So I pack everything up and start heading out. It was a pretty easy-going, pain-free hike to the campsite. It was 7 miles, but relatively flat and at a low altitude. At the beginning of the trail is a tunnel about a quarter-mile long. It’s completely covered in graffiti on the inside, and at the mid-point, you can’t even see the ground you’re walking on. The only light is coming from either end of the tunnel; the only proof that your eyes are indeed open. A little unnerving, but pretty cool.
I arrived at the campsite feeling great. It took me only a little over 2 hours to hike the seven miles, and I was feeling pretty good about myself. Not even tired at all. Ready for more! Plus, the campsite was empty. I was completely secluded. I know my mom wouldn’t like to hear that I was at least seven miles from anyone, but it was what I was seeking. If anything went wrong, hey, I had Bandaids. I’m coo I’m coo.
I started to set up camp. I grouped all the food and toiletries together that I would have to put in the bear bag. I pitched the tent by the stream so I would have the white noise of flowing water all night. I took out the water filter, the stove sack, and… wait, what’s that? I felt something odd in the stove sack. Huh? I opened up the sack and… ahhh ha! The lighter! Yes. I forgot I had put it in with stove when I was stuck on the road in the mountains! How smart of me to do that! And then I thought, how equally dumb of me to forget. No matter! I was going to have a campfire and a warm dinner! Come on baby light my fire.
After some tasty Beefaroni I filled up my water bottles and decided it was time for bed. It was only 8:30, but I was beat. The campfire would have to wait for tomorrow. I fell asleep almost right away, though I kept waking up during the night. Camping in such seclusion makes me paranoid about every noise I hear. A leaf rustling, a branch falling; these noises normally are quite benign but in the wilderness could mean that you have some undesirable mammalian company. Of course it’s unlikely that any animal will take any interest in you if you take the necessary precautions, but without somebody near me I always get a wee bit jittery. After a few minutes I pull myself back together and go back to sleep. I used the book I brought with me as a pillow.
I woke up around 8 AM the next morning. Ahhhhhhhh what a beautiful day. I took down the tent and hung it out to dry, and started eating breakfast: a banana and some trail mix. After the tent dried out, I packed everything up and headed out at about 9:30 AM. I was to follow the White Oak Trail for about 4 miles and hook up with the next trail. The trail was entirely uphill, so I was in for a tough day from the outset. Bring it on. I’ve got plenty of fat to burn.
What the map didn’t mention was the number of stream crossings along the trail. I’m not talking about the kind of crossing with a trickling of water generously sprinkled with large stepping rocks. No these streams were ten to fifteen wide at least, with flowing water a foot deep. Not the Mississippi for sure, but deep enough to completely soak your feet. Hiking a long way in wet socks and shoes is definitely not a good thing. It makes your skin softer and prone to blisters and tears. It was something that I did not want to deal with, so I took my time crossing the waters.
The first stream came. Maybe ten feet or so wide. A decent amount of rocks. I scanned the crossing for suitable rocks and chose my path. I took my time and crossed the water with relative ease. No close calls. The second stream was no different, though at one point the weight of my pack shifted and almost lost my balance, but I quickly recovered.
Then came the third stream. This one looked menacing. There were lots of rocks, but they were smallish and were all wet from the gushing water. Just be careful and you’ll be ok. I stepped onto the first rock and planted all my weight. No slippage. I moved onto the second, and third, no problems. When I was a couple rocks from the edge, I tempted fate by stepping on a particularly curvy rock, mainly chosen because of it’s proximity rather than on its merits of stability. I put my right foot down and pressed with as much weight as I could from my current rock. No slippage. So I made the transfer of my entire weight…
SHIIIIIIIIIIIITTT!!!
My right foot slipped to the right of the rock and into the foot-deep water. The fell into a partial split, forcing my left foot outward, off it’s rock, and into the water that had just said hello my right foot.
AHHHHHHH IT’S COLD IT’S COLD IT’S COOOOOOOOLD!!
I scrambled to the shore, only a few feet from me at the time. Damn. Both my feet were completely soaked. Not good. I could change my socks but my shoes were soaked all the way through and any replacement socks would be drenched in no time. Not even a half hour into the hike and my feet are wet. Should be an interesting day.
