A Hike

A Hike

“David, get over here,” said Betty in her commando voice one mid-day early February 2014.

Knowing that she was standing and staring at the vertical three-foot-long Appalachian Trail map that had been magnetized onto the stainless-steel side by side icebox door for the last 9 months I gulped and rushed to her side.

“Look at this map,” she said as if I had never seen it before.

“You leaving March 10^th, right?” I nodded. “You guys driving up and down or what?”

I took a bigger gulp, “Hiking.”

“How far you going to go?”

With my index finger, I followed the trail line from the bottom of the map to the top.

“Well, how the heck you going to get back by April?”

Not thinking too fast I said, “We’re not.”

“When you getting home then?”

“August 1^st, maybe a little later,” I said confidently as I could.

“What!!!” “How could you think to go off that long?”

I should have known to stay silent, but instead said, “Well maybe either Paul or I will get hurt which could get me back sooner.”

“You Lolo!”

Betty’s reaction was confirmation that my blog postings were widely unread.  After some more discussion though she remembered how the practice hike the year before was in preparation for a long trek. Betty loves her brother in law. Paul’s gregarious nature translated to fun times during visits and joint vacations. He made our piano come alive and enthralled with how’d he does that card tricks. A sales manager for Campbells, every Christmas he would send our kids a huge box of gifts full of company labeled toys and clothing. Trains, trucks, baseball uniforms, just about anything you can think of including soup, of course.

Betty Lee

I joined our oldest brother John in the islands in 1975. In 1978 Betty Lee, possessor of an effervescent personality buoyed by a radiant smile, and I owner of a beat-up VW bug with a $100 savings account were married. Our roots remained firmly planted in Windward Oahu’s Ahuimanu Valley while raising three amazing children. Paul and his family lived for the most part on the eastern seaboard, with he and Susie moving to central Virginia for their retirement years. 

Ahuimanu Valley

                                                          

Paul three years older and I were always close. Football games in the backyard, baseball breaking windows in the alley, grabbing tomatoes off trucks on the Mississippi river bottom, foraging in the woods to add to acorn and buckeye collections, translated to a lot of time spent together growing up in southeastern Iowa. We worked at a Wisconsin canoe camp together and went to the same Missouri college. Upon our retirements, we started plotting a multi month adventure. We wanted John to join us but circumstances prevented such.

Harsh winter conditions moved in on the mountains during our mid-March start from the southwestern corner of Virginia. We followed the perpendicular foot long painted white trail markings placed primarily on chestnut trees to the top of the Grayson highlands. The famed ponies of the region knew better than to be out in the open that day. So much ice clinging to the shrubs and barren trees while walking down from the Highlands gave the landscape a Siberian effect. Chilled to the bone by the time we came upon a county road, a nearby enclosed privy was a welcome sight. Inside there was enough room to sit down, and while devouring granola bars with storm winds raging we pondered our options.

 I said, “You know this must be Roadrunner’s outhouse.”

‘Yeah, I thought of that, she stayed put what 3 days?”

“That’s right,” I replied while recalling that she said those were the worse 3 days of her life.

“We got enough food for that long?”

“Probably but I don’t want to find out do you?”

“Hell no, let’s go try our luck on the road.”

“I’m for that big brother but do you know which way to a town?”

“Doesn’t matter we’ll be lucky if anyone even drives by.”

After a half hour of stomping our feet on the highway so as not to freeze a pick up passed us by, stopped a hundred meters away, turned around and saved us from the privy. The elderly driver had a voice box and his passenger oxygen tubes. They took us several miles in the opposite direction from which they were going to a mom n pop grocery store/deli where we resupplied and then dropped us off at an unpopulated, unlocked, voluntary contribution Baptist Hostel. Our trail angels would not let us buy or give them anything.

The AT is usually a narrow foot path with small, mid-size or occasionally rocks as big as a house where the feet meet the ground. Although there are a few flat sections for the most part one is either climbing up or climbing down ridge and mountain tops. 

small rocks

Big Rock

After a few days, the weather improved, and we were hopeful that spring had finally arrived. Warm enough to feel our hands and feet the hike up to Chestnut knob was spectacular. The hardwoods were still barren but pines, shrubbery, and cumulus clouds provided color. Walking amidst rolling hills of grassy fields and far reaching exposure I could breathe the sky, hear the silence, and know that belonged.

chestnut knob afternoon

The stone shelter on top of the knob is the only one that is completely enclosed in all of Virginia. We had it to ourselves until sandal wearing Pan came along. Eighteen years old he had been pulling 30-mile days since leaving Springer due to a tight time line to summit Katahdin prior to a wedding. His feet were black and blue from getting banged on rocks without shoes. He also said he had dysentery but we ate together anyway. Bad weather with heavy snow moved in. I could feel the cold through the huts stone exterior which along with howling winds kept me up wondering how the heck we would fare if this mess didn’t stop.

