TRAIL DAY 2

Mon, Feb 22, 2016 I have no recall at all about what time I got up that first day waking on the trail but it was probably close to the hiker’s routine: down and up with the sun.  “Hikers’ midnight” is 8:00 p.m. in the summer.  It was sooner in the winter when the days are much shorter.  Unless you’re fixed on a campfire and tall tales or talk of the days behind and those ahead, once the sun goes down, you might as well go down with it – and after a long day trekking even 12 to 15 hours over 8-20 miles (more for many in their 20s or 30s), sleeping pad and bag look good.

And in the morning, if the sun’s up, you might as well be up, too.  There are miles to go before you sleep again.  If you haven’t checked the profile and points of interest in AWOL before, you’ll do it now and get a bead on the day: how steep; how far; where’s water, road crossings; are there views to look forward to?  It was a grey and rainy day and time to get hiking.  You take it as it comes, rain or shine, and keep going: 1½ miles to Springer.

No horns, whistles, hoorays, slaps on the back or anything like that – just Springer and the obligatory pictures at the plaques and that continuing somber sobriety with the gentle urging of excitement and purpose that brought us here.

I’ll never forget 3 of the hikers I met at the summit: “Cheetah,” a tall, attractive redhead with a ponytail and her equally attractive hiking companion, “Jelly Ankles,” whom I came to call “Jelly Roll” because she was so sweet.  Perhaps Cheetah was a fast hiker while Jelly Ankles turned her ankles often.  I guess they figured out these names climbing up from the parking area because they were not on the approach trail as far as I know.

They were with a third hiker, “Turtle,” a guy in his 20s just like them.  His name was not at all descriptive of his speed on the trail.  He had long curly hair.  I would see them all again “down the way” as was commonly said.

I don’t know how the subject came up on the Springer summit, but from my 400+ miles of preparatory hiking starting in July, 2010, I learned a modified way to rest without taking my pack off.  As a boy in camp on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire, I hike many mountains, including the Whites and learned from a camp counselor to my hoist my pack up and off my shoulders so it settles in the center of the back and to then lean over, hands on knees and relax.

There weren’t trekking poles back then but now these allow for a modification: do the same with the pack but, instead of hands on knees, get your hands comfortable in your trekking pole straps entering them from the bottom so the strap near its attachment to the pole is in your palm, plant poles shoulder width apart and hang your head in between so that your jaw muscles are literally against the poles, straighten out your legs and relax as much as possible.

Everything is at ease.  Your shoulders are freed of the pack load, your torso is hung in suspension, your head can just hang between your poles.  You may need to adjust your hands in the straps to relieve possible pinching – it can be done.  No leg muscles are strained with the knees locked.

Then. . .an amazing thing, so informative of the load the sense of sight puts on the brain!

When I was fully at ease in the suspended position described, I would close my eyes and, I swear, standing there, on a flat, a hillside, a small jutting section of boulder in a steep climb, virtually anywhere I could plant my poles and position my feet, I would. . . .

Well, I got this far in a description of this amazing experience to a fellow hiker who was following my every word and right at the moment I said, “I close my eyes and. . .” he interjected: “you fall over!”

No!  I would fall asleep.  I mean it.