Tag: at2023

Since it’s a short day, I slept in kind of late. I stepped off from camp at 9:20 AM, three minutes earlier than yesterday. I guess that’s an improvement.

My destination was the Dahlgren campground, I lovely place maintained by the Maryland state department. There is running water, showers, bare poles, and tent pads. I’m here with about five of the families and a few trail hikers.

Overall, it was a good day. The weather was clear. I began to realize just how slow a hiker I am when a six year old girl – trail name, Viriole – past me, twice. Her mother and her stopped at the White Rock, Cliffs to view the scene, and I was able to get out a little sooner. But they passed me up about an hour later. Later in the day, a section hiker named One Lung passed me up. You know you’re slow when a hiker named One Lung passes you up.

Hiking so slow, I spent a lot of time contemplating rocks. The Appalachian Mountain range is the youngest range in the world. They were formed during the last I e Age about 200,000 years ago. Generously estimating my life expectancy at 80 years, these rocks are already 2500 times older than I’ll ever be. And when I die, I’ll return to dust and be precisely as mobile as these rocks. So they deserve a little respect.

Change of plan: I’m hiking to Pogo Campsite tomorrow instead of Pine Knob. It’ll make a shorter day after.

Today’s mileage: 7.1

Total trail miles: 17.9

The day didn’t start out well. I walked down to the post office, only to find out that it doesn’t open until 9 AM. So I walked back to the bolivar  bread, bakery to get a roll, only to find out, they didn’t open until 8 AM. So here I sit waiting for them to open the door. I’ll hang out here for an hour until the post office opens and then mail my back home box. I don’t regret it. Time spent in Harpers Ferry is never wasted.

Finally stepped off on the trail at 9:23 AM. The first part of the hike along the canal and river was pretty uneventful, the path is flat and well tended. The ascent to the Weverton Cliffs was uneventful, although it took me a while to get there. I had 7 miles to the first shelter, stopped and ate lunch. I decided I was going to try for the second shelter which is the Crampton gap shelter. I read the sign I incorrectly and ended up about a mile past the shelter. Since it was already after 7 PM, I decided to pull off on the side, pitch camp and spend the night.

The interesting thing about this campsite is that there is a town to the west of the ridge. Either Def Leppard or a Def Leppard copycat is playing a concert down in the town. I can hear all of the top tunes of Def Leppard down there. It’s almost 930 and they’re starting to wind down. I guess it’s Saturday night 

I’m posting this journal entry without any corrections. I’m dictating it with my voice. My reading glasses are in my backpack, and I don’t wanna get out of my Hamic to get them. Tomorrow night I will remember to put them in the hammock. So sorry about the mistakes total distance hike today 13.2 miles including side trails. Not a bad day one.

Lesson for the day: slow down

For those of you who have hiked the AT before, you know that the southern terminus of the trail officially starts at the top of Springer Mountain in Georgia. Springer Mountain is a tall mountain, and somewhat difficult to get to. Most hard-core AT hikers will start at Amicalola Falls, which is a hard days hike from Springer, all of it up. Some slack packers will hire a shuttle to take them up to the top of Springer, but I think this is cheating. I’ve always found it interesting that you have to hike a hard day to get to the beginning of the AT, but that’s fitting considering the breadth and depth of the trail.

Getting from the Brazos Valley to Harpers Ferry today was my approach trail, and a very interesting day. The two flights up to DC were uneventful. After 3 subway rides, I made it to Union Station, which is a massive building beautifully designed. I had several hours to kill so I bought a half a sub sandwich and sat down on the lower level to people watch.

I didn’t have to wait long, because a man ran up to the subway counter, stole some money and ran off. Several seconds later four cops passed by running to go catch him.