Chestnut Knob morning

Pan took off early in the morning. Good thing too because his sandal prints helped keep us on the trail at the start at least. The snow started falling heavily again and soon his tracks were gone. After a couple of miles, we spotted some tree stumps to sit down on. At the break’s ten-minute mark, I started pacing waiting for Paul to move. He was not ready yet to start walking again, but after a half hour of snow smothering visions and much cajoling Paul finally stood up. 

Tree stump 

The weather continued to get worse on our descent which made it unlikely to reach a highway before nightfall. Upon reaching decrepit with gaps in its three sides Jenkins Shelter, we decided to stay put. Set up on the platform, ate some foil spam with triscuts and got inside our tents as fast as possible.

afternoon Jenkins Shelter

 I yelled over to Paul, “If I get to shivering am gonna crawl in your tent.”

“Don’t shiver,” was the quick response.

Too drained to worry too much I fell asleep quickly but woke up every hour to make sure the tent had not collapsed due to the ice which kept accumulating on its outside. The tent floor was saturated too. Fierce gusts of wind along with the wet floor were cause for concern, but my sleeping bag kept me dry. In the morning boots, frozen solid meant we had to wait a bit before moving on. The woods and ground were blinding white. Due to poor visibility, I led us on an off-trail circle till Paul took over and got us back on the route.

Exhausted by the time we reached a highway we plopped down on our packs to rest, and figure out which direction laid the nearest town. A few hours later, after surviving another freezing ride in the back of a pickup, and an encounter with ex-British commando True Britt, we were living large eating hamburgers while drying out.

“Hey Dave, this is the life yeah”

“You said it big brother.”

“Say thanks for getting me to get my behind off that log”

“Nah thanks to you for getting us unlost”

“Whaddya think we just stay put till it warms up?”

 I almost cried.

We found out later that lots of hikers were rescued off the Appalachian Trail the night we were at Jenkins Shelter. Those people must of have had cell phones that worked better than ours.

The winter weather had cleared for good by the time brother Paul and I got to McAfee knob, the most photographed spot on the Appalachian Trail (AT). We got to the knob late in the afternoon and sat on its shape of a diving board rocky ledge to watch a fiery sunset. From there it is a 260-degree panoramic view of Catawba Valley and the Alleghany mountain range. It seemed as if we could see Maine months yet away.

McAfee sunset

Three days later found Paul and I on Easter Sunday lost yet again dodging cattle, yapping dogs and manure north of the train tracks of the twin small towns of Daleville and Troutville. After a bit, we spotted retired preacher G-walker off in the distance and followed where he was going to get back on the trail and up the mountain. No blinding snow or blown down trees this day meant no excuse for getting off track from the trail markings.

G-Walker preacher

At the top of the knob while having a late lunch on a picnic table situated in front of Fulhardt Knob shelter hiker Joe came by. He was our age, about 5’8”, fit physique, bushy gray hair and with his wide brimmed hat with one side turned up looked the part of a seasoned long-distance hiker. Joe had just hiked over 50 miles in two days as he was on a push to get to nearby Troutville and meet his brother James that evening. The two of them had left Harpers Ferry about the time Paul and I left Damascus. Their goal was to replicate a hike they had done almost 50 years earlier as teenagers from West Virginia to Georgia.

James had gotten sick earlier in the week and had a fever. Joe took a zero, a day without hiking at Matt’s Creek shelter with him before hiking on. The plan was for James when better to get to the nearby road and hitchhike on down to Troutville. They determined Trout Park would be a good place to meet up as whoever got there first could camp for free and a nearby fire station offered no cost showers.

Joe shared that his brother had not done much with his life since their hike years ago. Problems with jobs, relationships, and bad choices had been the norm.  While talking Joe checked his phone several times as he relayed they had not been able to contact each other since he left. Joe said. “I am not worried about my little brother. He is like a bad penny and always shows up when in need of money or a place to stay or both.”

I could understand some of Joe’s dissing on his baby brother. You are together all day every day it is easy to get irritated with whoever paired up with. Paul and I although never fought or even argued loudly did get on each other’s nerves. We are so unlike in many ways. Paul is a conservative, I worship Bernie, he marketed soup, I spent taxpayer money. He can’t stand onions, I devour them as if they were apples and crunch garlic bulbs too. Paul would eat breakfast, take down his tent, get his kit together and be ready to take off in a half hour. It took me that long just to get my sleeping bag inside its stuff sack.

