Happy Trails! Part Two

Day two of my Graduation Celebration on the Appalachian Trail began with sunrise on Rhododendron Gap. One of the best mornings of my entire life. Nature is glorious by well...nature, and I've seen many a glorious sunrise in my life, but the clarity of my ecstasy at that sunrise was insurmountable. We were really out there in it, man.

Virginia is altogether too beautiful of a place. The sun rose over a lake of clouds. We ate a hearty breakfast of oatmeal and dried fruit while we sat on the grass, taking in the grand splendor of it all. The early birds chimed in to announce the daybreak, chirping and rustling around in the rhododendron groves surrounding our mountain pasture. Ponies were whinnying over the hill. Ducky made herself a hot cup of joe, and then we walked back up to our camp to start breaking it down.

Pardon my French, but our campsite was kick ass. Hidden back in the conifers, overlooking the valley, soft, grassy, green, gorgeous. It was crisp, chilly, an absolutely perfect spring morning. We didn't want to leave. But the trail was calling.

So we got back to it.

We were both low on water again. Our last fill had been at the creek down below the last ridge the day before, so our goal was to make it to our next water source as efficiently as possible. Fortunately, we were pretty sure it was only about a mile away at Thomas Knob Shelter. We were right. One thing that kind of rocks about the AT is that a fair amount of the water sources are man-made spouts that come out sparkling clear and are really easy for fill up, i.e. they don't require a water pump to get it into the bottle.

This particular water spout was down the hill from the shelter, and on the side of Mt. Rogers itself, so not only did we have fresh, crystal-clear mountain water to drink, we also had the view.

With a fresh liter of cold water in our bellies, and two full liters in our packs, we headed off again, with a new-found spring in our step. We had just locked into a solid pace, when we hit a road block.

PONIES. A whole herd of them! They were blocking the trail! So we went ahead and made friends.

Even little babies! So adorable!

This guy really wanted a snack. We didn't have any, so he settled for my bootlaces instead.

We hiked on for a while longer after we left the pony herd. We started descending into a forest after a while, and around 9:30 AM, we came upon another gorgeous mountain pasture. We'd been up for about 3 hours at this point, so we decided to stop, rehydrate, and eat again.

Peeling an orange on a boulder.

It's funny how ravenous you become on the trail. You are never truly satiated. With the amount of calories you burn walking all day long like that, it's no wonder, but the problem is you are limited to only the food you can carry on your back, which sadly is not much. But you make do. And we did.
Up on that rock, as I was scanning the horizon, I glimpsed a black rump retreating over the far hill. Bear or pony, I thought. I hoped for pony, but I was prepared for bear. Black bears are very common in Appalachia. Fortunately for us hikers, they are extremely skittish of humans here in the east. The main instance where bear attacks occur (other than intentional human provocation, known in layman's terms as "stupidity") is when a mother bear perceives a threat to her cubs. We decided the best course of action to prevent an interaction with a bear was to proceed along the trail with caution and to make noise to alert the bears to our presence.

The trail got real pretty as we descended. No signs of bears, but a big increase in foliage. The ground become lush and green, and the trees started to show flower buds. The air got warmer, more moist (though that may have been due to the heat of the day coming on). Ducky forged on ahead, like a champ. I hung back mostly, enjoyed the scenery and tended to a budding blister on my toe. It was shortly after noon when I saw a break in the forest up ahead. I came out from under the tree cover, and walked out onto a gorgeous grassy hill where Ducky was waiting for me at the top.

Below the hill was our first major road crossing of the hike. There was a parking area, a bathroom, and a small hut with a map posted under it. We descended the hill and joined a powwow of 3 thru-hikers enjoying the cool shade and a good solid lunch. We got to chatting with the guys, all of whom walked from Springer Mountain in Georgia and had just hit their 500 mile mark. One guy was waiting for a ride, he was hopping off the trail for a few weeks to get home for his sister's graduation. We finished off our food, helped our new friend flag down a car, and then bid our north-bound friends adieu as we turned our boots southward.

We ducked back under the trees on the other side of the lot and immediately were greeted by a steep climb. It was very hot at this point, midday. We were running low on water again, and getting thirsty, Ducky especially. The tree cover helped reduce the heat somewhat, but the humidity was rising down in the dip between ridges. Our next water source was about 2 miles away, so we had to walk another 45-60 minutes uphill to get there.

