Date: 2006-04-14
From: Hot Springs

To: Unnamed campsite (just beyond Spring Mtn Shelter)
Miles today: 12.0

12 Miles. 33 Pieces of Trash.After a 13 day hiatus, I was finally ready to start moving again. As Dad and Shay were dropping me off I noticed there were three girls getting back on the trail at the same time. Two carried minimal gear and were obviously day-hiking. The third girl had a full pack with a pair of trekking poles bouncing along the asphault in front of her. Poles. I don't have my poles, I thought, spinning around to catch my Dad before he pulled away. He had packed them in the truck so I'd had no mental picture of where they should be. Before this trip I had never used trekking poles. Now it was hard to imagine hiking without them. I had come to rely on them as if they were actually a part of me--another set of appendages which not only added strength and balance, but made me feel...well spidery as well. I used them like talons to stab and pierce hard to reach pieces of paper and aluminum cans along the trail--to keep myself from toppling over forward after losing my balance--to slow me down on a steep decline.The girls followed me down to the trail at which time I realized that I knew the thru-hiker. Stephanie, or "Pokie" was the very first thru-hiker I'd met along the trail on my very first day. I had been curious to know how she was doing--if she was still sticking it out. I was glad to see that she was.After reintroducing myself, I learned that her friends Kimberly and Lilah were just joining her for the day. For the next few minutes the three of us hiked together alongside the French Broad River and eventually I went on ahead of them. It was tough getting back into the rhythm, especially on the uphill. It felt almost new to me. Part of this may have had to do with the heat. After freezing my butt off for most of the first three weeks, I couldn't believe how different this was--hiking in the heat. Before long I was mopping the sweat from my forehead with my hat.The coming of warm weather also accounted for the birth of wildflowers sprouting up alongside the trail, along with my first two lizard sightings which made me wonder where they had been this whole time. Did lizards hybernate--did they even live long enough to hybernate? I guessed yes.The gnats and flies were also out, buzzing around my head when I stopped to catch my breath or pick up a piece of trash. And during one of these breaks I found a tick crawling creepily up my shin, which I quickly swatted off before it sank in its incisors and began to feast.At some point after I'd been hiking a few miles, I noticed my Nalgene bottle was missing--had dislodged itself from one of the mesh pockets on the side of my pack. I still had my hydration bladder of course, so it wasn't like I was going to run out of water, but having an extra container was much more convenient, and thus I opted to go back and look for it.Setting my pack down, I started walking back. I guessed that the bottle had fallen out when I had found the tick on me and that Pokie or one of her friends would have seen it and picked it up. Yet when I ran into them about a third of a mile back, they said they hadn't seen it. Once again I wondered if I should go back and keep looking for it, or just make do and buy a new one when I got to Erwin."I have two bottles--I can give you one of mine," Lilah offered, surprisingly. The Appalachian Trail may be lovely on its own accord, but it is the friendly offerings and gestures like these made by complete strangers which give the trail a sense of the supernatural--which make it magical. "I'm only going to be hiking about 20 more minutes anyway.""And then you're going to backtrack--go back this way?" I asked, pointing in the direction we had come.She nodded.In the end I accepted her bottle, feeling a little guilty, but hoping she might come across mine lying somewhere along the trail and get compensation for her generosity. A few minutes later the three of them stopped for lunch and I continued on back to my pack. I could picture mice and squirrels tearing the thing to shreds and making off with gorp mix and scraps of Clif bars. When I got back to my pack, it was untouched, my imagination simply running wild. I munched on a few handfuls of the gorp and moved on. I never did see Lilah, Pokie, or Kimberly on the trail again that day, but I'm very thankful to Lilah--wherever she is. Got a little turned around at the gravel road following Mills Ridge--an area that's not marked well and follows down the road a ways. When the road forked with no obvious blaze in sight, I soon found myself walking up a barely noticeable path over a grassy bald which ended up leading nowhere. When I turned back there was a girl at the forked road looking as confused as I felt. From a distance her dark hair appeared to be short and so I guessed she was Pokie minus her two friends. But as I got closer I realized her hair was tied back and I'd never seen her before."I don't think we've met," she said."Sanford.""42." The name had been given to her after she had used the Douglas Adams' "Hitchhiker" reference to answer a question in the bunkhouse back at Neels Gap. When another hiker had caught the reference, the name had just stuck.42 had no recollection of "Sanford & Son" nor the theme song after I hummed a few bars. I couldn't believe it. It was almost like somebody saying they'd never seen Star Wars.After a couple of southbound section hikers told us how to get back on the trail, 42 and I began hiking together. I was happy to have a companion again, and one that moved at the same pace. My two week hiking absence had banished the numbing in my toes and tightness in my knee, however a new source of pain was beginning to grow in my left "good" Achilles Tendon (when I say good, I mean the healthy one that wasn't ruptured two years before). I swallowed some ibuprofren and tried not to let it concern me--although it very much did.Soon the two of us passed by the first of several headstones we would come across between Hot Springs and Erwin. "In memory of Rex R. Pulford," it read. "Did you know Phoenix?" 42 asked me."Yeah, I met him," I answered, remembering the necklace he'd made from bruised and decaying toenails. "Did you know he passed away in the Smokies?"It was hard for me to believe that the joking 66 year old man who was working on his 3rd successful thru-hike had gone quietly in his sleep in the Mt. Collins Shelter. I guess it wasn't so bad though. Quietly. In his sleep. Doing the thing he loved. Here's to you, Phoenix.It wasn't long after that I spied a tiny vole lying dead on the trail. Its eyes were shut, spittle coming out of its mouth and intestines coming from its belly. I guessed it had been squashed, perhaps stepped on by an unknowing hiker. It was such a miniscule thing, the size of a baby mouse. I'm surprised I even saw it. We broke for snacks and water replenishing at the Spring Mountain Shelter. At this point we weren't sure how far we wanted to go, but the register warned us of bad mice so we knew we wouldn't be staying at the shelter. I didn't want to go too much further however because my Achilles was still bothering me. Met an old-timer there by the name of "EZ-ONE." This guy was incredible. He'd had 3 complete section hikes before completing his first successful thru-hike to Maine at the age of 73. He thru-hiked again at 81, and now at 83 years old, here he was, still doing small sections of the AT--taking it to the limit--the old, wrinkled up little engine that could. Incredible.At the shelter I also met "Slick B" who'd had a bad chafing and rubbed vaseline in between the crack of his butt--or as he referred to as his Badonkadonk--from the song "Honkytonk Badonkadonk." Either way, butt or badonkadonk...he had a slick one.And then there was Crake. A guy from England whose idea of America before he had come overseas was the television series "Twin Peaks."42 and I hiked for another mile or so and camped next to a couple named Sunshine Daydream, and Sun Crow. This was the first hiking day since the time change and it was nice not to have to race the sun. Although the night cooled off some, I remained in my shorts and decided to go without the rainfly on my tent. After dinner and conversation, I faded off into darkness staring up at the clear night sky and a bright glowing moon.Random Registry Entry: "Gorp is for the birds and squirrels. I'm switching to dehydrated flank steaks and freeze-dried lo-mein." --Billy Goat.