When I finally got on the train, the real fun began. If you’ve never read the book A Walk in the Woods, by Bill Bryson, you really should pick it up. You’ll laugh so hard your sides will hurt. Anyway, there’s a character in the book named Mary Ellen. The guy I sat next to, let’s just call him James, was a male Mary Ellen. He was obviously a train spotter, and launched into a detailed description of the trains that he had when he was a kid, how he worked at a hobby store and bartered for trains rather than take money, and how he used to steal coils of wire from houses to wire up the trains that he collected. He peppered me with a little known facts, such as Roger Clemens went to his high school, but because he never went to class they were disqualified from winning any games. He was also a Scoutmaster, and so that was something we had in common. He told me detailed descriptions of at least five different trips that they took with the scouts. A real boor. After 30 minutes of this, I politely excused myself to go to the restroom. When I got back he was leaning over the seats in front of us and talking with those folks whom I’m sure he had never met before. He remained in that position for at least 20 minutes talking to them, about what I don’t know, his butt-crack just visible over the top of his waistband. That was the longest hour and 15 minutes I’ve ever had in my life.

Getting to Harpers Ferry, I was picked up by my Airbnb hostess Rei, who is a delightful woman with NOWLS experience. Her bed and bed breakfast is well worth visiting if you’re ever in Harpers Ferry. I’ve unpacked my pack, redistributed, everything to be more efficient, packed my go-home box for tomorrow, and I’m sitting here on the porch of the house looking at the overcast sky to Maryland Heights across the river. In the morning, I’ll start day one. Yes, today was an eventful approach trail.

I posted my first trail package this morning. Using the “hold for pickup” service, you can post a package to a U.S. post office which will keep it for you until you get there. In this way, you can stage boxes of consumables to be picked up during your hike. It’s a bit of a balancing act. You have to allow for variations in your hiking schedule, delivery time, and even the hours the post office is open. You don’t want to show up at 10 am to a post office that doesn’t open until noon. Arriving late could mean that you have to spend the night close by and essentially waste a day hanging around when you should be moving.

Mama Bear will post the next three boxes when the dates get a little closer. She will add tortillas just before mailing – they are a great luxury on the trail. Knowing that she is back home, holding down the “fort” and thinking of me is a great comfort, a connection to the real world. I can imagine getting the boxes she sends, perhaps with a little note in them. My father taught me the greatest thing you can give to another person is to wait for them. My boxes will be waiting for me somewhere up ahead. Mama Bear will waiting for my return somewhere behind.

As the time draws near for me to step-off, the reality of being gone for a month is beginning to sink in. Routine things like paying bills, adding chlorine to the septic tanks, bathing the dog, and checking the mail have to be addressed. Of course it helps to have a family that will take care of things while I’m gone. The minutiae of daily life reminds me of the story of Martha and Mary in the New Testament. You see, I’m more prone to be a Martha, distracted by the preparations of the day with my head turned down to the things of the world, rather than looking up to God, to the one thing that really matters. This is why I’m looking so much forward to this trip. I will have an extended period of time, really the longest in my life, to step out of the details of the world and concentrate on my mental, physical, and spiritual health without the worry of the day-to-day.

It also makes me consider time. The last 30 years of work haven’t seemed that long. I’ve gotten married, raised five kids, earned two advanced degrees, and held leadership positions with half a dozen organizations. I’ve accomplished everything I set out to do professionally . Yet, I don’t feel that old. For the first time since graduating from college, I won’t have a full-time “nine to five” job. My situation has changed. I’ll have more time to do other things. But my mind always seems to turn back to the trail.

When you’re out there, your mind, body, and soul reset. I always notice it after about a week when I start to get emotional. I’ve described it to my wife as “my heart learning to beat again.” Little things and memories feel much deeper. I think about people I love and those I’ve lost. I sense the world around me differently – the smell of the earth after a sudden shower, the warmth of a sunbeam on my arm stabbing through the dense canopy. It feels like my spirit is a bottle being uncorked.

Don’t get me wrong – hiking is hard. Hiking is “deprivation,” which is why new hikers almost always have one of two reactions to long-distance backpacking. Some “embrace the suck” and get what it’s all about. They’ll be back. Others, when you ask them about their experience reply, “It’s not what I expected.” Well, what did you expect? Here’s hiking in a nutshell: you wake up, walk, eat, walk some more, eat, sleep, wake up and walk some more – simplicity itself. But when you return to the real world, you see things differently, and long to get back to it.