Date: 2003-05-10
From: VA 624, Four Pines Hostel

To: Campbell Shelter
Miles today: 10.1
Weather: few clouds

Who ran me over with a truck? I feel like crap this morning.It started with some section hikers arising at 6 am and TALKING! I mean, conversationally. Loud! There were maybe a dozen others in the garage hostel.Everyone started tossing and turning, waking up, but it was way too early as most of us were zeroing or going to the post office, which didn't open till 8:30.I finally ventured a "Shhhh..." and we got another half hour of rest. But when I woke, everything hurt. I could hardly hobble. There was no gas in the tank. I felt exhausted.I absolutely, positively did not want to put on the pack and walk. Pack-shouldering reluctance.Does it end here, I wondered. In a garage in Catawba, VA?I didn't want to zero. I just had an unexpected zero three days ago. I can't be zeroing all the time.But I didn't want to walk.Joe noticed my ambivalence, and said that if I wanted, after the post office doings, I could walk the 5.9 miles back on the AT to the hostel. Well, that would be some forward progress. I ate an ibuprofen, guzzled 20 ounces of water and set off.At the Catawba PO, I finally got my summer box and sent home my 20-degree bag. That Western Mountaineering Versalite bag is one of my favorite pieces of gear. It performed flawlessly and kept me toasty in the coldest weather. People would always comment on its extreme loft. I would recommend it as a cold weather AT bag to anyone who sleeps cold. I am using a lighter WM down bag and a silk liner for summer, the same bag I used on Vermont's Long Trail. It weighs a pound.After the post office, Notes decided to join me on the walk back. The clouds were threatening, and a high humidity made the walking "tropical," in the words of the French police chief, Daniel who we met walking south.By the way, my Teddi tent wipe has a new use - Teddi face wipe. It is necessary to see through the beaded sweat stinging the eyes. You may recall that the Wench had some tea towels printed up with Ted's picture.Teddi also traded in his winter gear for a lighter, summer look - I trimmed away all the cloth but the picture. Now it's Teddi Go Lite.As I walked, I struggled with my negative thinking. Notes easily sprinted up the hills. Of course, he was 23 and I was...older. Each step felt like lead, a labor. What is wrong with me? Am I coming down with something? I had so much energy a few days ago. Maybe my frame is not cut out for this. Maybe I'm not strong enough to go the distance. Maybe I'm just worn out.I let the mind run on and tried not to buy into it too much. There are good days and bad days. But man! I just wanted to go back to bed. I tried to focus on the trilliums, the fire pinks now out in abundance, the many blueberry blossoms on the bushes. We passed Paparazzi in a field and stopped to talk. There we were, three journalists hanging out on the AT, in a green meadow. On the way in, there was Trail magic in the form of peanut butter-jelly sandwiches and ice cold water from SouthPaw, a local hiker. This perked life up a little. But when I got back and Joe was ready to take us and our packs to the north trailhead, I couldn't do it. I couldn't go out. (No! don't make me go out there...)I knew this was serious because I was losing my sense of humor about it. Somebody whack me in the head when I take myself too seriously, okay? Joe offered to take me out later if I wanted, which let me postpone deciding. Notes went to the trailhead and I crashed and fell sleep. I woke up about 3:30 pm and felt better. I ate a little food, drank some water and thought maybe I could do this. I could at least go the mile or so to the Boy Scout shelter.Joe kindly said I could stay over a second night. I looked at him and said, quite seriously, "If I don't go out now and hike, I just might quit the Trail for good." It felt like a watershed moment, and I wanted it to fall on the Katahdin side.I said goodbye to the comfortable Four Pines, and the hospitable Joe Mitchell, to Snappy (it was his 21st birthday) and Puff-Puff, who were staying, and the rest of the folks there. And then I shouldered my pack (wo)manfully and walked off into the sunset.Actually, it was dark and windy with tornado warnings, but it had been that way all week. I wouldn't go anywhere if I listened to the local weather reports.The nearby Boy Scout shelter was being dismantled. Sigh. So, okay, there's another shelter in just a mile. When I got there, it was only 5:30 pm and the temps were cooler. Maybe I could climb up 2 miles more, to McAfee's Knob and beyond tonight. There wouldn't be much of a view with the clouds. But it would be a cool ascent.As I walked up, I was sad that I would be up there on The Knob alone. This is a beautiful spot, one of the most photographed on the Trail. There is a dramatic rocky outcrop jutting into space. In fact, it was featured on the cover of "There are Mountains to Climb;" the book that first lit my AT fire. I had been looking forward to it.Four young men joined me in the ascent, however, local boys out for an evening hike from the trailhead. At McAfee, I took pictures of them, and they of me. By now the fog was boiling over the rocky lip, no vistas, but it was still a fine spectacle in a mineral sort of way.I walked on alone, into the gathering fog. A rock garden of house-sized boulders loomed through the mist. I passed a rare pink lady's slipper, my second of the month. I was feeling pretty good, actually. It's amazing what some rest does for one's attitude.My friend Dave Hicks thinks the classic "Virginia Blues" that beset thruhikers is due to the toll of poor nutrition setting in, and he may have a point. But I've been extremely well-fed of late, and I have a second theory - it is HERE we are upping our miles. I think we are just getting flat out tired. A body needs respite.I tell this story today so that prospective thrus know there will be days when it all seems impossible. And then, all of a sudden, maybe it's not such a bad idea anymore.Anyway, I hike on to Campbell shelter, a total of ten miles on a day I flat-out wanted to zero. Not so bad. Daniel the Frenchman is there, and we talk about the Pacific Crest Trail and the Continental Divide Trails. He is quite a hiker, and has been all over the world. He wants to know the English word for lightening, and also the difference in pronunciation between desert and dessert.Daniel also wants to get up at 5 am to hit Troutville tomorrow. Sigh. I have a maildrop there from my friend eArThworm, but the PO won't be open on Sunday. So I'll likely camp just before town and go in first thing. I hear they have a Waffle House!