No Blown Tires

It’s Sunday, April, 21, and I started my day at the Bald Mountain shelter. Since I was planning on doing a big day today, I wanted to get up and out of the campsite by about 7 o'clock. But when I woke up at six, it was still pouring rain. I lay there for a while, giving myself a pep talk and trying to get myself out of my tent. But that's never easy to do when it's raining that hard, and I'm nice and warm and dry inside my tent.

Thankfully, my patch job is still holding up, which is great. Eventually, I came to my senses and by 7:45 — only 45 minutes later than I wanted to leave — I was on my way. And it was still raining. [Wife note: I can’t help but think of the line from the Noah Kahan song “Homesick”: “The weather ain't been bad / If you're into masochistic bulls**t.”] So the first six miles of the hike were not overly pleasant, but I obviously made it through.

About six miles in, I reached Spivey Gap, where I stopped to have a snack. Fortunately, it had stopped raining by then, so I was able to take off my raincoat and reorganize a few things. I crossed the road and started up a very steep ascent. Anytime there's a gap, especially where there's a road crossing, like Spivey Gap had, you’re typically going to have to deal with a pretty steep out, but in this case, it was just absolutely beautiful. I went through a very dense cluster of rhododendrons and hiked alongside a crystal clear stream. That was really nice, and I was making good time.

Around this time, I decided to try to push on to Erwin (TN), which would mean a 17-mile day. I was hoping S. could help me book a place to stay, but for a few miles, I was stuck in some kind of a service desert, so I couldn’t get through to her on my phone. As luck would have it, though, I eventually stumbled upon a one-meter radius where I could actually get service. So I stood as still as I could in one spot and finally managed to call her. She booked me a room at the Mountain Inn and Suites, which is where I am right now. This is at mile 344 of the AT.

Interestingly, at that point, I realized that I'd seen only one other person on the trail all day, and I’d probably hiked a good eight or nine miles. That’s very unusual. Yesterday, I was constantly seeing other hikers on the trail. I’m not really sure why my cadence today was significantly different from that of all the other thru-hikers in the area, but I guess it just was.

Erwin was another six and a half miles down the trail, so I got going, and when I had about four miles to go before I reached the road, I decided it was finally time to start listening to some music. So, mark it — 340 miles in and just over one month on the trail,  and I broke out my iPod for the first time. I kind of needed it. I had a few tough climbs to get through, and having some lively music definitely helped. Led Zeppelin, a little Rage Against the Machine, some Smiths. I’m sure I’ll be using my iPod again in the future to get up some of the steeper spots.

Now I had about two miles left before I hit Erwin, and I noticed a guy hiking up the trail toward me. Older guy, white hair, white beard, flannel shirt, jeans. And he had fashioned a backpack out of some rope and one of those square kitty litter buckets. He had pool noodles as his padding, and in the bucket was a chainsaw.

With that setup, I could only assume he was going to be doing some trail maintenance, and I really admired his ingenuity. I really wish I’d gotten his picture, but I was just so gobsmacked that this old guy was charging up a super steep trail in the middle of the afternoon with a chainsaw in a bucket on his back that it really threw me off. I stopped to talk to him for a second, and he told me his trail name is Itsy Bitsy Spider. He thru-hiked the AT in 1974, and he's been maintaining a four-and-a-half-mile section of the trail for the past 28 years. And believe me when I say it was immaculate. No obstacles. Really well marked. And he took tremendous pride in that. He said he thinks his section of the trail is better than 90% of the rest of the AT, and I told him I suspected that number was actually higher. He got a good chuckle out of that.

He had a guy in tow who was significantly younger than him, and he asked me whether I was attempting a thru-hike. I said yes, and he said, “Well, you know, you look to be in pretty good shape. By now, most people would have blown a tire.” I'm not really sure what he meant by that, but I took it as a compliment.

Before much longer, I made it down to the road, and at the base of the trail where it hits Erwin is a hostel called Uncle Johnny's. It’s really well known, and a lot of thru-hikers stay there. Supposedly, though, it's under new ownership and has been getting some mixed reviews lately, so S. encouraged me to stay at the Mountain Inn instead, which is decidedly not hostel-like. But I walked over to Johnny's and saw Better Yet and Praying Mantis there. I hadn’t crossed paths with those guys since I’d hung out with them outside the Dollar General in Hot Springs. Praying Mantis has some kind of infection in his leg that’s getting really bad, so he's going to be hanging out at Uncle Johnny's for a couple days, in hopes of healing up.

 The hotel is just a shade over a mile from where the trail meets Erwin, so I figured I’d just walk there. I made it maybe 100 yards when a nice older gentleman stopped and offered me a ride. He told me he picks up hikers all the time, so I threw my pack into the back of his truck, and off we went. It was just a short drive, but boy, I really appreciated it, because after hiking 17 miles, my feet were aching.

I checked in, showered, did my laundry, and went to the convenience store to pick up a few things for resupply. I might not have enough, but I can hit Johnny's on the way out tomorrow morning and get some more items.

There’s a Mexican restaurant that shares the same parking lot as the hotel, so I went path-of-least-effort and got dinner there. It apparently has a pretty good reputation, but I guess I should take that with a grain of salt for what it was and where I am. I mean, the effort was there, but the food was just... food?

My tent is now hanging up in the shower, my laundry is clean and dry, I’ve had dinner, and I’m about ready to go to sleep in an actual bed, which sounds a bit like happiness to me. I don't think I'm going to take on a very large day tomorrow, but we'll see how things play out.