TRAIL DAY 64
Sun, Apr 24, 2016 I awoke cozy in our pine grove. The mist and rain from the day before had cleared. It was a golden-bright, sunny day. I decided to capture the views on the far side of the grove away from the trail. I walked a bit into the rough terrain to get the lay of the land only to find that the extraordinary beauty of the scene was not enough to dissuade some hikers or better, vandals, from defacing the setting with two empty gallon jugs of water. (1) Who needs a plastic jug of water? (2) And who are the people that desecrate the land with such, or any, refuse? Would these same people shoot out the windows of Chartres because they were hot inside? Perhaps there’s an issue of degree here but I wonder. Once again, I think of the Indian by the side of the road.
I ate, took down the tent and aired out the footprint on the spindly briers, packed up and departed. I passed the turnoff to the summit in no time and followed the trail to Thomas Knob Shelter where I encountered PB, Justice and at least one other hiker. PB inquired about the stick in my pants and I told him it was for my hernia. The 3rd hiker said he was an EMT and he’d be happy to take a look if I’d like. We went off a short distance and I showed him the bulge. He told me different things I might do to manage it but I continued as I was. There was no undue alarm.
Justice and PB were some kind of item on the trail. I believe they shared a little camper trailer behind Hikers Inn in Damascus. No one paid much attention to connections like this on the trail – it was kinda nice. My guess is that the relationship was platonic and just a case of becoming friendly with another hiker. Events farther on would support this belief.
I went out behind the shelter some distance to the water supply and filled up. As Justice did the same after me, PB told me that she had applied to law schools and asked if I’d talk with her about good programs. He said he had encouraged her to talk with me. She never did.
Justice apparently was a slow starter in the morning – at least slower than PB who left without her. It was all part of HYOH and was accepted without “Hey! Wait for me!”
We were in for a very different day than any so far.
It was dry and sunny and we were going to be out in the open all day. We were in the Grayson Highlands, hovering around a mile high in a land of rolling fields, rock formations, the occasional pines with stretches of scrub forests – a land extraordinary for its beauty and otherness – not to mention that wild horses roamed free – miniature horses – ponies really – the ones who had left the droppings whose origins I had to leave to mystery. Solved. Time clears up a lot of things – although this might not quite rank with the Higgs boson.
It was not long after leaving the shelter that we came to our first ponies. PB was there taking close-up pictures. I didn’t know it at the time but we were not supposed to get close to the horses. Although they had gotten used to hikers and visitors passing by, they were still wild.
Beyond PB there was a Mare and her foal on the right side of the trail. She gradually moved over to the left side where PB and the other ponies were. Theo and I advanced slowly. I spent a good bit of time around horses as a kid and worked on a cattle ranch out in Wyoming one summer in college so I knew horses fairly well. We continued to move forward slowly and as we did so the mare and foal moved farther away on our left. I stopped on the right side of the trail with Theo behind me. We were just watching. The mare and foal were a good and safe distance away.
Then the mare left her foal and began slowly walking toward the trail – toward Theo and me. She came to the edge of the narrow trail as we stood on the opposite side and then lunged forward at Theo and bit him on the rump and scurried off. Theo yelped a little and another hiker, who professed to know something about dogs, came over to check out Theo’s condition. He found nothing. The mare had apparently just nipped Theo saying in her non-linguistic way, “Move on, Buddy!”
We did.
A month hence, there would be another such time with potentially more serious consequences but we’ll tell that tale in time.
Theo was quite wary around the ponies for a while but seemed, in time, to chalk the experience up as just one of those things.
We hiked some rough trail over rocky sections and then smooth, always in the bright son. As lunch time came along, I found a nice glade of trees to sit under and relax for a while, Theo in my lap. A good number of young hikers were enjoying the highlands and several soon found my lunch spot for their break.
I made a call to Christopher and remember it as a real good, upbeat conversation about my undertaking and how far I’d come. His enthusiasm was encouraging.
Not long after lunch, we came to some signs about the Grayson Highlands with warnings about getting too close to the ponies. We were out in the open following the rutted trail around clumps of trees and through stretches of open field when in our path there appeared a marker that took me completely by surprise.
500 MILES
We had hiked 500 miles! This was not a weekend adventure. Not a two-week adventure. While Goat was probably 2/3rds done in Massachusetts, I was thrilled to be a couple of months in with 500 miles under my belt.
