Date: 2018-01-15
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Miles today: 0.0

Peg Bracken (1918 - 2007) was an American humorist whose magnum opus was The I Hate to Cook Book published in 1960. Her recipes read like trail cookery, fully utilizing prepared foods like condensed soups and powdered anything. She would have loved such trail staples as instant mashed potatoes and Stovetop Stuffing and found ecstasy in Spam. She peppered her recipes with wisdom, wit and honesty. Referring to her cookbook, Peg wrote, ¢This book is for those of us who want to fold our big dishwater hands around a dry Martini instead of a wet flounder at the end of a long day.¢ Thirty-five years ago she wrote an aphorism that could encapsulate our present political situation: ¢Life is so very simple when you have no facts to confuse you.¢ Peg also wrote a book in 1973 about the joys and perils of traveling, providing me with the perfect springboard for this entry: ¢It is far easier to find a traveling companion than to get rid of one.¢ I¢ll double-down with the wisdom of Gautama Buddha. ¢It is better to be alone than to be with those who will hinder your progress.¢I don¢t want to cast myself as a trail curmudgeon or misanthrope, a thru-hiking Linus van Pelt ¢ ¢I love Mankind¢¦It¢s People I can¢t stand¢ ¢ but I find it far preferable to walk alone than to have the wrong companion. On the other hand, ¢A good companion shortens the longest road,¢ [Kurdish proverb] and ¢An agreeable companion on a journey is as good as a carriage¢ {Publilus Syrus 85-43 BC].  Finding the right trail companion is a problem of long standing. The trail is a different environment than every day life, and a good companion for life is not necessarily someone I would want to hike with. The 18th century author of Pamela, Samuel Richardson, put it this way: ¢The companion of an evening, and the companion for life, require very different qualifications.¢ I¢m uncertain if Samuel was making reference to a night at the opera or a more amorous setting, but I¢ll be quick to dismiss any notion that my perfect trail companion would double as a bedmate by quoting a most expert source, Barnhard Goetz, who achieved a certain notoriety in the 1980¢s as the Subway Vigilante in New York City: ¢If you like affection, then about one in three squirrels makes an excellent companion.¢  You should be very glad that I won¢t have Google as a companion on the trail this year.There are two basic approaches to finding a trail companion. You can bring someone with you or you can find someone on the trail. There are pitfalls to both approaches. Bringing a friend on a hike is a good way to lose a friend. I¢ve heard that ax murderers can be charming on first meeting.  Bring a friend1996 was an excellent year for Barolo wine, but a dreadful year to hike with friends. I had known Ernest (names and places have been changed) in the early 1970¢s, and back then he was much more of an outdoors person than I was. We visited a few times since and exchanged occasional letters, but I was really clueless about his life. He asked to join me on my hike in 1996, and I foolishly agreed. Actually, I wanted a companion on this section, going north from Hot Springs, North Carolina. Jean Cashin, the legendary Trail Mom at Appalachian Trail Conference headquarters, had warned me that hikers were not always welcome in Unicoi and Carter Counties in Tennessee and advised against solo hiking there.  There had even been reports of fishhooks hung at eye level across the trail. Roan Mountain and Unicoi County, Tennessee are now official Appalachian Trial Communities, and whatever unfriendliness there might have been is long forgotten, but at the time I was scared. So I welcomed Ernie¢s desire to join me on the trail.I flew up to Chattanooga, near where Ernie lived, and we met at the baggage claim. Even before my pack appeared, I realized that something wasn¢t quite right with Ernie. He had been tall and slender when I had known him in 1970, but now he was cadaverous, with dark sunken eyes and sallow complexion. He wore a black sweatshirt with a raised hood in the style of the Grim Reaper. Ernie had always been quiet, actually one of his better traits, but now he was like a monk under vows. The silence was ponderous, words spoken only when absolutely necessary. Ernie moved robotically, as though each motion had to be consciously directed or programmed. Watching him dice an onion that evening was painful. Oh my, I thought, this was going to be a very long hike, but I really couldn¢t ditch a friend before we even started, could I? [Note to readers: You can and you should.]After two very long days of visiting and one-sided conversation, we drove to Hot Springs, west of Asheville, where I had ended my hike the previous year. We spent the night at a bed & breakfast. Ernie was afraid to use the shared bath lest anyone walk in on him.  