Once again, Ducky pressed on ahead. My friend Ducky is one tough lady, a real bad ass. God love her, she was the best hiking buddy I could possibly have asked for on my first long distance trip. She got me through the tough miles. I dawdled behind, taking breaks in the shade, pacing myself, knowing that Ducky was blazing the trail, scouting ahead, hunting down that water source with conviction.

This was one of the tougher stretches of the entire trip, to put it lightly. But we came out on top of the ridge at long last! It was gorgeous, and sunny, and the water spout was just ahead!

We drank two bottles each and ate again. The sun was hot and bearing down on us. Shade was not available. We layered on some extra sunscreen and put on our hats. After we had rested and refilled our bottles again, we headed on again. A few minutes later, we climbed a miniature hill to our final beautiful bald at Buzzard Rock on the side of Whitetop Mountain.

Then we began the real descent, the long steady descent back into Damascus. Don't get me wrong, we weren't close to the mark. We still had at least 15 miles to go til we would finally reach town, and by this point we were closing in on 4 PM. Our goal was to make it to just past Creek Junction, where the Appalachian Trail meets the Virginia Creeper Trail about 10 miles from Damascus. Wilson Creek also intersects that spot, so we planned to camp there next to a solid water source. But we had a ways to go. The next two miles were going to be sharply downhill. We paused to take a picture of a nice older couple on a day hike, and they took our picture in return.

So down we went, into the valley. The best part about coming back down from the zenith of the trail on the ridgeline was getting to pass through the arbor of rhododendron that awaited us down below.

We hiked for what felt like ages through the forest. The setting sun filtered through the trees, and the air cooled as the light dimmed. Finally, finally....we reached Creek Junction.

And we made camp, right next to the river.

The river was ice cold and wonderful. We iced down our aching legs in the frigid water for several minutes before making dinner. Rice-A-Roni sounded less appealing the second day for some reason. Mostly, we were just tired. We didn't even wait for the sun to go down. We were in the tent, fast asleep, before 9:00 PM. Another exhausting, rewarding day down. One more day, 10 more miles, to go.

Happy Trails! Part One

I graduated from college a few weeks ago! All my final exams got scheduled for the first day of my exam week, and I work weekends, so I had about 5 days of free time to work with before my commencement ceremony. And I wanted to celebrate the end of my college years and the start of my adult life a little differently.

The moment I finished my tests, I packed up my backpack, hopped in my car, drove to Damascus, VA, pulled on my boots, and spent the next three days on the Appalachian Trail with my good friend Ducky!

Here's my account of the experience, in parts:

DAY 1

We arrived in Damascus and parked at the Mt. Rogers Outfitters Hostel on 3rd St. Met some really cool people there. We had not realized this, but this is the time of year that all the AT thru-hikers pass through southwestern VA.

These hikers, for those of you who don't know, start out on the Appalachian Trail at Springer Mountain in Georgia, usually in mid-March, and will walk all 2,100 miles of the AT to summit Mt. Katahdin in Maine sometime between July and September. They are the toughest of the tough. A few thousand people start the Appalachian Trail every year, and only a fraction of that finish the entire hike (about 1 in 4). By the time they reach VA, about half of the original hikers will have already dropped out. The hikers we met had just reached their 500 mile marker.

So this is why, when we arrived in Damascus, our primary company on the streets were other people wearing over-sized backpacks, bandanas, and hiking boots. We stood out like sore thumbs, having not yet acquired the rough and smelly ruggedness of these weathered hikers. We met a man at the hostel named Moose (not his real name. One cool thing about the AT is that everybody has a trail name. This allows everybody to maintain some level of anonymity, while also signifying the "other world" feeling of being on the trail.) Moose offered to shuttle us to our starting point at Fox Creek Horse Camp.

So that's how we ended up on the Appalachian Trail by 10:00 AM that first morning.

Almost instantly, we had our very first experience with "Trail Magic." 

"Trail Magic" is the term used on the trail that describes random acts of kindness and good vibes that occur on the trail via the generosity of strangers. It is one of the best parts of hiking the Appalachian Trail. Two minutes in, we saw this on the trail

Another hiker left a sack of oranges for other thru hikers to enjoy! "Trail Magic!"