Small stones had been laid out to spell out our significant progress. There was a young (they’re all young!) hiker a good ways ahead of me. I yelled out to him: “500 MILES!” He shared my enthusiasm just enough that I wouldn’t feel like an idiot! In truth, I didn’t care. I began signing “500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, 500 miles, you can hear the whistle blow 500 miles.” I didn’t care that my cockamamy verse didn’t make sense. It did to me!
As I hiked on, I kept singing to myself. The correct verses eventually came back to me, including a stunning verse that shook my emotions:
I am 500 miles from my home. . . .
The truth of this line sank in like a stone in a pond. I WAS 500 miles from my home. Pennsylvania, my home state, was the half way point on the trail. Its border was at mile 1064 – close enough. Call it 500 miles from where I was standing. I was closing in on my home turf – emerging from the land of my exile. Coming to the northern reaches of the south and approaching the Mason-Dixon Line.
I must have sung that song off and on for a month.
It was an emotional time for me and it is today as I write one-year to the day later. It was a dry, dusty day in the sun with small rocks spelling out a big surprise forecast in a song from many years before.
As long again and I’ll be with my family. I’ll be 75. I’ll be warmly celebrated by those who love me so dearly and cherish for me and my posterity what I have been called to do, my yes, no matter the years that would stop many others in their tracks. I was on my way home to the love I would count on so much in the months ahead.
We went up and down rocky and dusty paths in and out of scrub brush and came, in time, to a tempting stream. It was warm enough to take off my shirt and drop it in the water before putting it back on soaking wet. I had done this before on shakedown hikes in Vermont and Pennsylvania. It brought instant relief from the heat and continued to do so as the water in the material evaporated.
Not long after, we came to a larger, fast-moving stream that also beckoned. Its deep pools wanted a deeper commitment. I obliged. Justice came along and filled her water bottles. I asked her if she’d mind taking some pictures of me as I went in pointing out that my black boxes were not unlike a bathing suit. She was fine with the whole deal and took some great shots!
After my dunk in the stream, Justice departed and I followed a little after. There was a section of green grass in a low area not far from the water I swam in. Then came a climb up a long, rocky hillside that was open, dusty and dry. Rolling hills followed with an eroded section of trail that led eventually down a slope to a common corral area known as “The Scales.” I passed several horses on the way.
The name came from the practice of corralling cattle in the highlands and selling them from a common area where their weight would be higher than if they were trekked down into the valley, losing bulk as they went. In the late 1960s the Forest Service began buying up land for the Mount Rogers Recreational Area. They found that the high country left unattended eventually re-seeded and filled with trees and shrubs. Grazing ponies were the solution and kept the area open for scenic and recreational use and they were sturdy enough to survive the winter. Hence the Grayson Highlands!
I left the corral on the far side, crossed the road and continued to my right through more fields and past more horses as I had on my way to the corral. Soon, however, we were back in the woods and on our way to Old Orchard Shelter for the evening.
On arrival, I saw a hiker in his Zpacks Duplex tent catching some Zzzzs. It was Farel. When he awoke, we greeted. Meanwhile, I set up my tent nice and taught and prepared supper. In the process, I noted a light blue tent farther off behind mine in a separate little field. Two women were sharing this abode with occasional comings and goings and quiet conversation that continued past “midnight.”
For some reason, I decided to hang my food using my tent stake bag with a rock to get the rope over a high branch. It was not a good move and the last time for this method. The bag got stuck in a high branch and it wasn’t coming down without some prodding at the offending branch.
What to do? It was dark. Camp had pretty much quieted down. I had to hang. I had to get the bag down. I had to be clever – I generally believe myself able to work my way out of troubling situations with a bit of ingenuity.
Tonight’s task was met by nothing extraordinary except in size.
I needed a long branch. One sturdy enough not to bend high up where its force was needed. I found the right branch in the leaves off to the right of the path to the shelter from the campsite. It was more like a little tree with a diameter of about 5″-6″ at the base and it was tall enough to do the job.
With grunts, groans, whacks and slams, I got the job done after several attempts. I went back to the water bottle fling and then tied off the lose end around several small trees just off the trail. Because I strung the rope from one tree to another at chest level, I hung by bandana over the horizontal portion as an alerting flag.
Applejack shared this campsite as well. Portuguese and Wonder did as well. They arrived before I did and were deeper in the woods.
Time for night chores and bed.
Day #64 Mt Rogers Pine Grove > Old Orchard Shelter 12.5 miles