Date: 2004-04-06
To: Maine
Miles today: 0.0
Weather: overcast clouds

Tuesday April 6Mile 176Heavy day. Spooked by that damn dam, I hoofed it hard up the firstfour miles, all ascent, straight up and into the Smokys. I passed theHoneymooners, Mainsail, Mockingbird, everybody it seemed. I was on atear and feeling every bit tore up around mile seven. I start slowmornings, typically feeling like shit for the first few miles. Andtoday was no exception. But for some reason I was driven. All thisjazz about "only" being allowed to sleep in shelters in the Smokyspushed me onward, knowing that I either had to make it ten miles, orsixteen miles, and wanting to achieve the latter. Mainsail is my newbuddy. We gabbed all day about this and that, about women and beer andsome of the places we'd both lived or visited like Humboldt andMissoula. Mainsail's got a girl at home. He misses her of course, butit sounds like they have a good chance of surviving this journey ofhis. Seems she's headed to Africa to do volunteer work for a fewmonths. That oughta work. It's the hikers I meet that have a lonelyspouse or mate at home that I worry about. So today Mainsail remindedme of something I think I oughta explain to those of you who don'treally know or understand what the AT is. Mainsail says evenBackpacker Magazine is sorely mistaken in their assessment of the AT'sdifficulty in reference to the Pacific Crest Trail or the ContinentalDivide. The AT is NOT the easiest of the three trails. Coming fromthe west coast, i can attest that there are long stretches of flat ornear flat ground between mountain ranges, at least in California. While out here, damn! I have done nothing but climb up one mountainand down another for nearly two hundred miles and there's no end of itin sight. To look at a profile of the Appalachians is to see a neverending roller coaster of "balds" or tops, and "gaps" or lower regioinsbetween mountains. It's frikken crazy! And the AT of sixty years agois apparantly not the AT of today. Earl Shaeffer was first to hike thetrail in the 1940s. Fifty years later he did it again to become notonly the first hiker but now the eldest. his report upon hiking thelower regions especially, that is to say the miles I've just completed,was not at all positive. He was downright pissed. According toSchaefer, the trail engineers had added all these unnecessary loops andtrails straight up mountains, making every effort to complicate thetrail he had navigated easily in the Forties. Having looked at a fewtopo maps, I'd have to agree. There are some real bullshit east andwest divergences that allegedly were thrown in there to discouragethruhikers rigth from the start, thereby minimizing impact later up thetrail. I dunno. That sounds kinda hoaky and conspiratorial, but Iwouldn't doubt it. The AT is a monster, no shit. i'm doing it. It'sall mouuuntains, man. And the tttrails go straight up every one ofthem. So, just so you all know, this ain't no sidewalk I'm strollingdown, or up, from Georgia to Maine. This is a beast, and today my feetfelt every bit gnawed upon by that beast. I made my dinner lying down,just too waasted to stand, or sit. sixteen miles today. Probablytwenty tomorrow. Gotta get out of the Smokys quick. Aside from beinghome to apparantly ttwice as many plant species as all of Europe, theSmokys are also the most visited of all America's national parks, witharound 20 million visitors per year. What this means for thruhikers ishike during the week and get out before the weekenders show up and packthe shelters like sardines. Because remember, you are only allowed tocamp in shelters. Oh, and Big Horn just reminded me of the other thingpressing us to roar through here fast: the rainfall. The Smokys getmore annual rainfall than most anywhere in the US, apparently. Thruhikers talk of it incessently. Today it was sunny and clear. Tomorrow we might get lucky again. But then Thursday's another story. And we've still got sixty miles to go. This is Sir Hamburger Feetsigning off from my bunk in an old stone hut shelter in the Smoky's..goodnight. -RSM "Jester"