the wrapper.  Within 5 minutes my dog and daughter are crashed out in the back seat. 

Later when I got home I weighed myself and was surprised that I lost about 5 pounds in as many days.  I counted all the things I lost:  The feeling of worrying what other people think of me, being afraid to try, being more afraid to fail, media brainwashing that makes to buy the latest piece of technology, some skin, some tears, my yoga mat.  I guess those things are worth about five pounds.  For all the things I’ve gained, you’ll have to hit the trail yourself and then you’ll know why I’m planning to do it all again.