Cold SPAM Tortilla

It’s Friday, March 22, and I'm in my tent already at 6:45 p.m. It’s windy and very rainy, and I'm feeling thankful right now that I got myself the larger tent (versus a single-person tent), because all my stuff is in here with me right now. Otherwise, it’d be outside getting wet. But I'll get to that in a second.

I woke up early this morning at Mountain Crossings in the bunk room, and I hadn't slept very well. It was this windowless, stuffy room with a plastic mattress. Not very conducive to sleep, though tonight, I'll basically be in a plastic bag basically surrounded by rain and wind and mud. At least I’m in the fresh air. But I got a decently early start. You can't start too early these days, because of the light. It doesn't get light until around 7:30, and I choose not to start hiking in the dark. Some people do, but I'm not one of them.

Yesterday, at Mountain Crossings, I got to see the famous Orange Kitty. He's this very cute orange cat that just sort of showed up one day, and now he’s their default mascot, which is kind of cute. They have these little signs around that say the kitty lives here and it's safe, it's being fed, things like that.

I’ve been eating these high-protein Pop-Tart-like pastries for breakfast. They’ve got something like 20 grams of protein, and they’re pretty densely packed with calories. But I ran out of them, and Mountain Crossings didn't have any, so I just bought regular Pop-Tarts. I felt like I’d just shoveled straight sugar into my mouth. And that didn't turn out to be overly helpful, because the hike out was rather steep, and by about mile two, I was already feeling like I needed to eat again.

But I trudged on, and about four miles in, I made it to a different campsite, where I took my pack off and had a  protein bar as a snack, which kept me going for a little while. But the big issue today was the coming storm. The meteorologists were forecasting some pretty heavy wind and rain for this evening, and they weren’t wrong. It was actually a tough day, but I had to keep moving, because I needed to get into camp in time to set up my tent before it started raining.

One thing that’s been funny is the inconsistent nature with which the trail maintenance folks paint the white blazes on trees to mark the trail. So at one point, I was coming off a peak, and there were very, very few white blazes, and then, there were none.

And I started to worry that I’d wandered off onto a separate trail, because the trail had these tiny little green plastic ribbons. I even took out my phone —thankfully, I had a little bit of signal — and researched “green ribbons on trail.” And apparently, there's this whole Georgia Green Ribbon Trail, so I almost had a minor panic attack that I’d veered wildly off course. But I just kept going, and eventually, I saw a tree with a white blaze on it. That was a tremendous relief.

White blaze, anyone?

So, you get kind of nervous sometimes that you've wandered off onto a different trail because not only is the AT here, there are also lots of other loop trails for day hikers. Later in the day, I was coming off a different peak, and I saw about six white blazes in the span of about 30 feet. So I had a little bit of a chuckle. I have no idea why they chose to put six blazes in one spot and zero over the span of about a mile. Go figure.

Right now, I’m at a place called Low Gap. There are lots of “gaps” in Georgia. Well, I guess there are lots of gaps everywhere, really, but there seems to be an abundance of them in Georgia. And a gap is just when you go down something really steep, and then you hit the bottom, and then you know you're going to have to go back up something really steep. So whenever you see “gap,” unless it's your final destination, you know you’re going to have a steep downhill, followed by a steep uphill.

So I got to Tesnatee Gap and started up Wildcat Mountain. A couple days ago, when I hiked up Sassafras Mountain, someone said to me, “Every Sassafras Mountain is really steep and hard to hike.” So I started thinking about Wildcat Mountain in New Hampshire and wondering if this Georgia Wildcat Mountain would be similar. The one in New Hampshire is one of the hikes I'm a little nervous about, because right before you get to it, you’re coming down off Mount Washington. And you immediately have to go back up Wildcat Mountain, which is really large and steep and long. I don’t think this Georgia Wildcat Mountain is as large as the one in NH, but it definitely seemed equally steep, which was a rather unpleasant surprise.

As I was hiking, the wind started to really pick up, and I got a message from a friend of mine, saying that the rain was expected to start around 3 o'clock. So I was doing some calculations in my head and thinking I'd get to camp between 2 and 2:30. But then, a little after 1, I started feeling some drops on my face and tried to really pick up the pace, but I was really, really starting to run out of gas because I hadn't stopped for lunch.

I couldn’t spare the time, though, because I wanted to make sure I got to the campsite before it started raining. I eventually showed up, got some water, set up my tent, and threw everything inside the tent just as it started to rain. So I timed that one perfectly — if unintentionally.

At this point, I was starving, but I couldn’t break out my stove in the rain, and I obviously didn’t want to set my tent on fire by trying to cook inside it, so I went through my food bag to see what was available that didn’t require any cooking. I took a tortilla and put a slice of SPAM on it, then topped it with some Easy Cheese and a second tortilla.

I guess a cold SPAM tortilla probably sounds pretty nauseating for someone in normal circumstances, but I devoured it. And it was delicious! I followed it up with a third tortilla, slathered in peanut butter, as dessert, plus a few Girl Scout cookies.

After that, I spread out my bed and took an impromptu nap. It was a tough 12 miles today, but tomorrow is supposed to be a lot easier. The terrain was tough, but the impending storm put a little more pressure on things.

Something that’s been interesting is what all the occupations are that people have — or had, before coming on the trail. There's a guy from Charleston, SC, who was a forklift operator, and he felt like he was just getting worked too hard. So one day, he just said, “Forget it. I’m out!” He's confident that his skills as a forklift operator are more than enough to land him a job anywhere he wants after this. And he’s probably right. There are a couple of teachers on sabbatical. There's a university librarian, who's also on sabbatical. (Sabbatical is a common theme.) And there's a guy who just spent nine years in Abu Dhabi working at the aquarium there, which is apparently the largest aquarium in the world. He was the director of all the aquarium shows. But he's done with that. He was a theater major, and now he wants to get back into actual theater. So far, that’s the most unusual job I’ve come across.