I envied his organizational skills and talent at always knowing where everything was. I lost a phone, hat, sweater, shirt, and tent poles. Tired of frequent rummaging through my kit to look for what was or wasn’t missing I took to wearing ID and money around my neck in a green pouch and dangled my camera via a key chain mini carabiner to belt loops. Would have been a good idea to just bungee cord everything.

Coffee gone and lunch finished Joe got up to continue onward. He wanted to find James that day so they could keep on schedule to reach Springer, almost 600 miles away before the heart of summer. We shook hands and wished Joe luck. As we were headed in opposite directions, I figured that would never find out how the rest of Joe’s trip went as he headed down the trail.

Not long after Paul and I found ourselves in another small town taking a zero and getting supplies. A newspaper article in the vending machine caught my eye as on the front page was a picture of Joe. I got the paper and chicken skin bumps spread on my arms as read about how James had been found where he had been left behind on the day after we talked with Joe. A hiker had discovered James lifeless body that Monday morning at Matt’s Creek shelter and got a call through to 911. Authorities found Joe soon after in Troutville and gave him the news.

Matt’s shelter is less than 3 miles from a road and the town of Big Island. A passerby had talked briefly with James on Sunday evening and he reported that he seemed to not be too bad off at that point. I imagined that Joe had to be asking himself why he did not stay put with his brother.

I thought of home. What if something happened to Betty while I was gone, or what if I never made it back? Awash with guilt I called her up.

“Hello David, how are you?”

“Am fine how is at home?”

“We’re good, got a new lawn mower that old one too dang hard to push.”

“That’s good try and use it least once a month if can or get one of the kids to do it.”

“How’s Paul doing?”

“He’s fine,” Do you need me to come back early?”

“Am fine is fine you stay with Paul.”

Choking up I said, “I miss you”

“I miss you too David”

I wanted to tell her about the nights when stared up at a full moon and longed for her to be by my side

That I know no one takes care of or cares for me as she

About the brother who died alone

That a chunk of me was left behind with her

That even the wild will not provide solace if

but the reception went bad.

Our walk continued to provide special moments. Climbing fire towers, fording streams, thunderstorm tent collapsing, instant bonding with strangers, downing suds with lead dog, it was a remarkable trip.

A highlight was the day we stopped by Shenandoah's Lewis Creek campground swhere we had stayed the year before.  Chewed the fat with store manager Randy again and as got ready to exit an upper middle aged couple entered. They grinned upon noticing our similar appearance and shaggy beards. The man then said, "you two must be the brothers we been hearing so much about." We being the legends in our minds that we are beamed with pride as we said "yes, yes indeed we are!" Upon which his wife stated, "You all need a bath." 

Randy with has beens!

 I didn’t make it to Maine but did get to New York and have a photo of me wearing my torn in the okole from sitting on broken glass duct taped shorts with the liberty lady of times square.

Stream to ford

fire tower

 Another memorable incident was when our informal group of Which Way, A-Train, Calamity, and us brothers were sitting around a broken-down picnic table next to a volunteer association cabin on a slope. Everyone but me stood up at the same time to get some pizza and before I could react the upslope side of the table came crashing down on top of me. I got a sore head and everyone laughed for weeks.

group of Friends

By the time reached Greenwood, recurring bouts of poison ivy in my scalp and elsewhere was keeping me up at nights wanting to scratch out what hair have left. I went home for rest and steroids and told Betty what could not over the phone. The condition cleared up after a couple of weeks and Betty knowing that my love for Paul and the wilderness meant I must have regrets said, “get back up there already!”

Soon after return hiking sweat brought the itch back. While standing atop New England’s Mt. Washington, with its view of forever, and the wind on my face, I was both elated and bothered. Aware of my suffering when we got off the mountain Paul pulled an intervention and said, “you need to go home for good.”

Slope on Mt.Washington

The top

It was hard to hear but I knew he was right and that he said it because otherwise, he knew I would just keep trying to hang on. It was mid-July and with the warm weather, there was no way for my condition to get better while in the woods.

Paul no longer needed me. He had made plenty of friends on the trail. Plus, he had become something of a beast routinely hiking 12+ hours a day. After he finished Maine he did the section from the VA Tennessee border down to Georgia thereby earning his name in a book that chronicles those who hike the 2175-mile route. Doing so also bought the right to purchase a brick on the walk of honor in Trail Town USA, Damascus, Virginia.

Sometimes I think of what the odds are for on an Easter Sunday to have a preacher named G Walker guide me on the path which led to meeting Joe, and then a week or so later to just happen to be where would spot that newspaper article. 

Fate or chance no matter, I never forget.

da brick

map

green pouch and other items attached