Hiking north out of Hot Springs with full packs and a full belly (mine; Ernie was too nervous to eat much) was a bit of a challenge since the first eight miles are mostly uphill. Ernie didn¢t use hiking sticks, and I worried that he would fall or jump from the narrow ledges near Lovers Leap. Getting Ernie the eleven miles to Spring Mountain Shelter took constant encouragement on my part, and I really think that it was only the fear of abandonment that got him moving at all.  There were a few wonderful thru-hikers at the shelter, including Patella (Queen of the Knees) and Marathon Man, so I could enjoy actual conversation. Ernie sat in the corner, hood up, too anxious to eat much dinner.  The weather was warm and my sleeping bag was unzipped that night, but Ernie had his sleeping bag fully mummied, with only his nose exposed. He didn¢t emerge in the morning until the other hikers had left. He then confessed that he was under psychiatric care and that his doctor thought some time in the woods, without his meds, would do him good. Good thinking, Doc! We resupplied in Erwin, Tennessee and managed to hike a total of 150 miles to Hampton, Tennessee. I arranged a shuttle back to Hot Springs for us and we drove back to Chattanooga. Ernie claimed to have had a wonderful time, but Tom says it is the only time I ever returned home from a hike with more tension than when I had left.  My trail name for Ernie, which he never knew, was Pet Rock, after the short-lived fad of 1975. I returned to Hampton a few weeks later and had a lovely solo hike to Damascus, Virginia where I met a friend from Sarasota who had always wanted to hike the Appalachian Trail. You¢ve already met Brenda who earned the trail name Midwife for generously allowing a mouse to give birth in her pack the first night. She was a children¢s librarian and storyteller, and when she was in a good mood, I never had a better trail companion. Unfortunately, her mood was like a game of chance, a wheel of fortune, and I never knew where the wheel would stop from day to day or hour to hour. Would I be hiking with the Good Brenda or the Bad Brenda? When she developed toe blisters, her mood stabilized as dismal. There were signs of infection, and we starting hitching east on VA Route 603, having no idea where it led. A Caterpillar sales representative picked us up and took us from town to town, until he found a medical clinic in Konnarock. While we waited, Brenda fretted about how we knew neither where we were nor how would we get back to the trail. No problem, I said, the trail will provide. While she was being treated, a woman who had brought her daughter in for her baby¢s first wellness exam started chatting with me. She looked exactly like Aunt Bee from Andy of Mayberry, wearing a similarly dowdy blue-patterned dress. We were actually very near Mt. Airy, North Carolina and Fancy Gap, close to the fictional town of Mayberry. Aunt Bee was apologetic about not being able to take us home with her for the night, but with the baby¢s things, there just wasn¢t room in her car. She prevailed upon, more like commanded, a young man to wait for Brenda and then to drive us to a restaurant, so we wouldn¢t go away hungry.  Brenda didn¢t enjoy her dinner, worrying over how we would get back to the trail. I kept trying to reassure her, and sure enough, as we stood in line at the cash register, a gentlemen who was a maintainer with the Mt. Rogers Appalachian Trail Club asked if those were our packs outside and drove us to the U.S. Forest Service Grindstaff Campground near the trail, introducing us to the campground hosts. We were treated well there for the night, but Brenda¢s toes continued to cause her pain and our hike ended in a couple of days. I called it quits for the year.Bringing a friend hasn¢t always been bad. Bill, mentioned in the where-will-you-sleep entry as having an uncanny ability to fall asleep instantly anywhere, was a joy to hike with, even if it meant moderating my goals. For me it was an easy hike, but Bill suffered mightily, changing his trail name from Blitz to Blitzed. After the hike, we rented bicycles in Washington, D.C., took them on the train to Pittsburgh, and cycled back via the Great Allegheny Passage and the Chesapeake & Ohio Canal Trail. We didn¢t get to our hotel in Pittsburgh until after 1AM, but Bill insisted that we start peddling at daybreak and ride 68 miles the first day. He found sweet revenge in my saddle sores.  I¢ve invited Bill to join me on hikes since and he¢s invited me on his cycling adventures, but we haven¢t found common ground again. Bob Almand, former chair of the Appalachian Trail Conservancy, lives outside of Atlanta. He joined me on part of the Benton MacKaye Trail and on the Chattooga River Trail in Georgia, where Deliverance was filmed. He is the most uncomplaining and genuinely cheerful trail companion that I could ever hope to have. He and his wife Lynn, joined by my husband Tom, will meet me at U.S. Forest Service Road 42 for the final 0.9 miles of my thru-hike. Ending my thru-hike on Springer Mountain won¢t have the drama of Katahdin, but the warmth of this reunion will more than compensate.  