Date: 2012-05-24
From: Nantahala Outdoor Center

To: Day 9
Miles today: 15.8

Blessings to Mother Earth and Father Time for bestowing upon us humans a plant with such amazing healing and curative properties. I'm talking about weed of course, and without it I would have not made it through this day. I woke up in a real bed (cot) wearing clean clothes just overflowing with energy after slaying the Nantahala River yesterday. The N.O.C. is truly a little slice of paradise. I know that I had some miles to do today though so I was up and out of my room fairly early. While I was microwaving breakfast (leftover fast food from Bryson yesterday) and raiding the hiker box Blackfoot and Sunshine showed up exhausted and pouring sweat after doing the long climb down from Wesser Bald. They tried to leave super early this morning in order to beat the heat but they were doomed from the start because it got hot out as soon as the sun rose this morning. Our first warm/dry day in forever it seems. They weren't planning on staying at the N.O.C. tonight so I used my swipe card to get them into the bathrooms and the laundry room before I returned it. They returned the favor by marching straight to the general store and buying two 6-packs of high gravity craft beer. This couple may just make it up to Maine. They're also all out of grass so I sat there and diligently got each one of them super lit while the other took a shower. It was all well and good until noon rolled around and I realized that I had to get the hell out of there before this day turned in to a zero. So I bid the Lovebirds farewell and set off into the woods, drunk, stoned, sore legs, taped blisters, town-pack and afternoon-heat bearing down on me. I was pretty much setting myself up for failure.    The 8 miles north of the N.O.C. is a 3,300' non-stop climb to get back up on the ridgeline. Actually the last part of the climb is punctuated by summiting a mountain named Swim Bald, losing 300' of elevation, and resuming the relentless climb up to Cheoah Bald. Luckily, there is a shelter nestled right at the inflection point where the little descent turns back in to the relentless climb: Sassafras Gap Shelter. This must be the 12th Sassafras Gap I've come across so far. I know where to come if I ever need to harvest Safrole for its medicinal value that's for sure. Anyway, I pull over at the shelter to do 1st lunch and nurse my blisters and my now hang-over. I'm chit chatting with some section-hikers who are there while I'm packing up to leave and they offer to give me a bunch of their food, namely drink mix and trail mix. Like most section-hikers, they are easily carrying 200% more food-weight than they need to be and the trail is already getting the better of them. I quickly scan the trail mix for peanuts and kindly accept their offer. This turns out to be a fatal mistake.    When I pull out of the shelter and set off to finish the last mile up to Cheoah I start munching on my newly-acquired trail mix and immediately realize that there is a problem. I feel an allergic reaction coming on full-force. God. Damn. It. I pull out the bag of trail mix and scan it again for peanuts. There are none. I smell it. Nothing to trigger an averse reaction. I examine the M&M's. They're definitely not peanut M&M's; I surely know what those look like. Then I pinch one of the M&M's and a big fat glob of peanut butter oozes out. I'm fucked. I've never encountered peanut butter M&M's before. This is like the perfect enemy: coated in candy to hide the smell, peanut putter instead of peanuts to hide the shape, scattered in trail mix to hide the taste. So what am I to do? I'm fully aware that the next several hours are going to be extremely uncomfortable. Do I go back to the shelter and give the section-hikers who just poisoned me the stink eye all night? Or do I keep hiking? I decide to keep hiking? I launch my finger down my throat in an attempt to get the majority of the puking over with early. But at this point there really isn't much that I can do to make it better. The fast food, the alcohol, the heat, the peanuts, it's all conspiring against me now. I spend the next hour climbing about 100', stopping, puking, and climbing some more. I was really starting to worry about getting too dehydrated because I was pouring cold-sweat and I couldn't keep water down for a while. By the time I actually got to the top of Cheoah I was not a happy hiker. My whole body was flush red and I was literally shaking from physical and mental stress. One high note is that I had moved on to dry-heaving by the time that I got to the top so I didn't make a mess of the place. I simply collapsed in to the fetal position on a soft patch of grass on the top and struggled to calm down my heart rate and tame my breathing. Then I remembered something: Marijuana. Like Popeye with spinach, muscle memory packed up a bowl for me and got some smoke in my lungs. And, like a snap of the finger, Portable G was once again standing on top of the mountain. I'm not gonna say that it quelled any of my physical allergic reaction, but moreso put me in a frame of mind in which I could cope with my situation and mitigate the stress. All of a sudden I taking in the cool mountain breeze with slow deep breaths, enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face, marveling at the incredible view of the North Carolina high country. "This too will pass" I told myself over and over like a mantra. I made some marijuana-influenced rational judgments and decided to dump not just the poison-laced trail mix that I had acquired but all of my trail out of spite. 3 lbs of food donated to the squirrels and rabbits of Cheoah Bald. I spent about an hour getting my shit together at the lovely little campsite at the top of the mountain and then decided to press on.    Though my allergic reaction didn't completely subside for many hours to come, it remained manageable for the rest of the day. And along with the decline in my allergic reaction came a decline in the terrain. And for the rest of the day I kept a slow and calculated pace all the way back down to the Brown Fork Gap Shelter. Wilderness was there along with another thru-hiker from Montana named Even. Evan chain-smokes cigs and has 3/4" gauges in his ears so I didn't hesitate to bust out my stash. Evan and I immediately start getting along. With a new-found respect and admiration for the medicinal values of marijuana I sat there and chain-smoked weed with Evan for hours. For medicinal purposes of course. The fact that we were getting so high and exchanging such raunchy stories in front of a wide-eyed Mormon made it all the all the more satisfying.