A few minutes later, I realized that I was not hiking uphill as much as I thought I would. Odd, I thought. According to the map I should be going uphill at a pretty steady pace by this point… wait a second, am I on the right path? The campsite was right at the junction of two trails: the White Oak Trail, and the Forney Creek Trail. The White Oak was what I wanted, and the Forney Creek went in the complete opposite direction. Doubt crept in. Did I take the wrong trail?? I hadn’t checked before I left for some reason if I was on the right trail. Why wouldn’t I check? I’m not that dumb, am I? Instinct told me I couldn’t have been that dumb, but the need of my logical mind to verify was haunting my every step. I walked for a few more minutes. Still no steep incline. After about a mile, I decided to turn around and head back to camp. This of course meant that I had to cross stream number 3 again…
Ok ok, this time I’ll be extra careful. As I was walking I felt my shoes drying out a little bit and so I thought it prudent not to try to get them wet again. I stepped on the first rock, then to the second, then…
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTT!!!
This time I said “Shit!” out loud. This time I really lost my balance and had to put my hands out to catch myself from completely falling in the stream. My hand plunged themselves into what I’m sure liquid nitrogen must feel like. How can water be this cold??? I propped myself up, shaking my hands violently, trying in vain to shake off the feeling of cold. I added another “Shit!” for good measure and trudged back to dry land, defeated again by stream number 3.
I eventually made it back to camp and searched for any trail markers. I found a sign a few hundred yards before the campsite. As I approached it, dormant brain cells began activating in the memory section of my brain. Why is this all so familiar… why… and then I saw the sign and…
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTT!!!!
Now I know why I didn’t check my direction before I originally left the campsite. The sign indicated that the Forney Creek Trail was to the right, the White Oak Trail to the left, which led to the campsite. The campsite was already on the White Oak Trail, so I was most definitely on the right trail.
My theory is that my brain stored this information in the “no need to think about anymore” section of my memory, along with such memories as where I keep my ball point pens. The information stored was so obvious and superficial that it would no longer need to be accessed. My brain compressed the files and stored them out of sight to make room for more data. The only time this data can be activated is with current streaming visual data. It’s the kind of thing where once you find something that was lost, and suddenly the whole story of its location and why you put it there comes back in a flash. Ohhhhhhh yeah! Now I remember. Why your mind couldn’t access that information when it would have been more useful before you started looking under couches and seat cushions for your keys is a question we may never answer. Such is the mind. Err, mine, at least. But I digress.
At the pace I was going, I estimate that I had gone out a good mile. That mile plus the mile backtracking meant that I had traveled two miles and was back at point zero. And on top of that, my feet were damp. Not a good start of the day. But again, I was trying to be positive. Ok, it’s still early and I have plenty of time to get to the camp. I always plan things so that there is a lot of built-in dead time, in case things go wrong. So, in a sense, this could be part of the plan, right? Instead of dead time, it’s an extra 2 miles I can use to enjoy nature. Right.
So I started out from the campsite for the second time, which meant… I would have to cross stream number 3 again. I think it’s a fair statement to say that you’re officially in touch with nature when you become competitive with a stream. “I’m going to cross you this time! I’ve got a look at you twice now, and know which rocks to avoid!” It was a moot point though. My feet were already wet. I could walk across, sparing myself the time and the trouble of crossing via rock. But I already decided that I had to beat it. I had to cross it. It was a matter of pride now. I know I can do this.
So I planned my route, one clearly superior to my first. How had I not seen it before? First rock, second rock, no problem. I’ve got this. Third rock… whoooaaaa. I wobbled a bit but regained my balance. Not this time, you bastard. Confident, I stepped to the fourth…
SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIITTTTT BALLS!!!
I added the “Balls” part this time, I think because I had already yelled “Shit” a few times and the word was losing its power as an anger ventilation mechanism. Rock four was not the culprit, but rather the false trust I placed in rock three. It was fine for support when standing still, but when I shifted my weight to go the next rock, my right foot slipped backwards into the familiarly frigid water, which then caused my left foot to miss its intended target as well. I struggled quickly to regain a semblance of balance and again walked defeated to the opposite side. I looked back at the stream for a bit, wondering if the stream was that hard to cross or if had just gotten in my head. Either way, I was 0 for 3. I considered walking back through the water to other side and attempt another crossing. But what was I trying to prove anyway? And to whom? My pride needed to be reminded who was in charge. I shook my head and moved on, squishing my way up the trail.