My cousin Debbie, who will be joining me at the start of my thru-hike, is not only a favorite relative but also a boon trail companion. We¢ve hiked together twice and I truly welcome her company. She needs a trail name, doesn¢t she?So by all means, bring a friend with you on a hike. What could possibly go wrong?Meet someone along the wayIt¢s my habit to spend most nights tenting in the vicinity of a shelter, and it¢s not unusual to see the same people night after night or occasionally as I pass them or they pass me. Sometimes we find that we have something in common and similar habits, like early rising or enjoying zero days (non-hiking days) in towns without an excess of booze. Friendships form, and if our pace is similar, we might actually hike together during the day and share a motel room in town. There¢s no commitment to stay together ¢til death does us part or even until the end of the hike, but it¢s nice to know that someone is watching out for you and that you can share experiences. Long-distance hikers in particular often coalesce into informal groups known as trail families, with members coming in and out over time. I was adopted into Team Mofo in 2013 on my attempted thru-hike, and it really made the time at shelters and in town most pleasant. I¢ve mentioned my friendship with M that started on the trail and lasted for years.  In two consecutive years, I ended up hiking with a Lesbian. By coincidence they were from the opposite ends of the same western state. Friendship, in the complete absence of sexual tension, was delightful. In town and even on the trail, we were assumed to be a straight couple, and it does make life easier. I could act as fey as I liked and she could be impossibly butch, but people only saw what they wanted to see. I don¢t think that straight people really understand what it is like to be gay, even in an enlightened city like Burlington, knowing that you are somewhat marginalized. I can only imagine what a trans hiker of color must experience.  Not all trail relationships are so amiable, and on far too many occasions, I¢ve found myself burdened with hikers who I can¢t seem to shed. I call them Velcro hikers, cockleburs or beggar ticks. It¢s a distinctly one-sided relationship.  This past year, in Northern Virginia, on my first night, a hiker of about my age from a western state started a conversation by asking if my wife minded my cheating on her. Not a good beginning. I corrected his two misapprehensions, noting that I have a husband and that we are committed to one another. He didn¢t apologize, but he did offer to share his marijuana that he smoked morning, noon, and night. I declined and went into my tent early, praying that he was hiking north. I started hiking early the next morning, but by noon, he had caught up to me and talked incessantly to the next shelter. I said very little, and tried varying my pace, taking rests, and even going down a side trail and hiding until I heard him pass. Nothing worked and he seemed oblivious to my hints. Day after day, he popped up whenever I thought I was rid of him. It rained often on that hike, so I took advantage of the lodging available in Shenandoah National Park, staying at Skyland, Big Meadows Lodge, and even in a cabin at Lewis Mountain Campground, knowing that he was too cheap to do likewise and thinking that the short distances between these facilities, 8.1 and 8.7 miles, respectively, would assure that he would be far ahead of me. I was gleeful hiking the next day, but there he was at Hightop Hut waiting for me. One of the reasons I ended that hike at Waynesboro was to escape him. I really ought to be more forceful, but I don¢t want to be rude. I would rather just write nasty things about them later.A very attractive young woman asked to hike with me in Maine in 2001, hoping that having an older male around would discourage a young man who she thought was stalking her. I was glad to oblige, amused to play the unaccustomed role of protector. I¢m more usually the Cowardly Lion before he gained his courage: ¢I¢m afraid there¢s no denyin¢ I¢m just a dandy-lion.¢ Yet sometimes I wonder. One of the lessons that the Appalachian Trail has taught me is that courage is there when I need it, like in confronting the man with a gun in Pennsylvania. Perhaps I really could be King of the Forest. Roar!Whether I take a friend with me or make new friends on the trail, I find hiking with a good companion better than hiking alone. On the other hand, solitude is infinitely preferable to the wrong companion. I am curious to see how my thru-hike works out. A flip-flop hike, even starting from the Flip-Flop Festival in Harpers Ferry, avoids the crush of humanity characterizing a traditional northbound thru-hike starting in Georgia. Yet except in winter, the Appalachian Trail is always a social trail. I¢ve planned to return home twice during my northbound section, once from the Hudson River (Amtrak is so convenient) and again from Killington (just a two hour drive from Burlington). Not only will it be good to be with Tom again, but these respites will offer a safety valve against cockleburs. The breaks will be short enough that I could catch up to a good companion again, but long enough that I would have the opportunity to reset trail friendships. We will see how it works out.