TRAIL DAY 15
Sun, Mar 6, 2016 When I awoke, dear Theo was shivering. I tried to warm him up with vigorous rubbing. He had probably got separated from his quilt during the night or it didn’t help very much. I felt bad any night Theo shivered and felt I had not taken proper precautions on his behalf. One hiker spoke of a dog sleeping bag in which he’d sewn or otherwise fixed and pad so that bag and pad and dog would not get separated. My failure is inexcusable but Theo just sucked it up, night after cold night. I wondered how he could shiver all night and hike all day but he did.
I remember in November of 2014 when Theo and I hiked Mount Marcy in the Adirondacks, New York’s highest peak. It was very cold and at elevation, the entire trail was ice. I had micro spikes. We had hoped to summit by noon but it was not until 2:30 p.m. that we arrived at the top with sharp winds and snow. I had wanted to take a different trail down but the white blazes were not visible so I opted to return whence I came.
It was getting dark and I had gotten slightly lost at a river crossing and, after many attempts to find the trail, said to Theo, “We’re camping right here, my friend.” I found a suitable spot in a grassy area and set up camp in the dark. I cooked in the small vestibule and turned in. Both Theo and I shivered – but I found, in time, my shivering warmed me and my sleeping bag up enough that I got a fair night’s sleep. I can pray only that the same was true for Theo – and I pray the same for the cold southern AT – and later in the north.
Well, my concerns for him were allayed when he shook himself, passed through the vestibule to the outside and greeted the bright new day with a roll in the snow.
We had breakfast, packed and started the descent off the peak. Standing Indian cast its shadow westward before the sun rising on a perfectly cloudless day.
“Off the peak” – when you’re hiking in the mountains, the only reason to go down is so you can go back up. The down is just the path to the up. And the up is just the path to the down. There’s really no, “Aaaah-haaaa! We’re there!” Not even at Katahdin. You reach the top – but then you go down – and then, just as in life, you just keep on going. . . .
This little musing came frequently on the trail but just now it came because reference to AWOL reminds me that after Standing Indian Mountain came Albert Mountain with its fire tower. The way there included a few short climbs and somewhere along the way, I saw “Dudeman,” “Bigfoot” and “Corncob” whose names I didn’t know until I stopped to have lunch with them. While there, along came “Goat” who lived in Atlanta but was from Turkey. His goal was to finish the trail in 90 days and he had the appearance of someone who knew what he was doing and had the determination to make it happen.
As I am hiking the trail in words which draw me into the moment under consideration, aided by notes and pictures and the search for expression, my recall is stirred and I am impressed with what details there are buried in “my whole life” on the trail.
For example, I remember eating with these four guys, all a good deal younger than I, by maybe as much as 50 years, and seeing that they got out their food, put their meal together, ate it and were on their way, leaving me to my own devices – my own hike. And so it was so very often. I simply didn’t have the energy level or the drive or the goal to move so fast on the trail. I ate and took in the scenery and the events of the day at a slower pace and maybe I tasted the trail’s offerings in a different way. Perhaps they could gulp it down and savor it at the same time and I simply needed more time to consume and digest the entire experience. More years; more reflections and more time with less time to waste.
I remember Albert so very well. It was gradual climbing until you neared the top and then it got very steep and difficult. I say “difficult” because it was that in the sense that each step brought you about 2 feet higher in elevation. You had to hold on to or lean against one huge boulder as you stepped up to a ledge and then up and over another huge boulder. You weren’t walking at all. You were climbing using all fours, hand over hand and foot after foot. It was the first challenge of its sort on the trail and, I remembered it as the roughest climb until maybe Lehigh Gap at Palmerton, Pennsylvania another 1150 miles on.
And in the Albert ascent, we passed the first 100-mile mark. The summit was at 100.1 miles. I arrived by myself and selected a campsite in a clearing just off the trail to the west about 50 feet from the base of the tower. I set up my tent at the edge of a clearing and soon “Boondoggle,” who had thru-hiked the AT the year before with his 11-year-old son, arrived with a hubcap fixed to the back of his pack. I forget the story but I think it bore signatures of earlier carriers and was in honor of someone.
Hikers did this sort of thing. “Echo,” whom I would meet later said someone gave her an American flag and asked her if she would carry it all the way to Katahdin and I don’t doubt that she did. I know she finished because she responded to news of my finish one of my sons posted saying she was “honored” to have met me at Big Meadows Campground in Virginia. I quote her comment because it says something about hikers. We have a deep respect for one another. We each have taken on a huge challenge – a very different kind of undertaking than is usual in life and we are pleased and perhaps proud of ourselves and happy to share the feeling and have the company. As we continue on our “own hike,” we know that we are not alone even when we are enjoying solitude.
Before supper, I climbed the tower and got the lay of the land, taking a selfie with my face screwed up against the wind as the sun was setting behind me.
Bundled up, I cooked my supper at the base of the fire tower and shared bits with Theo, who got fed copious amounts of dog food from his saddle bags every morning and night in addition to a sizable portion of all snacks: “a bite for me and a piece for you; a bite for me and a piece for you. . . .” Also, farther down the trail he usually got the last bite of my lunch and some of the pastry I came to enjoy with brewed coffee when that got started. But it was only on a rare occasion that he would get some of my supper – maybe some of my dessert, if I had any. Desserts disappeared altogether in the north.
Boondoggle had pitched his tent in the clearing just south of mine. It was windy and cold but both Theo and I had a comfortable night.
Day #15 Standing Indian Mountain > Albert Mountain 13.5 miles