Date: 2012-06-03
From: Max Patch

To: Day 19
Miles today: 20.5

Glorious Day. My alarm woke me up just before sunrise and muscle memory took me through the motions of preparing myself a cup of coffee. But this was to be no ordinary cup of coffee. Back is Asheville, Hakuna Matata gave me his last 2 LSD sugar cubes that came from some of our mutual friends in Florida. And Jude and I figured that there would be no better place than Max Patch to get high and start our day. So before I was even fully awake I was dropping LSD sugar cubes in my coffee and walking over to share it with Jude. After the sacrament was imbibed, I crawled back into my Ethel and eagerly waited... waited for the sun to rise... waited for the drugs to kick in, powerless to stop either one from happening. And it indeed turned out to be a spun sunrise, my first one on the trail, and definitely not my last.By the time the dew was rising out of the valleys and the bottom of the sun had crested over the horizon I glanced over toward Jude and saw that he was just as bug-eyed as I was. This meant that it was time to pack up. It was still cold, windy, and damp with dew so early but it didn't matter. There was something exhilarating about leaving the comfort of my bag and trying to pack up in the wild elements like that. I was coming up so hard that I knew I would be in no condition to talk to or deal with other people for a while so Jude and I decided to skip breakfast and and get a move on. But not before I affixed my Jolly Roger to one of my trekking poles and took him on a victory lap around the entire circumference of the mountain summit. Then we dawned our packs and snuck away undetected. The hike was nothing short of amazing. Climbing down Max Patch into the woods just as all the colors were showing up in the sky and the animals were becoming alive. Being the first hikers on-trail, we were also on spiderweb-duty. But even that didn't suck as much as it normally does. There was something about how the early-morning light was glinting off of every single strand of silk that was just humbling to me and made me feel very small. As the dew evaporated away we walked through about an hour's worth of thick morning haze that just acted as a canvass for my mind. I felt like Uncle Remus skipping through the woods singing "Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah." I got pretty hippie with it this morning I'm not gonna lie. After a long slow all-to-pleasant downslope we eventually hit Walnut Mountain, climbed it, and parked in the grassy clearing just before the shelter for for 1st lunch and a safety meeting. We were both just dumbfounded from morning hike we just had, but the gitters were over and we were able to piece together coherent, albeit non-linear, conversation. Then Northern Bald showed up. He's a kind old long-section-hiker from Maine whom we've been leapfrogging since the Smokies. Despite our state of mind, Northern Wald was kind, gentle, and unassuming enough to make conversing with him a breeze. Jude and I were just overflowing with gratitude for being out here and I think Northern Bald kind of felt the same way. We took off cruised right down Walnut Mountain. Then did a little climb followed by a huge descent up/down Bluff Mountain. This is the first time in my hiking career that I don't feel encumbered by my pack in the slightest. It's like I'm slack-packing but I have visual hallucinations to keep me company and keep me entertained. All-the-while I'm acquiring some sort of profound meditative solace and reaching deep personal insights that I don't have the time to get into now. The next 10 miles were essentially mine an Jude's playground in which we could do whatever we wanted. Eventually I felt like my thoughts were just taking me around in circles so I decided to stop thinking for a while. I popped in my earbuds, started playing the Disco Biscuits, and pretty much raged some hiking for an undetermined amount of time. I'm not sure exactly what happened, but I remember hiking fast, breathing heavy, and smoking a lot of weed. I saw Northern bald a few more times here or there and we eventually all wound up at the Deer park Mountain Shelter together reminiscing about our day. Northern bald was in for the day, but Jude and I had some fight left so we just ate 2nd lunch and moved on. Three miles later we were walking into Hot Springs, NC. This is a funky small little trail-town that the AT passes thru in order to gain a bridge over the French Braod. We immediately ran into Evan and Wilderness, who were splitting a room down the road. But Jude and I were pretty fresh from Asheville still and coming down from an awesome LSD experience, so we decided to forgo getting a room and instead just buy beer and cowboy camp on the bank of the river. So we went and found a secluded spot of the other side of town to drop our packs and then came back for dinner and drinks with Evan and Wilderness. We then smoked a couple bowls with Evan in the most frightful and sketchy manner possible. Trying to apply the lesson we learned in the Smokies, we acted just like real criminals doing really bad things. Wilderness, our innocent associated Mormon, couldn't stop laughing. Then Evan and Wilderness went back to their room and me and Jude went back tom our river. We stumbled on a little bunkhouse for the rafting guides that live here all summer. So we made friends and started a little fire right here on the shore. Over the course of the night I've managed to drink 6 Fat Tires. So I am sufficiently drunk right now and ready for bed. I really needed the beers though. After what I went through today, alcohol is the only cure for a restless mind.