Date: 2022-04-28
From: Hogback Ridge Shelter

To: No Business Knob Shelter
Miles today: 20.7
Weather: clear sky

It was a good day. I spent almost the whole day with others in the group. I was slow to get out of the shelter but I caught up to people quickly.Right out of camp there was a short climb of about 400 feet in elevation and then it was all downhill to cross under a highway. Just after going under the bridge there was a little trail Magic waiting on us. They guy there was Zen¢s wife¢s cousin. Which is a bit of a stretch for me since I have only ever met Zen a couple of times. But the guy giving the trail Magic and I got to talking and turns out he grew up in Coleridge, NC. He knows Randleman well. It was cool to find someone who actually knows my home town.Immediately out from the trail Magic there was a climb of 2500 feet over 5 miles or something. It was a grueling climb up. It ended with several of us all together. So we cruised down and over the next rolling section together. We ¢scuttled¢ most of the way down the next couple of miles.The next climb we did was to get up to the top of Big Bald. It is a beautiful bald mountain that gives you 360 degrees of just amazing views. The climb to get there is challenging one at times. It also has what I¢m starting to call ¢whoop-de-doos¢. It¢s small section of the trail that has you standing just up from a tree. The trail then makes a slope first down and then back up to just up from another tree. These can be as short as a few feet up to going 100 feet. The bigger they get the bigger the swoop gets. These can be going up or coming down the mountain. It¢s used when the angle of the mountain is too steep to create a trail with steady incline. Anyways, the whoop-de-doos helped break up the climb. About mid way up we found some trail Magic right on the trail. It was a couple of coolers with fruit and hard boiled eggs. The eggs were so good. I doubt I¢ve ever had a better cold boiled egg in my life. HahaFrom the top of Big Bald we could see so much. The whole group sat down and stayed to have a little break and some lunch. I called my mom to try and get more info about Emily and the baby. She told me what she could about the circumstances and that she was trying to get in to see them. The whole group I¢m hiking with is invested at this point and wanted to know the updates. They were excited for me when I told them last night but then this morning they kept asking how they were and if there was a photo yet. I did get a photo and was able to show them on top of the bald. It¢s been challenging for me to have limited service and only getting pieces of what¢s going on when I do. I can only imagine what my brother and Emily are going through with it all. I have been praying constantly for them. So having the group be excited for the baby and care to ask if I have heard anything helps me a lot.I had a first for me on the trail today. I used my trowel to dig a cat hole and took a poop in the woods. I¢ve done it before so it¢s nothing new to me but I haven¢t done it while hiking the AT. I¢ve been able to use the Privy¢s (primitive bathroom). I fell behind when I took my time. Which leads to the next thing that happened. I came up to a road and Robyn was just sprawled out next to it. I asked if she had been hit. She hadn¢t. This was just as far as she had gotten and couldn¢t go further. So I talked to her about life, family and things off the trail. She did 23 miles the day before so pushing for a 20 mile today was hard work. After 30 minutes I told her we couldn¢t stay next to the road. We had to push the 4.7 miles up to the shelter or go back and find a tenting place. It took us a while but I slowly pushed her up the mountain and over to the shelter. She said later that if it wasn¢t for me she never would have made it. So I¢m glad I could do that for her. It¢s a saying on the trail to ¢hike your own hike¢. It means that you can do what you want. If you want to take all the side trails and only move at 8 miles a day go for it. If you want to sleep until noon and then hike into the night with a headlamp. Go for it! But we are also forming friendships and tramilys (trail families) where we depend on others and look for them at places. We share so many things. Even our most coveted food gets shared. I have shared more food with people I¢ve only know for a couple of weeks than I have to friends from a life time. It¢s the shared experience that we have all walked the same trail in the same pouring rain or slept on the same uneven ground. So leaving Robyn on the side of the road no matter how tired I was or she was just wasn¢t an option. If she wanted to go back a half mile and find a place to set up her tent I would have done it with her. When we did make it close to the shelter we had to get water before arriving and hike the 0.2 up with our water. I told her to go on and I would bring my big bag. When I got there she was just laying on the ground outside the shelter talking to Pam and Kevin. She was so tired. So I sat down and started filtering the water and insisting she had to eat. She couldn¢t just go to sleep. She perked up after getting some food in her system. It¢s just the two of us sleeping in the shelter tonight with several people in their tents near by. Several of our group kept pushing a few miles into town past the shelter. I know that as tired as I am I could have pushed on as well. But when I found her on the side of the road my plans changed. I saw how tired, how hungry, and just done she was. She needed help. It made me think of the parable in the Bible of the man who was beaten and robbed and left on the side of the road. It was the Samaritan who stopped to help him. A stranger. How much more is expected of me? She is part of this tramily I have joined. With the trail being a subculture, and hiking the AT a life time, she is my sister. I feel good knowing I did what I think was the right thing. I am writing this a couple of days later after thinking about the events. It strikes me as a real life moment of the parable. Other hikers in our trail family left her there. I¢m not casting blame on them. They likely thought she would pull herself together and make it up the hill in time. Just a quick rest and she would be alright. How many other hikers had walked right by her before I got there, though? When I found her she was not alright. She has said that she likely would have just set her tent up right there in the grass beside the road if I hadn¢t stopped. We don¢t often get to live out a parable in the flesh like this. In ¢real life¢ we as Christian¢s talk about the spiritual and the physical ways we should help people. I like to think that on the whole we do okay to serve a hurting world. But it¢s easy to see it as ¢we are serving others¢. To walk out the same steps of a parable is a humbling and thought provoking process. It has moved me to tears to have the chance to show this kind of love. To not reach into the dirt to help someone less fortunate than me. But rather to be on the same path, just as dirty, still tired, and thirsty. To help her up on her feet. To walk at her pace to slowly make it up. To give her of my water and food. To make sure she didn¢t go to bed hungry. To make sure she got room to set up her bed roll and to sleep as comfortable as possible. I had my own issues and struggles. I went to bed thirsty to know she had enough to last her. I keep thinking about how Christ walked this earth the same as we do. He was covered in dirt, he was thirsty and needed food. There was nothing about the human experience that he didn¢t encounter. He is the example and I should aim to imitate him as best I can. It is a powerful experience to walk out a parable that he talked about.