Date: 2002-11-29
To: An Army of One - Springer Mountain
Miles today: 0.0

Write Something About Hiking!! ¢ An Army of OneNovember 29th ¢ Springer MountainDistance: 16 milesElevation: Who Knows. 2500'?I had planned to leave on Sunday for a 4 day venture from Springer Mountain to Neels Gap and back ¢ the traditional gear-test shakedown hike. However, I couldn¢t breathe without coughing, so I holed up in a Red Roof Inn on the Atlanta Perimeter and waited for several days. On Thanksgiving Day, I coughed downtown to witness the Atlanta Marathon, clapped for the slow people, walked around Piedmont Park for an hour or so, grabbed a paper and went back to my hole at the Roof. That evening, after a lovely dinner at the bar of the local Steak N' Ale, I had had enough, so I packed up for a 4 day hike, sick or not. On Friday, I arrived at the parking lot near Springer Mt. rarin¢ to go, despite the fact that a hiker had been shot by a deer hunter on the AT days before. I hiked about 8 miles, coughing, singing and occasionally screaming ¢I am not an animal¢, well on my way to Gooch (I think it was Gooch ¢ whichever shelter is about 15 miles in), when I started smelling smoke. That¢s odd, I thought. I kept hiking and ran into some thru-hikers a mere 8 miles from their journey¢s end. Man, these guys were cool: friendly, clear-eyed, gentle, all the things I hope I¢ll be when my journey is over. They mentioned that the ¢fire¢, as we were now calling it, had started out looking like a campfire early in the day but now looked like a campfire way out of control. The smoke covered a couple of miles. I got out my cell phone (stop crying ¢ I was trying to report a fire), got a signal (how about that!), and tried the number for the Chattahoochee Forest listed in my Wingfoot book ¢ no longer in service. Then I called my friend Yoga Maria in San Francisco, a very experienced hiker, and she advised me to turn around because my red truck was parked in the path of the fire. Panic set in ¢ I love my red truck as much as any 16-year-old boy loves his first car, from the bow-flex window roller-downers to the 201,023 miles on the odometer. I turned around and headed back to Springer Mt. in full rescue mode. Must save truck. Must...save...truck. Shortly, an official looking plane started circling the fire and the trail ¢ circle after circle after ever-widening circle. I pretended that I was on the lam and hid from the plane every time it passed me. Of course, I was also singing "Bushfire" by teh B-52s, which seemed appropriate since they are from Georgia. "The landscape is red hot, it's reddddd hot! There's a bushfire burning, YEAH!" I was having a great time. I came to a road crossing and waited in the woods until a suspicious vehicle (any vehicle is suspicious when you are hiking alone) left the crossing, then I zoomed down the hill to beat any crazies to the road. No success ¢ within a minute, an Army ranger vehicle hauling a big cannon on a flatbed was parked at the crossing. I had to drop the ¢on the lam¢ fantasy because, clearly, I would have been captured by the Army ranger. I asked the captain if anyone had been shot yet that day. He was not amused, but he did tell me that I would hear some maneuvers in a few hours near Springer, then took off with his cannon. I headed up the hill with the smoke and the plane in pursuit. After a couple of minutes, I saw the previously suspicious vehicle back at the road crossing, just sitting there looking now even more suspicious. I turned around a minute later and saw two suspects standing beside the vehicle. I picked up the tempo a bit and continued up the very long and exposed hillside. Within a minute, I heard one of the suspects yell ¢Wait, I¢m coming up! Stop!¢. I turned around. He said it again. The suspect wasn¢t wearing either a ranger uniform or camoflouge, so I took off like a shot and ran up that hill with my 28-lb pack as fast as my trekking poles would take me. I¢ve never run so fast in my life. This fact is well documented because my PricewaterhouseCoopers heart-rate-monitor/altimeter/barometer/compass/watch said that my heartrate was 201 for almost 3 minutes. I think I blew the ¢maximum heart rate¢ theory right out of the water. I turned around and didn¢t see the suspect coming after me, so I slowly tapered off. Several checks and he still wasn¢t there. Once I calmed down, I realized that the suspect¢s friend had probably walked up the hill a bit off the trail to take a gander at the fire, and the suspect was yelling to his friend. Well, the fear was real!I was done for the day, but I still had 6 or so miles to cough back to my Precious red truck. Jacking up the heart rate is not good for a cough or for endurance. I was very slow heading back and found myself hiking the last 2 miles in total darkness, illuminated only by my Petzel Zipka (however you spell that) shining off fog so thick that I could only see 3 or 4 feet in front of me. (Side note: this headlamp is very lightweight and good in an emergency, but I would take something brighter if I planned to hike in the dark as a matter of course). Oddly enough, I was only remotely afraid of bears, even though I was hiking near a shelter known for bear problems. I think the forest fire, escape from the authorities, and running for my life had sapped me of emotion. I also knew that I was surrounded in the dark by nameless faceless Army rangers equipped with ammunition and explosives who might scare off bears for me. I finally reached the parking lot, found my Precious, circled the parking lot 3 or 4 times trying to find the road in the fog, and spent the next two hours driving 6 miles off the mountain. Experience counts.