Date: 2005-03-20
From: Cheese Factory Site, GA

To: Deep Gap Shelter, GA
Miles today: 9.0
Weather: scattered clouds

Day Eight: In which Jess reminisces about summer camp, pops pills, has enough knee pain to almost warrant a Monica Lewinsky joke, frolics with more deer, meets a NASCAR fan named Bones, learns about the pilaf method of rice preparation, and catches a guy with his pants down: When I was twelve years old, I went on a three-day camping trip in the White Mountains with my summer camp during which our counselor told us that in order to minimize muscle strain, we should lock our knees every time we took a step. This, for those of you who may be unfamiliar with the physiology of the joints, is terrible advice. I don't, to be honest, recall much muscle strain; but that's because the joints themselves were torn up, swollen and huge. I wore braces on them for several weeks after that trip, and in the eleven years that have since passed, my knees have complained a little every time I've asked big things of them. In a normal life, this isn't a very big deal; if I spent a little too long on the Stairmaster one day, I'd simply take a day or two off and life would go on as normal.This isn't working on the trail. My life out here is defined by repetitive, weight-bearing, pounding exercise. And my knees are letting me know in no uncertain terms that they don't like it. Most of the day has vanished in a bit of a haze; I wasn't thinking about much except how to step so that I wouldn't wince. I've been downing ibuprofen six at a time. Halfway up Trey Mountain, the Superfeet in my left boot (Superfoot?) was pinching my heel so badly I had to take it out; that made the heel feel better immediately, but made the arch scream in pain after about fifteen minutes. I made it over Trey switching the insole in and out of the boot, whenever one pain or the other became unbearable. By the time I reached Kelly Knob - the notoriously steep climb we'd all been anticipating - I barely noticed it. Everything hurt; Kelly Knob was only a matter of degree.Coming down the knob, I found CuppaJoe sitting on the side of the trail. "There you are," he said. "I might as well give you the news, too. The others decided to push on the extra three miles into Hiawassee tonight." I couldn't blame them. I'd have pushed on too, if I could have. I bit my lip. "I can't do it," I said honestly. "I'm tired. My knees hurt. I'm stopping at the next shelter. I'll go into Hiawassee in the morning." "I'm tired, too," he said. "Let's stop." I was extremely happy to know I wouldn't be the only one waiting until morning to head in. Doubly happy when Mike decided to stay at Deep Gap, too, to prevent himself from getting sucked into the money-spending Town Vortex too early.Despite the rougher parts of the day, there were still (there always are!) wonderful parts: the weather was beautiful, I saw two more deer running down a hillside, and as CuppaJoe and I walked the last stretch of trail between Kelly Knob and the shelter, we stumbled upon fellow hiker Bones, sprawled on a log by the side of the trail, ear buds to a pocket radio in his ear and a little line of peanut-butter-and-jelly-on-Ritz-cracker sandwiches on the log in front of him. "You want a peanut butter and jelly sandwich?" he said, opening one eye as I passed. I smiled. "No thanks," I said. "I just ate lunch." He opened the other eye and gestured at his pack. "I got candy," he said. "I'm good," I said. "How about a puppy?" he said. We both started laughing. "Man, what are you doing?" asked CuppaJoe, who'd walked up behind me, to Bones. "You look really comfortable." Bones smiled lazily and waved an ear bud. "It's NASCAR Sunday, man," he said. "Every Sunday you will find me on the side of the traillistening to my NASCAR. Sometimes you can listen to Wheel of Fortune, too. That's tougher cause you kind of have to imagine where the letters might go."Later, Bones stopped by the shelter for dinner. A culinary school graduate, he shook his resignedly as he dumped a packet of Lipton Cheesy Broccoli Rice into boiling water. "This is not the pilaf method," he said.Pilaf method or no, his cooking inspired the rest of us to make our own dinners. Mike took out his last freeze-dried Mountain House meal. "I'm running out," he said mournfully. "I don't know what I'm going to do. It's like an addiction. I swear." "Man," I said, "you better watch out. Soon your trail name will be Mountain House." He sniffed. "Maybe without the 'house' part." "What," I said, "you want to beplain 'Mountain'? Better be 'Freeze-Dried.'""Freeze-Dried," he mused. "I like it."He's not the first hiker I've named, either; two days earlier we'd run into two spring breakers, one of whom was resting trailside with his pants down around his ankles, letting (evidently) his tighty-whitey long johns get some air. His companion's trailname was Grandpa; he himself, he said, didn't have a name yet.Drily, I suggested 'Underpants.' Grandpa snickered. "That's it, man," he said. "You got it." So Underpants is Underpants and Mike is Freeze-Dried and Hiawassee is tomorrow morning.Something has to change. I'm not ready to go home yet, not by a long shot. But my knees can't do six more months like today. So I will have to do something. But first I will have to figure out what.