So onward up the trail I tread. At first, not so bad. A bit of slight uphill here, a stream crossing there. Ooo ooo, there’s an awesome looking centipede.
2 miles… 3 miles… 4 miles… when was it going to end? That’s when the doubt came. Doubt if I was going to be able to finish. Doubt as to my reasons for going on this trip. Why was I doing this anyway? What am I trying to do here anyways? Torture? Clearly this is not a “fun” activity. Or is it? The closer I got to the top, the more I started feeling better about myself. I was doing this difficult trek. There was no debate about it. There was no alternative explanation as to how I reached the point I was at other than my choice to do so and my willingness to continue. There was a certain visceral clarity in what I was doing. I embraced this thought of the mind and transformed it into motivation of the body. Difficult? Yeah. Painful? Somewhat? Possible? Absolutely. The question of why (perhaps the question most readers are thinking right now), I realized, in the moment, is irrelevant.
The top. FINALLY. It’s about time. I rewarded myself with a peanut butter sandwich and a banana. I wasn’t very hungry, and had to force down the sandwich, because I knew I had to be burning an amazing amount of calories. It took me at least two hours to hike those 4 miles uphill. I’m not sure if that is a good pace or not, but I was definitely going fast in my own mind. I felt like I had accomplished something.
The top of the ridge wasn’t very exciting. The Smokies are almost completely tree-covered, even at its summits. This summit was no different, and there weren’t any picturesque views for me to gaze and reflect on. Oh well. I got all of my pictures last week with Brad and Louise.
The worst part about the top had to be the trail itself. As I said before, this trail was pretty isolated and difficult to reach. This isolation combined with the fact that not many people hike the trail at all meant that the trail was overgrown and, at several points, blocked by fallen trees. I constantly had to make sure that I was on the trail so that I wouldn’t go off the map. Grasses and plants leaned over from the sides to taste the sunlight that poked through to the trail. At one point I had to go through a field of thorny bushes (I was wearing a short sleeve shirt and shorts). That was awesome. I also had to walk through a lot of areas with really tall grass, perfect breeding grounds for ticks. At the time I thought there was NO way I was walking out of this park without those alien-like creatures. Man those things are ugly and revolting. They remind of those things in the movie Alien that infect the host human bodies. You know, the things with the circular bodies and legs all around? Anyone know what I’m talking about?
Anyway, the trail continued at a more or less flat level for about another 4 miles. There was some uphill, and some downhill, but nothing drastic enough to bemoan about. There was also a nice breeze at times, which felt great on my sweat drenched face. I heard a clap of thunder in the distance, but the sky was mostly free of clouds and the sun still shining down on me, so I didn’t think anything of it.
Then came the downhill… Ugh. I hate the downhill part. Whereas hiking uphill is strenuous but for the most part pain-free, downhill hiking, for me, is just excruciating. I guess it’s just the way my body is built or maybe just the inherent weakness in my joints, but just a few minutes into the downhill and my knees are feeling it. At first, just a slight twinge, but after a couple miles, every step is painful. My feet were also starting to hurt me at this point. I could feel I already had a few blisters on my right foot, and a few were in the development stages on my left. Frickin’ stream number 3.
But the campsite was not that far after the downhill started, about 2 miles. I eventually reached my intended campsite tired and achy, but still in one piece. Ahhhhhh. And wow I finished the hike so early! It was only 3:30 PM when I finished the hike. I was a man on a mission. Having no one to talk to really speeds up your hiking pace, even if you don’t notice.
So I took of my pack and sat on a log by a previously used firepit and breathed a sigh of relief. That’s when the thought I occurred to me: Hey, I’ve only got 6 miles left. I could finish that in a couple of hours and be out of here by 6 PM. Wouldn’t that be cool? The hike is described as strenuous, and recommends making it a three day hike. What if I did it in two? And not just in 2 days, but 7 miles the first, and 17 miles the second??
I had never hiked that distance before in one day. What would it feel like? What kind of stuff was I made of when I pushed myself? I wanted to find out.
With firm resolve, I picked up my pack and started walking the trail again. So stupid. My feet were hurting, my knees were hurting, and I was running low on water. And remember that clap of thunder when I was on top of the ridge? I had heard several others since, and the sky was getting grayer. But my judgment of my idiocy was not even close to its true magnificence, as I would soon discover...
[to be continued...]
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