Soggy Slogging

It is Thursday, May 9, and I am at the Jenkins Shelter at mile 580.6, I think. Today was a 16.5-mile day over very tough terrain. I wasn't expecting it to be so tough. This morning, I woke up on the banks of Lick Creek. I had hung out my clothes to dry, and they were already soaking wet, so I didn't have much to lose, but unfortunately, overnight, there was a series of fairly strong thunderstorms. So everything I’d set out to try was still completely drenched when I got up this morning. I tried to do the same thing the night before, and it had rained. So I’m oh for two now. Anyway, I packed up my wet clothes and was on my way not too long after 7 o'clock. 

The weather wasn’t rainy, but it wasn't sunny, either. It was just this cloud that kind of hung over everything, making everything wet. It was 100% humidity, which made hiking rather unpleasant, particularly considering that the day began with a fairly steep and long climb — a little over 2,000 vertical feet in four miles. At one point, I was trudging through wet foliage in my wet clothes and the air was just wet and my pack was making a weird rattling noise that I couldn’t identify, and you know, I’d just kind of had enough. So I started yelling at the weather and at the woods and everything out of pure frustration.

Eventually, I got it out of my system a bit and came to my senses, and as I progressed, the trail opened up into a really nice meadow. I want to call it kind of an alpine meadow, but I’m not sure if it was technically high enough to call it “alpine.” At any rate, it was very nice to hike up a grassy bald for a bit. It was still uphill, and there was no real view, but the environment was much nicer, and the wind was picking up, which was helping to cool things down.

I ultimately wound up at Chestnut Knob Shelter, and at that point, I was actually starting to get a little chilly, because it was wet and windy. Fortunately, the shelter had four walls and a door, so I retreated into it for a break. At one time, there’d been a fireplace inside the shelter, but it had been covered over. If not, I might have tried drying out my things a bit, but that was clearly not to be. I was pleasantly surprised, however, to realize that because Chestnut Knob was at a reasonable elevation, I had some cell reception — which I hadn’t had the night before — so I jumped on the opportunity to give S. a quick call.

While I was having a snack post-call, Maple Leaf showed up, which was great, and we hung out and talked for a bit. By the time we were ready to move on, the weather had cleared up some, and we had a little bit of a view. Right out of Chestnut, we had a very deep decline, followed by a very steep incline, and at the top of that incline, it was nice and clear and breezy. So I stopped again, took my pack off, and removed most of my wet things. I had some string I used to create a bit of a clothesline, and I tried to dry as many things as possible. I was able to get my tent dry, my sleeping pad, my sleeping quilt, and some of my clothes, but not everything was that easily dried. So I just sort of sequestered the stuff that was still wet and moved on.

The middle portion of the day was the ridge walk, which the map had made look kind of benign. But it was actually really rocky, so the hiking was very slow going. In the middle of it, I was texting with S. about potentially getting a hotel or hostel for the next night. She assured me that we hadn’t blown out our budget yet, so I decided to stay in the town of Bland tomorrow night, even though I’m already planning to stay in Pearisburg just a few nights later, maybe 45 miles past Bland.

I feel a little guilty about that, but S. keeps reminding me that I’m not on a death march. I’m supposed to be enjoying myself, at least as much as possible, given what I can and can’t control, and if the weather and terrain are not really cooperating, it's okay to get off the trail to dry out and rest a bit and restore my muscles and things like that. So that took a little bit of the sting away.

One of the reasons I had to hike more than 16 miles today was the lack of water. There are certain portions of the trail where water is abundant, and any time you need to filter water, it's available and easy to access. But today, I was hiking through an area where there just wasn't a lot of water, so even if you're tired and want to stop for the day and camp, that just isn't an option, because you don't have enough water. So I had to keep going. I was really looking forward to taking down a good gallon or so of water once I got to where I was headed for the night.

By the time I finally made it to the Jenkins Shelter, my feet were just absolutely killing me. I’d started off the day with wet feet, and I’d made it 16.5 miles. So when I took my boots and my socks off, my feet looked like those of a corpse. So having a chance to finally air my feet out a little bit was nice.

The general consensus around the campsite was that today had been a very difficult day. Frankly, it sucked. But even though we were all feeling pretty grumpy about the trail, we were also pleased that we were still out here, doing it. So we’re sitting around the picnic table and eating dinner — this is Maple Leaf, Asstronaut, Heavy, and a couple other people I haven't really hiked with before — and just generally grousing about the trail and saying we hoped tomorrow would be easier, and this other thru-hiker — I’ll call him Marlboro, just in case he wouldn’t want this story out there — comes into camp, and he’s looking quite grumpy. He rips his pack off his back and literally throws it on the ground and yells, “Can someone F*%&ING remind me why the HELL I'm doing this hike?!” And then, almost within the same breath, he says, “I know, I know, it's to find myself and to find God.”

A couple people at the shelter started telling him to chill out and to go have a cigarette and he’d feel better. And I’m thinking, What? Who hikes 16-plus miles and then has a cigarette?

I mean, I've seen some people smoke on the trail, but it's a extremely rare occurrence. But it turns out that Marlboro actually picked up smoking on the trail! He’d met a hiker who smoked somewhere along the way and bummed a cigarette from him — he’d never really smoked before — and just immediately liked what it did for him. He's literally the only guy I’ve ever heard of who started smoking while thru-hiking! But I guess it worked. He kind of angrily stomped around the campground for a while but then after he had a cigarette, he chilled out, made himself dinner, and went to bed.

Before I turned in myself, I hung my clothes on a tree, so I’m hoping it won’t rain overnight again. This is my third attempt at trying to dry my stuff out so I don't have to put wet clothes on in the morning. Fingers crossed it works this time!