Shortly after that, we came to our first shelter, Old Orchard Shelter. Shelters are these little huts built along the AT for hikers to camp at. They usually have a picnic table, a campfire ring, and occasionally a trail register notebook for people to write little journal entries in with their thoughts on the experience, weather conditions, updates on the trail, etc. We ate a quick snack here. And we found a copy of the Hunger Games that a nice thru-hiker left for people to read! "Trail Magic!"

We got moving again and the next cool spot we came to was our first grassy bald! Balds are big open fields on top of mountains that were primarily used for grazing livestock before the wilderness surrounding the Appalachian Trail became a national park. Most of the balds have begun to grow back up into forest, but due to the presence of wild ponies (yes, WILD ponies!) and some cattle that get herded through the area once a year several of them have managed to stay wide open and gorgeous. We ate lunch on some boulders and took in the view.

We hiked down from the bald into our first valley, and came to a sign. The AT is really well marked and taken care of. There are plenty of signs that help show you exactly how far you have walked, and how far you have to go. The sign told us we were an eighth of the way into our journey! Woohoo!

It was hot out, and we had gone through most of our water already. We each had a little less than half a liter of water left. But we knew from the map that we carried that there was a water source just a few miles away, so we were determined to get there and refill. Hydration is extremely important on the trail. Sure enough, we rounded a corner past a grove of rhododendron, and there it was! Water!

The water was running and crystal clear. We practiced using Ducky's new filter but we hardly needed it, the water was so clean. We used drops to purify it. Water gets tricky, because no matter how clean it looks, there's still a strong possibility that it is contaminated with bacteria like e.coli and viruses like the norovirus. None of these things are fun, so we used chlorine drops to bleach out the bad stuff. We each drank a liter a piece before we left the water source, filled both our bottles to the brim, added more drops, and then started off again. 

We hadn't taken more than 40 steps away from the water when we rounded another rhododendron grove and came face to face with...a longhorn bull. 

The guy was MASSIVE. And he couldn't have been more than 30 yards away. He was tagged, but there were no fences separating him and us (no fences at all for that matter that we'd seen). He looked right at us. I remember saying to Ducky "If he charges...just drop. Hope he only attacks our packs. I'm not outrunning this guy." Thankfully, he just lowered his head down. Clearly we were less interesting than grass. Phew! We walked on, a little more wary of our environment than before.

We started up our first major climb next. The mountain we were climbing wasn't named on my map, but it looked fearsome from where we stood.

We thought it was going to be intense, but it actually didn't take long at all. Before we knew it, we were at the top!

But it was not over yet. The peak behind Ducky and I in the picture above is where we were headed. We would have to climb down into another valley, and then back up onto the final ridge, where we planned to make camp for the night just on the other side of the peak. We had done approximately 9 of 14 miles at this point, and it was about 3 o'clock. We needed to make camp before dark, so we had about 5 hours to knock out the final 5 miles to Rhododendron Gap. Not too shabby.

Before we knew it, we were on top of that peak.

My finger is pointing to the spot where Ducky and I took the previous picture together. Kind of cool.

The trail register announced to us that we had officially entered the Grayson Highlands part of the trail. This is the region that is famous for the wild ponies, grassy balds, and spectacular views. It is often mentioned by thru-hikers as one of the best parts of the entire AT. Just as we were down from the peak, about a mile and a half from our camp spot, we saw them. PONIES!

This guy walked right up to me to see if I had any snacks for him. Sorry Charlie, got nothing for ya. I guess even though the ponies up there are technically wild, they are so used to day hikers and thru-hikers that they aren't very skittish. They will walk up to people and nibble around looking for food. When the pony realized I didn't have anything for him, he sauntered onwards. Once again, the wildlife deemed us less interesting than grass. 

But that was okay. At long last, we had found our campsite. The first day on the trail was done! We found a spot to cook away from our tent site (so as not to encourage bear visitors) that overlooked the whole valley north of us. It was breathtaking.

We cooked a dinner of lentils and rice in a small backpacking stove that I had brought. It cannot possibly be overstated how good food tastes after 14 miles of hiking in the hot sun. We finished up by brushing our teeth on top of a boulder watching the sun set. Then we packed up the food into a bear bag, hung it out of reach and away from our tent, did a little yoga to prevent muscle aches for the next day of hiking (17 miles!), and then hunkered down in our nice warm tent for the night.